​The need for a head rest is somewhat of a hot potato, dangerous ground – call it what you want. All audiophiles know that the music experience that envelopes you to create the soundstage consists of both direct and indirect soundwaves – most of them good and some of them bad. And as an avert listener, you can of course treat your listening room with different type of solutions to reduce the “bad sound”.

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But listening to music is – as it should be – an intense experience, whether you are in it for the music, or the technical listening. And a headrest isn’t really that bad an idea. You want the support without feeling like you are slouching backwards – but you don’t want it to block out the sound reflecting off your side and backwall.

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So we wanted to design a narrow head rest that would only cover the very back part of the head leaving the ears entirely free – approx 13 cms in width. The head rest would need to be adjustable in height – and even, if the need should arise, completely removable.

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Considering that the shell of the chair is only 5 mms thick, this provided somewhat of a dilemma. We wanted to maintain the beautiful curve of the back of the chair – but we also needed to be able to lower or heighten the neck rest. So we needed to cut out a piece of the back to make room for the head rest – thus actually undermining the stability of the back of the chair.

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With the ingenious help of Mikael Engman of Structor Dynamisk Konstruktion (www.structor.se) , a company that specializes in mechanical design and vibration control, a bold and simple solution was constructed. A small metal ridge was placed across the shoulders of the Ballerina Sweetspot’s back. This stabilized the back even more than before we cut open the back. Where the head rest was to be inserted, a slit was made in the ridge to make way for the actual head rest.

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Then, the back and front of the curved back was closed with a sheet of black steel attached with a combination of epoxyglue and sinkspikes (like that used in aeroplane construction) – indirectly creating a cavity/holster for the head rest in the middle of the back – as well as stabilizing the chair.

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Finally, the actual head rest was produced from a sheet of 4mm aluminium with holes in the middle section to hold a number of neodymium-magnets, which would attach themselves to the underside of the black steel sheet of the holster. This would provide for a frictionless and easily adjustable height placement of the head rest. No mechanical parts – and easily removable and insertable should there be a need for it. And all of the parts – the ridge and black steel sheets – would add to the overall rigidity of the back – allowing for both the functioning of the head rest and maintaining the beautifully curved back of the Ballerina Sweetspot.

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As a final touch, a specific top piece was created in high grade aluminium – as a way to both protect the leather from the movement of the head rest and to provide an aesthetic format to include the name of the Ballerina Sweetspot, and the serial number of the specific chair engraved onto the back plate.

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With the headrest in place, we still needed the Ballerina Sweetspot to be the most comfortable chair to sit in.