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Music Media Television Technology

Researchers Make Paper Speakers For LCD TVs 83

Posted by samzenpus from the that-smooth-origami-sound dept.
narramissic writes "Engineers at Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) have developed stereo speakers in paper (video) that are are well suited for thin devices like LCD TVs and will be used in cars starting next year. According to an ITworld article, 'The special paper is made by sandwiching thin electrodes that receive audio signals and a prepolarized diaphragm into the paper structure. A special Flexpeaker adapter between the MP3 player and the speaker is used to play music through the paper.' ITRI says it hopes in the coming year to develop a chip that will do away with the adapter and allow people to plug a digital music player directly into the speaker. ITRI is also working on wireless technologies and will show off its first Bluetooth enabled paper speaker in July."
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Researchers Make Paper Speakers For LCD TVs More

Researchers Make Paper Speakers For LCD TVs

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  • Paper? (Score:5, Funny)

    by oldspewey ( 1303305 ) on Monday April 27, 2009 @04:52PM (#27736525)
    Hasn't paper been the primary material in speaker design since, well, since speakers?

  • But are they MONSTER Paper Speakers? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 27, 2009 @04:53PM (#27736527)

    MONSTER Paper Speakers are made with the finest trees in the world. You won't hear better sound than from their fine pieces of papyrus.

    • ...Let me write your number down... ahh here's some paper and... Crap! I just wrecked my $1500 MONSTER Paper speakers.
    • Strictly speaking, papyrus isn't made from trees at all. Though, if monster, the sort of company that would put gold-plated RF shielding on a toslink cable and charge extra for it, sold papyrus, it probably would be.
    • Pfft, Monster may be fine for your amateur dog-and-pony-show setup, but I only use paper speakers made from old growth redwood pulp. It gives the sound an indescribable "warm feeling" that I just don't get from any other paper speakers.

  • Maybe there's something I'm missing here but these do not sound very durable to me - especially not for being put in a relatively durable product like a car.

  • So... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jaysyn ( 203771 ) on Monday April 27, 2009 @04:55PM (#27736573) Homepage Journal

    They've been making paper speakers for a long time. This seems to be a driverless paper speaker, which apparently is a big deal. I guess technically the prepolarized diaphragm *is* the driver, but it isn't your standard cone / cylinder shape.

    • They may use a unique approach but I can't imagine they're going to sound very good. Additionally, most of the uses already mentioned in the discussion range from novelty usage to just downright obnoxious (movie posters).

      Can we stop making music and movies sound worse and worse (compressed audio, paper speakers, etc) and start working toward more affordable audiophile quality sound?

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Can the vast majority of stay-at-home moms (not that that isn't an honorable profession - its one of the most honorable) tell the difference? No? Okay then, good luck with that.

        The market for the vast majority of sound equipment is for people who don't know a thing about sound and can't tell the difference between poor sound and quality sound. Until the market gets smarter you will continue to see the cheapest shit mass-produced for the cheap masses. And markets rarely get smarter on their own.

        • Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Burning1 ( 204959 ) on Monday April 27, 2009 @06:33PM (#27738283) Homepage

          In my experience, the issue isn't that most people can't recognize the difference between good sound and bad sound; the issue is that most people have never even heard good sound to begin with.

          Sure... We go to the theater and hear *loud* sound, and then get it into our heads that a base line capable of collapsing a lung means the equipment is of good quality.

          Frankly, these days even if you have good equipment, the source material is so bad that you can't actually tell.

          • At least they say it's designed for MP3 players.
            If they're trying to push "HD" video as a standard than why not "HD" audio? Oh wait, they'll call it something like digital paper extreme HD 3D surround that makes you forget why you asked if it sounds good.

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        From TFA:

        One limitation with Flexpeaker is that while it's very good with sounds at frequencies between 500Hz to 20KHz, it doesn't handle low frequency sounds well.

        They're not pretending to be able to deliver Hi Fi quality sound; this technology is for a completely different purpose to your home cinema setup. Audiophile equipment being expensive is no reason for people not to develop speakers for other applications.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      That's more or less it, the driver is built in and it isn't cone shaped, meaning it can fit in a much tighter space. Unlike other more or less flat speakers (earphone elements and similar), this is to be flexible (though that can't be good for the sound imaging).

      Either they will need some really good signal processing or the target audience is going to be restricted to the same people who are satisfied with the cheap built-in TV speakers (actually a fairly large group).

      Hardly Earth shattering, but likely us

  • Greeting cards... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dirkbaztard ( 1297993 ) on Monday April 27, 2009 @04:57PM (#27736623)
    would benefit greatly from this. Full stereo cacophony instead of the over-driven mono racket would be a blessing.

    • Re:Greeting cards... (Score:5, Funny)

      by DanWS6 ( 1248650 ) on Monday April 27, 2009 @05:05PM (#27736795)
      Even better: banning greeting cards and the holidays that were created for them.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

        Still better: evolving into a vertebrate, which is to say, growing a fucking spine. Don't want to participate in the holidays? Don't. It's pretty easy to opt-out of most of it. You can work on the holiday and get paid for it if you like, most employers are pretty happy to permit that one. I don't find it particularly holy to buy shit either.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Carnth ( 609080 )
      Sending me the $5 instead of wasting it on a greeting card would be a blessing.

    • Or be twice as godawful.

  • than what Bose has been doing for years?

    I'll ask again after one of their speakers in a car sits in the sun for a couple years and quits working.

  • This is what they are selling (Score:4, Informative)

    by Krneki ( 1192201 ) on Monday April 27, 2009 @05:05PM (#27736787)

    I think this is what the story refers to:

    http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/03/researchers-cre [wired.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Same principle but different product, judging by the pictures.

  • Dear lord, this is horrible... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chyeld ( 713439 ) <chyeld.gmail@com> on Monday April 27, 2009 @05:05PM (#27736789)

    The goal for the researchers is to be able to mass produce standard poster-size speakers (A2, or 60centimeters by 44cm) costing just US$20 each. Movie makers could then put out posters with soundtrack music or movie highlights emanating from them as people walk by.

    Kill me now, please. Just kill me now.

    You thought those talking birthday cards were annoying? Just try walking in the mall as all 100,000 posters located in random locations start talking all at once, producing the noise which finally wakens those who must not be named and end reality as we believed it to be.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Plekto ( 1018050 )

      Or imagine shopping and they have these hooked up to IR sensors.

      "Check out this deal on Bug Light! (starts playing radio commercial)"

      Yes, it is horrible. Moreso than most people can imagine.

      • Japanese supermarkets are pretty close to that already, especially the DOMY near my school. They put CD players with CDs on loop all throughout the store, so sometimes you have 5 or 6 different things playing near you.

        Yes, it is indeed annoying.

    • Time to place that buy order for Bose, as they have their active noise canceling head sets.

    • Just try walking in the mall as all 100,000 posters located in random locations start talking all at once

      There are laws to keep this from happening. It is already very easy to add a small speaker to posters to do this kind of thing. (Remember the Big Mouth Billy Bass [wikipedia.org]) People would throw a fit and get such things taken down if they ever got to be so annoying... quit over-reacting people.

    • You thought those talking birthday cards were annoying? Just try walking in the mall as all 100,000 posters located in random locations start talking all at once, producing the noise which finally wakens those who must not be named and end reality as we believed it to be.

      Won't last long, thanks to vandals and security guards who fail to see them. Unless they use deaf mall cops, anyway.

  • But flat paper speakers are.

  • It could be (Score:5, Funny)

    by treeves ( 963993 ) on Monday April 27, 2009 @05:06PM (#27736813) Homepage Journal
    Well, it's a great idea ON PAPER, but...

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday April 27, 2009 @05:07PM (#27736821)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I'm not sure that it is piezoelectric.

      In the video, it appears the paper is covered in tiny electrostatic speakers. They mention a pre polarised diaphragm. It is electret, rather than externally polarised, as that lets them use much lower voltages.

      I don't think anyone has made an electret speaker before. High voltage electrostatic speakers are easy to find though.

      It is probably fairly efficient, but requires a lot of transducers, and their small size means no bass.

  • Better hope they don't get wet.. I bet soggy paper speakers don't work quite so well..

  • People don't care about sound any more. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It makes me sad that as television sets get larger and better screens, the audio side seems to be getting worse.

    Even a top of the range TV will have worse sound than a 1950s hifi.
    I understand that people want smaller speakers (preferably completely flat), but there are certain physical laws that make it difficult to get full range sound without a cabinet.

    I would love to start an advertising campaign about how televisions can be miniaturized, so that annoying big plasma screen can now be only a few inches in

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Chyeld ( 713439 )

      I think it's less that people don't care as much as it's one of the rare times where we are actually divesting functions from a device instead of integrating more.

      It's hard to do 7.1 or even 5.1 audio from a set of stereo speakers. So why put much effort in it? Simply acknowledge this is something better left to an actual audio setup, and seperate the two functions into two seperate devices, both designed to do what they actually do, well.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by afidel ( 530433 )
      Some people still care about sound quality, like me =) My front's are 45lb 4' tall floor standers, however my rears are 6.5" 3 way's that are only 4.5" deep and produce fairly good surround sound.

  • This appears to be a low-voltage and flexible version of the electrostatic transducer, which was first prototyped around 90 years ago. Not NEW, just IMPROVED.

    A friend had a set of Magnaplanars the size of doors back in the 70's. They sounded great with an additional low-frequency driver. (didn't call them subwoofers back then because the bottom octave didn't really exist yet in recordings - vinyl records were rolled off at 50hz to keep the phonograph needle from being kicked out of the record groove by subs

    • I think the innovation here is that they are using pre-polarised diaphragms to avoid the high voltages used in previous electrostatic speakers. They are a little like electret mics driven in reverse.

      By the way, Magnaplanar speakers are not actually electrostatic. They use a coil and a magnet, just like a conventional speaker.

    • Re:Electrostatic (Score:4, Informative)

      by earlymon ( 1116185 ) on Monday April 27, 2009 @07:05PM (#27738607) Homepage Journal

      Magnaplanars were a diaphragm with an embedded serpentine wire conducting the AC audio signal. The diaphragm was sandwiched between permanent magnets that ran vertically, floor to ceiling. Looking at the diaphragm was not unlike looking at a long continuous paper clip. The permanent magnets were long and thin (about a 1/2" cross-section).

      Many people mistook them for electrostatics.

      With an electrostatic (the first speaker designed by AT&T, ever, using a pig's diaphragm and gold plating), the diaphragm is coated with a conductive material, then stretched between two metal plates. In the set I have, a 75 kV bias is applied to the diaphragm and the AC audio signal is routed to the front/rear metal plates.

      Then, there's the ESS Heil HF driver. That used metalized paper, with the metalization stripped away in a serpentine pattern, then given an accordion fold, then immersed in a high magnetic field (big permanent magnets!) and the AC audio went through the fold, and sound was produced in accordion fashion.

      Then, there was the Ohm-F HF driver - a metal-foil cone attached to a normal moving coil transducer.

      Because of their exotic designs and shapes, many people confused these others with electrostatics - but electrostatic refers to one and only one technology.

      The tech in the article seems to be something altogether new, and I'm looking forward to its advance.

      That being said, remember - you cannot cheat the laws of physics. When the diaphragm moves forward, creating an over-pressure, the rear side is creating a canceling under-pressure. (Every action having an equal and opposite reaction sort of thing.) With conventional speakers, the "opposite" wave is trapped or mitigated inside an enclosure and does not enter the room to cause cancellation.

      With a large diaphragm, you almost need an enclosure in back the size of the room. Impractical in the extreme, these are simply made and marketed as flat panel diaphragms and the rest of the speaker-room response is left to the owner.

      But every Magnaplanar and electrostatic speaker owner will tell you - the worst sounding rig you can get are bi-directional planar speakers crammed up against a wall. Why? Action- reaction: that rear wave's cancellation is a function of distance to rear reflective surface and rear reflective surface acoustic properties.

      So, no, until they re-write some physical laws, a paper poster on a wall producing hi-fi is not in the near future.

      That said - I guarantee if it's viable in a marketing study, some idiot will make them and people will buy them to put along-side their wall-mounted TVs.

      • You clearly know a hell of a lot more about speakers than I, so I have to ask: is there anything like this that works by expansion/contraction of a planar surface rather than vibration? That would surely get around the problem you described, wouldn't it? When I first heard of planar speakers in wall-art etc, that was actually how I envisaged it working.

        • You ask a very good question - actually, questions within questions.

          With your permission, allow me to digress a bit, and ask you to envision a cork or bobber on water. The waves roll by, but the cork just bobs up and down, and only a little to front/back.

          Sound waves are mechanically a chain of an over-pressure followed by an under-pressure, and so forth. Typical speaker - your basic woofer that you've probably seen operate with the speaker grills off - are pistons, suspended by a visible front surround an

  • This could be totally revolutionary! Just think, this could totally change the meaning of "Money talks"!

  • stereo? is it really stereo? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This appears to be just the application of Piezoelectric effect to paper.. The clip only mentions the use of this in posters..not as a replacement for existing speaker technology in car and home sound systems. But would be cool to have a poster talk to you as you walk past.. include this in the paper displays.. disposable video displays with sound..

    I do dispute the use of the term 'Stereo' .. this system just gives you multi speaker or audio point sources.. but stereo? stereo is not just having t

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What would be cool is....

      There are thousands of tiny diaphragms on that paper.

      If they can address them individually then they have a wavefront capable speaker.

      You can do things with wavefront reproducing speaker systems that make 7.1 seem like a child's toy.

      It's a little like the difference between holography and normal photography.

  • Watch Amazon release a gadget called the Crackle to play audio books.

  • You Buford, print me up a pair o' them Boze Speakers what I kin heer gud frum.

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