The Harman Kardon SoundSticks II carried one of the most distinctive speaker designs of the early-2000s computer era into a more flexible, mainstream form, replacing the original model’s USB-only connection with a standard 3.5 mm input in 2004. More broadly, the SoundSticks line mattered because it grew out of a Harman Kardon–Apple collaboration and became an enduring symbol of the translucent, design-forward aesthetic associated with Apple’s turn-of-the-century hardware.

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