4014977
story
Comments: 93 +- Technology: New Entrant In the Race For Wafer-Thin Speakers on Friday April 03 2009, @09:19AM
Posted
by
kdawson
on Friday April 03 2009, @09:19AM
from the dream-of-an-advertising-soundscape dept.
from the dream-of-an-advertising-soundscape dept.
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicmusic.gif); width:60px; height:49px;
music
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicmediaall.gif); width:73px; height:59px;
media
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topiccommunications.gif); width:96px; height:62px;
communications
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topictech2.gif); width:60px; height:80px;
technology
Smivs notes another technology aiming to become the ubiquitous flat, flexible loudspeaker in public and private spaces. This one comes out of the University of Warwick, in the UK, and may reach the market before year's end. We've discussed other attempts on this problem over the years, including a touch-sensitive display that is also a speaker, and an approach based on nanotubes. "The arrangement also allows for highly directional and accurate sound, say the researchers. The speakers would be ideal in public places such as passenger terminals since the sound quality does not deteriorate as much as conventional speakers... The flat speakers are relatively inexpensive to manufacture, say the researchers, and can be printed with design or concealed inside ceilings."
Related Stories
The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary?
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.
Quite clever (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Quite clever (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm as cynical as the next guy, but I'm really having trouble imagining an application for these speakers that will be more annoying than the current speaker applications. A very loud speaker is not exactly big today... the stupid coupon machines in the grocery store already occasionally talk to you as you walk past.
Parent
Re:Quite clever (Score:5, Funny)
the stupid coupon machines in the grocery store already occasionally talk to you as you walk past.
You too? Holy cow. I thought I was the only one.
Do they tell you the peas are hiding the killer of the impostor Bill Clinton, too?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yes - with this advance, the bagged veggies can now talk to you and tell you which dressing to buy.
And plastic bags can tell you to take them off your head so you don't suffocate!
Or say "I TOLD you not to leave the tuna sandwich unrefrigerated, you jerk!"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't press the button.
Re: (Score:2)
Whatever you do, don't press the button! [tvtropes.org]
Maybe louder won't be necessary (Score:5, Insightful)
If they have improved sound quality, as they claim, perhaps we can have speaker in public places that won't need to be so loud and still be understood. One of the reasons speakers have to be so loud is that hey are so muddy and distorted that you can't understand them at lower levels. Also, if they are easier and cheaper to distribute, you can distribute the speakers and not have to turn up the speaker on one side of the space so that it can be understood on the other side of the space.
I don't know about you guys, but when I'm in an airport or a train station, it's pretty important to me to understand what is being said on the loudspeakers. If that sound is coming off a nearby wall instead of a large horn 20 yards away, I think I have a better chance of getting to my plane on time.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about you guys, but when I'm in an airport or a train station,
Spend a couple of years riding the subway in New York and you'll be able to understand any mere airport loudspeaker or fast-food drive-through speaker :)
Re:Quite clever (Score:5, Insightful)
Still not concerned?
No.
Powerful microphones are available that are very tiny and easily concealed. If someone really wanted to listen to me today, they could. It's not worth the effort, and frankly I don't say anything particularly interesting. If I were in the habit of talking about big secrets, I'd turn on a radio or something and keep my voice low.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Quite clever (Score:4, Funny)
How about more high pitched speakers to scare off the hoodlums... er I mean kids?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
When I was an old man, we had to yell at those darn kids our own selves. What's the world coming to??! Now get off my lawn!!!
Re: (Score:2)
but if there is one thing that public and quasi public spaces don't need, it is cheaper, more concealable, and more common speakers.
Blade Runner, here we come!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Quad would beg to differ. 15 watts was enough in 1957, it should be enough today. And that speaker is still considered by many to be the best or among the best ever made.
Best driven by push-pull class a tube amps. (EL84 is my favorite)
Now get off my lawn!
Sheldon
What's next? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Wafer-thin mints
Unfortuntely, this will violate my patent... (Score:4, Funny)
I've recently patented a process by which a cool but yet pragmatic device, software, or system will be created and either sold, rented, or leased to solve a problem or make people enjoy and/or better utilize a different device, software, or system.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that makes Microsoft / Apple / Linux / Car manufacturers safe then!
Re: (Score:2)
"So as long as we all invent useless rubbish"
It's the American way!
Finally .... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mr. Creosote: Bugger off, I can't listen to anything else!
Maitre'D: Oooh, but Monsieur, it is WAFFER Thin!
stop talking to me ceiling! (Score:2, Funny)
I have listened to these (Score:3, Interesting)
They have no bass whatsoever and require high voltages. They are also not that inovative as as far as I could tell they are just another electrostatic speaker. Also they are very directional only having about 25 degrees of good sound and are not very loud. Admitedly I did hear them 2 years ago but I cannot see how they overcame these problems.
Re: (Score:2)
Personally I would try :
Making stacks (DUH)
Driving subsets of the stack at a time, switching between subsets at supersonic frequencies, to avoid having to drive the entire stack at some uber voltage.
Put the stack on a curved surface to get a greater distribution angle.
I could see all these failing to work well in practice (although I think the curved surface one has a very small chance of failure). Might work though.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, they are definitely NOT directional.
I've had the flat speakers on my desktop a few years ago, and it really does not matter which way you point them, as long as the surface is 'roughly' facing you. In that sense, they don't really have a 'sweet spot'.
The shortcoming is that to reproduce a full spectrum of sound, or close to it, they have to be paired with a subwoofer, because the surface can't displace enough air to generate low frequencies. This is not an issue with a PA-type system; voice and di
NXT, anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
NXT [nxtsound.com] was (is) a viable and versatile speaker technology with many of the revolutionary properties ascribed to this one. Not as flexible or cheap, but certainly a significant step up from the paper cones of yore.
Yet, in spite of being a sound technology (sorry), it took years before it finally reached consumer products. Even now the uptake is slow.
The strongest hurdle was poor bass-reproduction, because it didn't have the physical ability to shift sufficient volumes of air - exactly the same issue faced by this new tech - so NXT speaker systems often have to be augmented with sub-woofers - see the Hitachi AX M133 [whathifi.com] for an example. This doesn't affect the fact that it is ideal for public-address systems, however, since it is a diffuse source rather than a point, and that whole "sweet spot" nonsense becomes a non-issue.
In spite of this, it never made a noticeable entry into the PA market. I can only hope this new technology delivers the cheapness and flexibility promised, and we can finally stop bolting big ugly boxes to the walls in every public space.
Re:NXT, anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
Planar speakers have been around for decades. Magnepan is one of the oldest, along with Martin Logan, Quad, SoundLab and the defunct Apogee. Sota and Monsoon also made planars for a while.
The new variations on planar technologies are, mainly, refinements. The researchers at Warwick basically figured out how to embed the motor in the planar substrate itself, saving a few more millimeters in thickness.
Parent
Re:NXT, anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
Planar speakers have been around for decades. Magnepan is one of the oldest, along with Martin Logan, Quad, SoundLab and the defunct Apogee. Sota and Monsoon also made planars for a while.
Yup. I was one of the people who designed and built the Monsoon-branded planar magnetic speakers. Some of the technology was licensed from http://www.eminent-tech.com/main.html [eminent-tech.com].
We also looked at electrostatic speakers, including the "two sheets of conductive material with a compliant spacer" variety. It's easy to make a proof-of-concept device that makes some sound, much harder to do it properly. Problems include:
- High voltages (10s to 100s of volts) required, difficult to produce and a potential safety issue for consumer products.
- Air is surprisingly incompressible when you're dealing with small volumes.
- A single-sided electrostatic speaker is non-linear. As the two plates of the capacitor get closer, the capacitance and the attractive force increase.
- It's hard to get decent bass out of a planar speaker. The coupling to the air drops off very sharply below a certain frequency (depending on the size of the panel).
Parent
OT : bass from a propellor is a brilliant idea (Score:2)
I just followed that link and saw the box from Eminent Tech which produces bass from a variable pitch propellor ... wish I had thought of that.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah the ET guys are brilliant, and crazy to the point of culty-ness. The propeller-sub is completely bonkers, I'd love to hear one.
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably NXT are charging too much to license their patents. I only know of one speaker system that uses NXT technology, the Mission M-Cube, and it costs over $2000. With that kind of availability, it's easy to see why uptake has been slow.
And high time too. (Score:2)
I like these speakers (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_9LjBidEe0 [youtube.com]
I'm thinking of getting a set fr home :=)
Bass from paper thin speakers (Score:2)
I wonder if it's even theoretically possible scientifically to get decent bass from paper thin speakers.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it is possible. Just as electrical power is voltage times current, acoustic power is volume times pressure. That's volume as in cubic meters, not 'turn it down!' loudness.
The limiting factor is the volume that the diaphragm sweeps. Area times displacement. A one square meter diaphragm moving ten mm moves the same amount of air as a ten square meter diaphragm moving one mm. If you cover an entire wall, it doesn't have to move very much.
This is ignores directionality. A rough rule of thumb is that if the
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. Two ways:
1) If the paper thin loudspeaker moved back-and-forth A LOT. The thickness of the speaker doesn't matter. It's how much it moves the air. (What's important is area times displacement. It's harder to get lows from a small area speaker than a wide one.) The problem for a lot of thin speakers is that they can't move as far as cone types.
2) If the paper thin loudspeaker PUMPS AIR THROUGH IT instead of moving to displace it. You could use that all the way down to DC: Pumpin
I can haz content plz? (Score:2)
Sheet speakers aren't new. (Score:2)
Sheet speakers have been around for years. There were examples in Japan in 1985. Electrostatic speakers were first developed in 1953, and there are plenty of flat panel speakers around. Some hobbyists even build their own.
Bass reproduction isn't a problem for large-area thin speakers until the volume becomes high. Then there's not enough travel to move enough air.
I have a pair of Magneplanars myself, about 18" x 40" x 0.75" . This is an 1980s technology. It works OK, but today you can get equally goo
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but this is a different way of doing it.
CLARIFICATION..... (Score:2)
Ok..... knowing how tech writers LOVE to say something is the 'World's (INSERT ADJECTIVE HERE)' while leaving out attributes that clearly show otherwise, I have to ask.....
Does the .25mm thickness INCLUDE the driver, or are they just measuring the face surface of the speaker (what would be known as the cardboard/paper/plastic cone in a standard speaker).
I just have to ask for clarification, as I'm sick of reading articles claiming something that really isn't. (Like the Wireless Laptop Charger, which, althou
Re: (Score:2)
If you read the article, you would find the name of the company and go tot here site to get more info.
http://www.warwickaudiotech.com/content.php?menu_id=3&page_id=23 [warwickaudiotech.com]
It was just an article in Wired.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, man, I was hoping for a Burma Shave ad.
Re:Tinny and pitchy (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Slashdot Naysayers Strike Again (Score:2)
From the article:
The flexible speakers are almost paper-like but pack in a punch and can deliver audio that is powerful enough for public spaces, cars and homes.
The arrangement also allows for highly directional and accurate sound, say the researchers.
If it's not just fluff and they're _actually_ thinking of using these things in public places, this could really take off. The article mentions putting them in ceiling tiles, but you could put them in posters or newspapers or wallpaper if it's really as good as advertised.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Simple physics. Decent bass requires displacing air at relatively slow speeds.
This means either a lot of travel, like a regular speaker, (which can't happen with these speakers unless they are the size of bedsheets) or the speakers would have to have some kind of resonating chamber, like a drum, which makes the paper-thinness kinda pointless.
That said, they do look interesting. Sounds like they turned a film capacitor into a motive unit.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
No bass, no deal.
Subwoofers work. The thing about bass is that unlike tones in the middle and high ranges, bass is not very directional at all. In fact, you can hide a subwoofer almost anywhere, and as long it's in the same room you won't notice a difference.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the confusion comes from these "powered subwoofers" which we have in our cheapass stereo combo sets that are really "bass speaker absolutely necessary to partially cover for the inadequacies of our speaker system." Or at least that's what it looks like in my house. I'm supposed to go out and get some quality speakers here pretty soon... With one torn driver. Time will tell.