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Technology

See-Through, Paper-Thin Speakers 112

Posted by CmdrTaco from the bet-they-sound-like-walkie-talkies dept.
Cormac writes "Here's an interesting article about scienists in the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) who are developing see-through flat speakers which (they claim) could be rolled/folded up and put in your pocket or even be pinned to a wall." I wonder about the fidelity, but there could be some excellent potential here: it irritates me that my center channel is on my TV. Without getting a projector and putting the speaker behind a screen, something like this could just be built onto your TV. But can it sound good?
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See-Through, Paper-Thin Speakers More

See-Through, Paper-Thin Speakers

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  • To combine the coolest technologies here for audio, it sounds like you would need the following for a "dream" system.

    Plasma tweeters
    Electrostatics for the midrange
    Sub-Woofer for low range & subsonics

    Add a nice tube amp or at least a harmon/kardon or my poor departed Pioneer Spec-2, a decent pre-am (I miss my Pioneer Spec-1 as well), a Nak cassette deck, revox linear track turntable (with good quality cartrige&needle), Ampex DVD with the "right" roms (maybe not that Hi-Fi, but worth it anyways to play out of zone DVDs), and a decent laptop to run MP3s...but when you have a system in this range...most MP3s really sound like shit. Now a DBX encoded vinyl LP of pipe organ music....that will show you what the difference is between a good analog system and the best digital.

    Years from now they will bemoan the fact that so much music of the 20th and 21st centuries is almost unlistenable because it was released with only 16 bit at 44.1 KHertz!

    ttyl
    Farrell
  • Those are electrostatics- these are piezos. Electrostatics operate on very high voltages (and very low amperages), and require stator screens. Piezos operate by one side expanding and the other contracting, mechanically pushing most of the speaker area forward or back. There are also center-driven planars (Sumo Aria, Museatex Melior) and line-driven planars (Magnepan).
  • Been done- on tweeters. It involves a plasma flame, Tesla coil, humongous voltages and the generation of a lot of ozone :)

    I don't know what you'd have to do to get a huge plasma speaker that could carry bass, but I don't want to be around while you try it :)

  • That's only the case if you are trying to apply tweeter elements to a very uncontrolled woofer element, using high-order crossovers.

    In order to do composite drivers, you have to go with simpler crossovers, not more complex- phase relationships have to be dead simple, the normal rules for multi-element speakers are entirely reversed.

    Electrostatics and planars do what they do not just by having the speaker handle all frequencies with one element, but by having the element behave more controllably than cone drivers. Use of very light elements can mean little or no overshoot or ringing at bass frequencies. That ringing is what would really create 'doppler' effects on the sound- having the speaker follow the path of the waveform as one unit does not cause any sort of distortion in itself.

    The roll-up piezo speakers are likely to be fairly crappy sound, but this is mostly because they're lacking in any sort of solid stand or base to push against, and the piezo operates by flexing and going convex or concave. Clamp the edges and you'll get more bass and general fidelity.

  • Re:Like electrostats... (Score:3)

    by Chris Johnson ( 580 ) on Thursday April 19, 2001 @06:13PM (#278774) Homepage Journal
    Maggies aren't electrostatic. They're driven by a linear voice coil along the surface of the stretched mylar. There's also Sumo Aria/Museatex Melior, which are _center_ driven mylar: normal voice coil, no speaker cone, and the coil attaches to the mylar which remains flexible (unlike electrostatics, the film doesn't move in a planar way- it moves through ripples from the driving point)

    I've experimented with these fairly extensively, and still am from time to time. DIYing center-driven stretched-mylar speakers is fun, but tricky to make useful. Here's what I learned:

    • Resonance is not your friend. All these speakers have to control resonances somehow, and it's a tricky problem. Resonant notes will fart and honk, usually in the bass, and blatantly ruin the sound.
    • They're incredibly wide-range at _any_ size, but the max output volume is size-dependent and very limited. This type of speaker just doesn't want to go loud, but even small ones will try real hard to put out strong bass. Quite weird really. This is, I think, specific to the point-driven or line-driven ones, not electrostatics or piezos.
    • Dispersion is stunning, and contributes to the sense of not-loudness. You can stick your ear in one and it's very subdued volume. Then you go to the other side of the room and there's no falloff in volume. It's the ultimate 'mellow party' speaker in that there's no place that gets 'blasted' by the speaker, not even right in front of it.
    • Dispersion is amazingly wide-range. The highs are very extended, even far off-axis.
    • If you make cones extending out from the speaker voice coils to the mylar, in theory you'll have a super-point-source but in practice it only makes the lack of volume even worse. I've got some half-built experimental drivers sitting here which have some improvements- the magnets were encased in a 2-liter bottle filled with concrete making the unit real heavy, and the voice coils have Ping-Pong balls (with a hole in the back) where the dust cap would be. This sphere shape transmits stresses well, and has a larger contact point.

    DIY is fun :)
  • Right. There used to be a linux cafe in my old neighborhood that was in a big warehouse. the proprietor had a set of electrostatic speakers, which were just big mylar sheets suspended in a large frame. Made a nice noise, though they tended to "beam" a lot on the higher notes.
    --
    I noticed

  • Air Pressure (Score:3)

    by Lally Singh ( 3427 ) on Thursday April 19, 2001 @09:55PM (#278776) Journal
    If you put them on a screen, LCD or otherwise, wouldn't you have a vacuum of air pulling the speaker back? That seems like it would create a lot of distortion. Also, even if that part was fixed, wouldn't the sound itself cause distortion on an LCD screen? When I lightly touch my LCDs, they change colors in that area. Imagine a speaker as big as the screen in close contact with an LCD screen playing your matrix dvd...

    --

  • "...huge speakers on his/her laptop that are taking up valuable space and weigh a ton."

    Think about it. You want your laptop to be as thin and light as possible. You bet they would put one of these in them if they could. Look at how thing the screens and keyboards are getting.

  • I've a buddy with two 2m tall, 1m wide, 4cm thick electrostatic speakers in his livingroom - aside from feeling like one is in the presence of twin monoliths from 2001 they sound great. Of course for two grand each they should. However the power supply doubles as a very warm footstool and the cat's fur crackles whenever it walks by (it tries not to.)

    On the other end I've got two 10cm x 5cm cheapie speakers I bought at discount (old iMac color) that sound ok but tinny. For 5 bucks I can't complain, they're smaller then anything else & don't mess with any magnetic media near them.

    As to on a laptop screen - this as been talked about for years but every time a problem appears. Most of the times the speakers just weren't very robust physically, certianly not up to the life of a laptop. Or they've required too much power or degraded quickly. Then there's the whole "transparency" thing - unless they're really really clear folks aren't going want to put a smoky layer of whatever over their screens, audio or no. From the article pics of this latest incarnation it looks pretty murky...

  • ... if he can spatially distinguish between a speaker on top of his TV and behind the TV.

    How close are you sitting and how big is your TV? Unless you're talking a 36" TV and < 3' distance, I don't see how you can tell.
    "Beware by whom you are called sane."

  • at least the US retains the world leadership in producting high quality speakers

    Hardly. There are two I can think of that outclass EVERYTHING in the US. B&W's [bwspeakers.com] line, specifically the Nautilus, are some of the most trick speakers on Earth... the 601 coming it at $400 to the 801 used at Abbey Road studio to the $30,000.00 Nautilus - all made in the UK. From Holland we have BD Design's [bd-design.nl] Oris. There are many more. Focal from France, Morel from Israel, Peerless from Germany, Solen from Canada... the list goes on. I really cannot name a US company that can compete with the exception of Magnepan [magnepan.com] (which comes to mind when you mention these thin speakers). If you are thinking of Bose as a world leader, they make crap... but my point is the US retaining leadership is a stretch of the imagination. The US has market share, but I current audio reviews claim that B&W is the hallmark of design. Many agree.

  • Agreed. See my post below... not just the Nautilus, everything that they make. Every other manufacturer should just give up. What, the 301's come in at just over $200? You cannot find a better speaker from a US company at 3X that price. The 601/602's come it a solid audiophile quality for less than $500. The Nautilus series speakers are just simply amazing.

  • If you wanted one of these to be built in to your tv you'd also want to have the left and right speakers to also be the same shape and size to keep a constant tonal quality between the 3 chaannels. Otherwise you end up with tonal shifts when somoen walks around, and that's bad stuff.

    matguy

  • That sounds awful 2d to me...

    It does. It probably doesn't occur to non-techies that normal stereo sound is just 1D and dolby surrond is 2D. Yes, that means mono sound is 0D.

    However, clever phase-shifting could make the appearance of 2D using just two (eg. stereo) speakers.

  • > think of the applications for screwing with people if you could make your sweater talk...

    Or someone else's sweater perhaps? (evil grin) Gives this sluggy comic [sluggy.com] a new shot at reality. :)

  • AIEEEE!!!

    You try it.

    AIEEEE!!!

    --
  • the best part about those clothes isn't the speaker bit... its the part about them being transparent! woohoo!
    on second thought, that might be a bad thing.
  • Here's a DIY project for you...

    Why not try to use resonance?? Products like the Bose wave use long resanator tubes to get decent bass out of two 1" speakers. What would happen if you used a resonator with the mylar stretched across it?? (An old drum body, etc...)

    I realize that this will not correct the already low bass response, as there apparently are no surfaces capable of producing the long low waves, but should add depth and take away from the tinniness of the speakers. With contact on a wood resonator, percussion and bass should at least produce a pleasant woody thump.

    Just a thought...
    ~Hammy
  • Of course at that point in the story they were discussing 'current' flat speakers. Instead of the new ones they are developing.

    Koh says his lab has turned the project over to sound engineers to work on the low-frequency sound issue.
  • Indeed. I'm running a pair of DM602S2s and a Velodyne FSX-12...
    I just purchased a Rotel RCD-971, and I'm now on the mad lookout for HDCD recordings. I thought I had the audio fever bad before...
  • I have a very nice quality 5-piece flat planel setup at home ... the four flat tweeters around my system sound extremely good, even when cranked up very high... What makes these so unbelievable?
  • So if this speaker can transmit sound, it can receive sound, right?

    Mount one to your monitor and connect it with a full duplex mic line to your computer. Use NetMeeting and you can get the ultimate video phone.

    Now Microsoft (or the government, whichever lasts)can add some inconspicuous code and listen and watch everything you do.

    Oh, no wait, that's 1984 isn't it?

  • Re:the problem with bass reproduction... (Score:3)

    by svirre ( 39068 ) on Thursday April 19, 2001 @12:43PM (#278792)
    To reproduce low frequencies the speaker surface must move a fairly large distance. The problem is that this movement actual creates a doppler shift in the high frequencies, creating a "muddy" sound.

    While this is essentialy true, it isn't the most significant problem with large panel speakers. These are large enough that the surface won't have to move much. (of cource if you make them small you're screwed).

    Panel speakers traditionally got two problems:

    They tend to be dipoles which means the got to be huge or have no bass. Once the path from the rear of the driver to the front becomes small compared to the acoustic wavelenght it exhibits an acoustic short which works to cancel and phaseshift LF sounds.

    Also any driver which active surface is larger than the wavelenght of the sounds it reproduce will exhibit beaming and comb filtering since for a given point in space the path to two different points on the driver will be different. For large drivers the difference can become significant compared to wavelenghts and interference ensues.

    Some panel speaker technologies also suffer from beeing very hard on the amps (el-stat).

    In short it's hard to justify making a panel speaker.

    Remember that it is a panel doesen't make it thin unto itself. If you don't want a dipole you still need the box, and if it is a dipole the problems above occurs and it will still have to stand out from the wall to avoid interference from back wall reflections.
  • What about Korea making a paper thin automobile that could be rolled/folded up and caried. Oh, wait. They do. It's called KIA.

    Shawn Pack

  • I'd think that speakers like these would be more useful for surround sound: you can cover you walls or (car) windows with permanent installations. Another big win would be temporary set ups; take along five sheets of paper and some masking tape.

    -_Quinn
  • Any substantial home entertainment system is going to have a great big sub sitting off in a corner anyway. Since it's a lot harder to tell which direction a deep bass tone is coming from than with a higher tone, I don't see this being a problem. Then again, I don't know where the actual cutoff point lies. Plus that volume issue bugs me... I need my matrix gunfights to be LOUD
  • Yes, there is some magnetism, but not enough to affect a crt.

    Cheers
  • Admittedly what's available now isn't flexible or transparent, but it is flat. I have a set of Monsoon speakers. Each satellite speaker has a normal cone-type midrange element, but the high-frequency element appears to be a clear piece of plastic printed with circuit traces and surrounded by magnets. In Monsoon's higher-end speakers, the satellite units are 100% flat-panel. Apparently the larger the panels are the lower frequencies they can handle. (makes sense)
    I'm not sure whether Monsoon has this stuff patented or whether there just aren't many companies implementing it yet...
  • yes, but they were HUGE. You need to move large volumes of air to get bass, and if you don't have throw, you have to substitute surface area.

    may electrostats come with subwoofers for this reason.

  • I don't think these are for Audiophiles... (Score:3)

    by Ted V ( 67691 ) on Thursday April 19, 2001 @12:16PM (#278799) Homepage
    Anyone remember the disposable Paper phones currently in design? We never thought those would replace cell phones (or heaven forbid, one of those option loaded corporate receptionist phones). But it's still a good idea because you can spend a few bucks on a paper phone if you need to make a call, and just throw it away when the time runs out.

    Same thing here with paper speakers. This isn't designed for watching The Matrix or Gladiator in all its glory. These speakers are better suited for cheap things when you just want any sound production whatsoever... Like talking advertisements in magazines...

    On second thought maybe this isn't a good idea. :)

    -Ted
  • and now paper speakers...

    Plus, there's not mention of frequency response, wattage, impedience, nuthin'.

    I doubt it's real (or if it is, it's real stupid, or real bad).
  • Well, it's certainly within the bounds of what is possible.

    As for impedance: being a piezo device, they probably like lots of voltage and little current, ergo they are high impedance devices.

    The problem with bass response is easy to see: imaging stretching a sheet of plastic wrap across your window frame. Turn your stereo on inside, and go outside to listen. Now, the sound will be about as good as your stereo, because the plastic wrap will be moving a fair amount back and forth, moving a lot of air.

    For these speakers to do the same thing, they are going to have to be able to flex quite a bit to move enough air to make good bass. The problem is finding a piezoelectric substance that will flex that much without cracking. However, if they are using a polymer instead of a crystalline material, they may have a chance.
  • From the: A-time-for-every-season dept.

    These speakers, if they come about well enough, will be used in places where they're needed, and not in places where competing technology kicks more ass. It's pretty much that way anywhere with any product. I see the following good uses for these:
    • Computer speakers inside the monitor/laptop screen. Handy, space conservative, and powered by the monitor. Not great sound, but for sound effects and watching CNN live it should be fine.
    • Center channel speakers on a 5.1 surround system. Get one of these on the screen of the TV and you have the perfect center channel speaker placement. Heck, get really innovative and have several over the surface of the TV, and you can get conversations between two people sounding like they are coming from either side (not that stereo technology doesn't do a lot of this already)
    • Quick-'n'-easy party-hardy materials. Small, portable CD/MP3 player and a small bag of rollup speakers. Set player ontop of empty beer case, unroll speakers, stick to wall with stickytack, and wha-lah! Instant tunes.
    • Applications where sound is wanted but conditions are rough: On rafts, boats, skis, snowboards, umbrellas, patios, bathtubs, showers, underpants...you get the picture.
    • Talk about a revolution in children's books. Pages that have speakers right in them. neat-o. :)
    They're not likely to please the audiophile in your midst for hi-fi applications, and anyone watching something like Matrix on them should be shot. But they'll have their (rather vertical) niche and work great....I think it's cool! :)
  • Flat speakers (aka electrostatic speakers), though not exactly mainstream, aren't unusual in the audiophile world. If you're really curious, you might check out Magnepan [magnepan.com] or MartinLogan [martinlogan.com] or Quad [quad-hifi.co.uk]. Also try looking for reviews at Stereophile [stereophile.com]. There used to be a user-review site at www.audioreview.com [audioreview.com], but it's not resolving for me so maybe they're offline at the moment.
    --
  • We don't all have a pair of little speakers and a subwoofer on the floor.. Some of us would like to hear some midrange as well.

    ----------
  • Great, now instead of homey-g's carrying around a big boom box on their shoulder, soon they'll be able to blast (C)rap from thier shirts and pants!!! hehe cloth emitting speakers.. would be cool thoe.... remote controlled.. nothing like takin over the controlls of someone on the street.. speaker hacking... hmmmmm :)

  • What about business cards that played your radio commercial on command?

    Greeting cards, of course. This has already been done, but I'm sure it'll be done again.

    And finally, in my case, a credit card that screams in pain and curses me violently every time I use it.

  • http://www.callahanonline.com/calhat18.htm [callahanonline.com]

    Mike Roberto
    - GAIM: MicroBerto
  • Over 10 years ago a company called Penwalt (sp?) was selling stuff like this. Sound quality depends on how ou mount it. The really cool part of Piezio film is that it works "both ways." Apply sound to it and you get a signal out. Onr really demo is to take a glass tube and wrap two strips of film each around a different end of the tube. Connect an opamp between the two and then speak into the tube. It will start ringing at it's natural harmonic. Turn up the gain on the amp and good-bye glass tube.
  • How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics!

    My very educated mother just served us nine pizza-pies.

  • Where did I leave those new speakers?

    RASG!!!

    Damn...

    --

  • Now when im short on paper i can use my speakers to smoke.
  • To reproduce low frequencies the speaker surface must move a fairly large distance. The problem is that this movement actual creates a doppler shift in the high frequencies, creating a "muddy" sound.

    For most hifi systems this solved by having separate cones for the high end, midrange, and low end (tweeters, subwoofers, etc.).

    My guess is that these simply won't be suitable for audiophile-level quality sound reproduction. Their best use would be for portable systems where sound quality isn't as big an issue, or computer speakers since we're all used to crappy sound anyway.

  • We've all got a pair of little speakers for high notes, then a big subwoofer on the floor. If they can make a better pair of tweeters, why gripe? As it is, mine are on the verge of falling of the desk because they can't fit next to my 21" moniter.

    The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
  • You fail to see what the marketroids will do....

    Reach for a kleenex and hear ads for the latest cold medicine as you blow your nose!

    And of course, new at Spencer Gifts:
    Talking toilet paper! With hilarious phrases like 'Man it's dark in here' and 'you thought YOU had a shit job'!

    Chesty-wet-babe posters will now spout 900-ads at regular intervals.

  • why wait till this comes out, subs in bugs VW's isn't that difficult just takes some fiberglass and elbow grease :) http://www.bostonacoustics.com/ViewUltimateSystem. asp?EventID=20

  • I have a feeling that Hallmark Greeting Cards, Inc. will be scooping this technology up to create cheaper and better-sounding greeting cards. What they have currently probably would sound pathetic compared to what these Korean-made speakers can put out, even though it's not amazing for the audiophiles among us.

  • This sounds a little like electrostatic speakers, but cheaper. There are a lot of high-end electrostats out there now (martin-logan, magnapan, quad, etc.), which have use a vibrating mylar film or ribbon suspended between metal grills or plates, or something along those lines. I've heard examples that sound phenomenal, aside from the lack of bass, but require serious amplification.

    These sound like they'll require a lot less power, but will have even more trouble moving the amount of air necessary to make real bass or to actually get loud. I mean, how much air can something like this actually move? I'd have to guess not much.

  • You're right, my comment about "lack of bass" doesn't do justice to most electrostats. It's certainly there, but not at the levels most people expect, particularly fans of amplified music. Martin-logan uses a hybrid electrostat/cone design to combat the problem. I've heard quads (a '70s vintage design) have particularly good bass response for electrostats.

    Funny that you mention the position-sensitivity of the magnapans -- a friend in college had a pair, and spent hours trying to position them to get the ideal sound. When he finally got it right, they sounded phenomenal. I think he finally got rid of them after frying the tweeter ribbons a few times and then moving to a tiny apartment in Manhattan.

  • But wouldn't it be nice to overlay your display with your speaker? Then it would sound a lot more like it was coming from there without relying on the stereo effect. I wonder if you could divide the display into several regions and have more realistic distribution of the sound...


    --
  • Dude if I had my mod points you'd be up one.
    ---
  • mid range

    two more words

    sub woofer

    last two words

    need above
    ---
  • Uh d00d.

    I work to oppose software patents -- look at the little write up I did a month back on the M$ web poll patent. Know what facetious humor is?

    CHoad.
    Vergil Bushnell

  • How unique - A leet-speaking tough guy, posting anonymously!

    What articulate, yet visceral rhetoric!

    What deft use of sandbox-cliches!


    Vergil Bushnell

  • I wasn't really serious either -- that's why I used the word "choad" (which is a nebulous word with at least 4 different definitions, depending on what culture/ region your from). Choad is a word I use lightly when I'm kidding around with someone.

    Your post didn't irritate me at all - it was the anonymous troll after you.

    :)

    Sincerely,
    vergil
    Vergil Bushnell

  • Impressive Possibilities (Score:3)

    by vergil ( 153818 ) <vergilb&gmail,com> on Thursday April 19, 2001 @12:28PM (#278825) Journal
    The possibilities for paper-thin are endless (depending, of course, on cost). Imagine:

    - Ever been to a large protest or demonstration? Groups with axes to grind are typically under-funded, and habitually rely on tinny Radio Shack megaphones to "get the word out" - a marginal improvement over shouting, given ambient street noise. With these speakers, a dissident group could easily seed a crowd with plastic amplifiers taped to their ubiquitous posterboard placards.

    - Pack a stack of these piezo-electronic sheets in your backpack, find an abandoned warehouse and a tube of super-glue and voila! Instant rave!

    - Promotional companies that currently wheat-paste metropolitan walls with repetitous movie/concert fliers might find a way to paint their advertisements on sheets of the aforementioned plastic film with a flat EEPROM backing, thereby augementing their garish displays with short bursts of sound. Wait, I should patent that idea.

    Sincerly,

    Vergil
    Cluebot [cluebot.com].
    Vergil Bushnell

  • Here's your problem... (Score:3)

    by b0r1s ( 170449 ) on Thursday April 19, 2001 @12:06PM (#278826) Homepage
    The problem with these existing speakers, critics say, is that while they do a good job of reproducing high-frequency sounds, they often are not substantial enough to produce deep bass sounds, or play at high volume.

    "Even with quite large ones, which I've got a pair of them in my living room, they need a bass reinforcement," says David Pearce, a research fellow in functional materials at the University of Birmingham in England who specializes in piezoelectric ceramics. "Hearing these sort of panel speakers individually, they always sound kind of tinny. But then you put them together with bass support and you say, 'That sounds pretty good, actually.'"

    Well, it was nice until that part... No volume and no loud bass, I'll stick with what I have, thanks.

  • I'm not exactly sure of the properties of these speakers but i'm guessing they'd still have some magnetism built in or maybe i'm just wrong. If it is the case then they'd need to be shielded if you wanted to place them right on top of a tv or computer with a crt monitor. And if it would be that close you'd have to have something to shield it out with, thus making it clear useless. Am i wrong or could this be a potential problem?
  • What would DJ's and their ilk be able to do with this (ahem) musically?

    instead of scratching a record/cd you could do tons of dopplar effects by f'in with a thin flexible speaker...

    Let's see DJ scribbles (or whatever) get down with that!

    instead of "scratching" it will be called "tearing" or "folding" a phat beat=P

    sounds silly but plausible to move a speaker around for effect (See leslie speakers, or their "virtual/electric" bretheren of phase shifting audio devices phasers, flangers, and chorus')

    *Shrug* YMMV

    E.
  • I have a pair of flat magnapan. Their bass is real. It isn't good for amplified electric music that tends to have extra bass. But I listen almost exclusively to accoustic music, and I can hear low contrabass tones that sometimes you won't be able to hear at the concert hall. I never heard such good speakers anywhere else, certainly not for a $500 pricetag.

    They do need about 30% more power to drive them tough.

    Another important thing is that they cannot be placed against the wall because that kills the sound. So altough they are thin ( about 1'' ), they need a foot of clearence behind them. I wonder if the object of the article does better in this respect.

  • sounds alot like (i think its called) pizeo-electic metals.

    If you'd taken the time to read the article, you'd konw for a fact that pizeo-electric metals (specifically platinum electrodes) are being used.
  • The problem with these existing speakers, critics say, is that while they do a good job of reproducing high-frequency sounds, they often are not substantial enough to produce deep bass sounds, or play at high volume.

    They say this like the new speakers will solve the problem, but then don't explain anything more about it.

    And if you think about it, it makes sense that flat speakers would lack in the bass department. How could they not? If you've ever wathcerd a big subwoofer at work, you'll see they move quite alot. A good centimenter worth of motion, at least. Now, if you pin a flat speaker to a wall, how do you expect to achieve that sort of range of motion? Sure, it'll be able to vibrate very quickly against the wall, but it has no room for the deep slow bass virations.

    Perhaps they'll eventually work out a system in which the speaker sits in a deep picture frame, but until then, seems like flat tweeters and conventional woofers is the way to go.
  • Cool. Maybe some real 3d sound is coming up. Characters talk on the screen, and the sound comes from that point on the screen.
    That sounds awful 2d to me...
  • I doubt it's real

    Flat speakers have been aroud a while. What makes you doubt these? *cough*troll*cough*
  • It does. It probably doesn't occur to non-techies that normal stereo sound is just 1D and dolby surrond is 2D. Yes, that means mono sound is 0D.

    Seems like this should be fairly obvious. But you're right, a lot of people think of stereo as "all around you" when it's really just occuring on a line between the speakers.

    On the other hand (and getting off topic) it seems like you should be able to simulates everything human's can hear just with two speakers, one for each ear. After all, sound comes in two sources, seems like it should only need to be generated from two sources. Of course, clever phase shifting (like you mentioned earlier) would need to be used, I would think.
  • "Probably one of the best applications is the laptop or desktop computer," Uchino says. "The entire display screen could be a speaker surface. ... If this is successfully made, the market is really huge."

    Cool. Maybe some real 3d sound is coming up. Characters talk on the screen, and the sound comes from that point on the screen.
    ___

  • Doh! You are, of course, correct. I should have said real positional audio. I think they have this for some IMAX/OmniMAX screens.

    Of course, those have huge speakers actually hanging behind the screen.
    ___

  • You can get Electrostats to have good bass, they just have to be large! I recall one company that produced an Electrostatic Woofer in the late 80's (might have been Audio-Labs). I have no idea if they sold any, but the reviews were fairly decent. I suspect it was more an engineering stunt, than an actual product (they were very expensive, and hard to position).

    I have heard full range electrostatics that can satisfy all but the most bass loving rocker. The Accoustat model 6, while not as good as the newer Quads or older KLH 9 in the traditional electrostat areas (midrange, transparenecy), had very good bass.

  • I kind of like Canadian speakers myself, Paradigm, etc.
  • The sound quality aspect of these speakers is conspicuously missing from the article. Must not have much bass. "Singing" greeting cards use this technology, and we all know how good they sound!

    ----------------------
  • As long as I can roll it up and stuff it in my ear. No cords to accidentally pull out or cut with scissors (my spouse did that once...)

  • See Through?
    What if I lose it. What if I place it in a white room, with white walls, white carpet and bright florescent lights.

    HOW AM I GONNA FIND IT!

    on a side note, if they can make subwoofers out of this I might just buy a Volkswagaon.

  • augementing their garish displays with short bursts of sound
    Patent it!? You should fry in hell for that idea!
  • I wasn't speaking about the patent aspect. It's the, "my city isn't noisy enough with all the boom cars, crying babies, barking dogs, screaming kids, honking horns, and arguing drunks" part that I didn't like (well, some of the dogs are mine). Whether or not it's patented, it's a purely evil idea.

    (This may be the only forum in the world in which someone might say, "Now that I've finished testing it on orphans and puppies, I've just patented my airborne plague capable of killing all animal and plant life on land and sea", and get the response, "You fiend! You should open source that plague!")

    However, I suppose I should have put in a smiley or something. I didn't really think you were terribly serious, and I wasn't really serious in my response, either.

    Please feel free to burn in hell or not, as you see fit. :)

  • Oh, yeah -- I hadn't seen that. I usually read at +1.

    Well, I suppose we're OK then. See you in the funny papers!

  • The technology's a bit different than what's mentioned in the article, but boy - those Martin Logan's sound nice. And I like the big impressive-looking sub-woofer cabinets that go with them. Small (like the Bose cubes) is cool, but big and impressive gets the chicks.

    phil

  • Clothes made out of this... Strippers could play their own music! Of course, the first to take advantage of any technological advance is always, y'know, the ARTS!

    --

  • Think about this for a minute. The basic design of speakers as a sound producing device has remain unchanged since it was invented nearly 100 years ago. The flat piezo screens are really no different: a big flat sheets of [whatever] vibrates to produce sound.
    What's wrong with that you say? Well first of all, as some people have already pointed out, the smaller they get the worse the sound is. Small speakers just can't produce the same bass that our ears can hear. And no matter what you make them out of it will always be that way if you use the standard old vibrating film design. Period.
    What we need is a REAL revolutionary design change in the loudspeaker. A speaker with no moving parts. A speaker that simply vibrates the air without having to vibrate some part of it's anatomy at the same time.
    I'm no engineer, but a mass of ionized air could easily be vibrated by use of electro-magnets without any direct physical contact. Since there is no direct physical manipulation of the air with a solid object, all the limitations of size and sound can be eliminated. Also, why do cheap speakers sound bad? It's bacause of the cheap materials used to vibrate the air. With no materials used to vibrate the air (only electricity) sound quality can be greatly improved as well.

    Any electrical/sound engineers care to comment? I give you my invitation to steal my IP as long as I get the first samples! :)
  • speaker in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

    Seriously though, I can see a bigger market in the home theatre market rather than in the laptop computer market. Really, when is the last time a laptop user has complained about the huge speakers on his/her laptop that are taking up valuable space and weigh a ton?

  • I own a Sony Vaio. Less than 3 lbs, and under an inch thick but the DVD Rom and 3.5" floppy are peripheral. The speakers are the least of the manufacturer's worries.

  • First line in the article: Researchers at a South Korean laboratory think they have come up with a breakthrough
    Note the word "think". Translation: vaporware. I'll believe it when I'm pinning one to the wall.

    "// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"

  • A while back, 1994, I saw a demo of 'speaker tape'(aka Microstructured Elastomeric Electromagnetic Film Transducer). Same idea as the above, but not for sound. The plan was to reduce vibrations in things like airplane wings during take-off. It was supposed to save 30% of the fuel used during take-off.

    They too originally thought it would work for speakers, but found the sound sucked.

    It seems that technology maybe in a loop.

  • What about another use for something like that? "What else can a huge, invisible speaker be used for?" I hear you say. Why, I do believe it would make an excellent microphone.

    Careful what you say....

  • We might imagine that this speaker technology would be combined with Organic LED's [slashdot.org] to produce thin, inexpensive multimedia displays. The linked article [techreview.com] says that it's possible that the organic LED displays can be made to rollup, as well. Now, we have a high definition, inexpensive, portable display with light, color, and sound that we can unroll and place on a wall anywhere, anytime.

    Discuss.

    Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
  • These may be fine for covering the middle to high end of the audible range, but to create bass sounds, you need to move lots of air. These speakers won't be able to do that. I also think that "roll-up" speakers will have irregularities in the sound-generating surface that will distort the sound. So, it's a cool idea, but only for very low-end audio.

  • Plastic? I wanna make music with FIRE! (Score:3)

    by dbowden ( 249149 ) on Thursday April 19, 2001 @12:27PM (#278855)
    I don't think these are all that new - there have been flat panel speakers around for years. The only thing I see diffrent about these is that they don't require the supporting framework that the current ones require.

    For something really cool, sometimes you have to look at older technology, like the plasma speakers [aol.com] described here.

    The idea is that the shape/size of a flame can be influenced by a high voltage signal, and the resulting changes in the flame are broadcast as a high fidelity sound. Here's a quote from the above site

    "It is really simple. It is a modulated RF power amp with a controlled ionic discharge. By modulating the oscillator with the audio signal the flame size changed and so the air pressure changed also . You hear the sound directly through the air without modulating a diaphragm. So there are no moving parts, no distortion and none of the problems other tweeters have."
    There's not much bass to these, but boy are they cool looking!

    And, as an added bonus, you get to play with nifty Tesla coil technology.

    These are true Geek Speakers.

  • Martin Logan [martinlogan.com] has been producing electrostatic speakers that are made with a transparent mylar film for decades. A thin layer of conductive material is deposited on the film. The film is attached to a frame and wires run along the side of the film to carry the signal. A high frequency static field is generated on either side of the panel, which, obviously, creates vibration when voltage is applied.

    Also, Quad produced an electrostatic loudspeaker in the late 50's, which, I believe, is still made, in some form, today.



  • Some companies stretch the film over different-sized frames to create panels that generate different ranges of frequency. The Martin Logan CLS has three different regions on the panel.

  • Magnepans don't necessarily require more power than other speakers, assuming similar efficiency, but require an amplifier who's outputs work well with an extremely capacitive load. Magnepans sound like they're made of oatmeal when powered by your typical Japanese receiver.

  • I gotta disagree and say the UK for best speakers. B&W Nautilus series, anyone?

  • I found their highs a little tinny. Overall, though, still a kickass speaker and better than anything Korea could put out. And thanks for adding support to my argument.

  • Intelligent argument, especially since I only stated an opinion. Lighten up, bitch.

  • John Lennon late in his career had an inventor he called "Magic Alex" he threw money at. Among such ideas such as flying saucers, anti-grav devices, and a sixteen track sixteen speaker stero, Lennon asked "Magic Alex" to try to build something he called loudpaper.

    Loudpaper was supposed to be a wallpaper that you could jack your stero into, turing a whole wall into a speaker. Sounds like John's smiling down on this one.

    This has been another useless post from....
  • I imagine the paper phone people are looking into this seriously though. One of the problems with the phones is that the microphone/speaker is sold seperately and currently costs $20. They can probably get it down to $5, but you still have to buy it seperately. Or they bundle it with the phone, the cost being passed down to the consumer.

    Piezoelectric elements can be not only speakers but microphones... actually, due to the Heisenberg principle, ANY speaker can also be a microphone (and any LED a light sensor, etc. It breaks down for some of todays components, like electrolytic capacitors or almost anything involving semiconductor technology)... so they could print the entire phone on paper... Now if only they could print my monitor on rice paper as well... <G>

    I found the research lab's website here [kist.re.kr], but couldn't find anything about this technology... anyone else find it?

  • Using transparent speakers is a backward aproach. Better to use acousticly transparent projection screen, and place your choice of speakers behind it. This product is available now. Don't remember manufacture, but I believe that it showed up in Auido Visual Interiors issue that featured Fabio's system.
  • Don't Martin Logans [martinlogan.com] already have something similar working? They have a thin clear film which the current runs through, but it is protected by a grill.
    BTW they sound great.

  • Paper thin material that is good for base rumbling. I see the condom industry latching on to this one.

  • I've seen a whole pile of posts and people thinking that you can "wallpaper" your room or put it on your screen. Think for a second about how sound is made from speakers [howstuffworks.com] (or anything for that matter): by vibrations. If things vibrate, it means that they cannot be attached directly to anything except at the edges. You cannot "wallpaper" your room because all of the vibrations would be absorbed by the wall. You could however hang a sheet of this slightly away from the wall, thus giving it room to vibrate. The same thing would happen with a TV screen or your computer monitor. I don't know about you, but the thought of the glass of my screen vibrating at 12,000+ Hz as someone hits the high notes doesn't sound like a very bright idea.

    Also, I have here with me a set of Monsoon MM1000s, which are flat panel speakers. Compared to my ($1400, not the best but good IMHO) stereo system at home they sound like crap, however I'm currently in France and I wasn't going to bring my huge towers with me. The flat panels are great for portibility, and considering their size they're really good sounding too. The problem is that you still need an amp for all of this, and the flat panels cannot produce low notes very well at all, so you'll also need a subwoofer.

    In any case, speaking as a pseudo-audiophile, in my experience real speakers are still FAR ahead in the game when it comes to raw sound quality. If you want something easy to hook up to your TV or computer to play quake or listen to MP3s, then you can get by on something like this. However if you want quality then you still have to use conventional speakers, and I can't see that changing any time soon, but then again, what do I know [howstuffworks.com]?


    I saw 21 U.S.Marines, in full dress, with rifles, fire a gun salute to the outgoing president, and every last one of them missed!
  • This is no technological breakthrough. I worked with a stereo manufacturer in the mid-1970s that manufactured thin film speakers. The speakers were a thin film of mylar with a metal surface that was applied by vapor deposition. They got the technology from NASA, as part of the FedGov's technology transfer program. The speakers had good bass response too. The manufacturer went out of business, but I know a couple of public places that still have the speakers installed and working, 20+ years later. The best thing about these speakers was that you could make a speaker 6 feet long and 0.5 inches wide, instead of a point source like a speaker cone that radiates in a spherical pattern, the sound radiated in a cylindrical pattern. Channel separation was excellent, as was spatial accuracy.
    The koreans are making one huge misrepresentation, though. These speakers will never roll up, then unfold and just tack to the wall. You MUST keep the film taut in order to produce optimal sound. If you bend the films, the surface coatings break. And read the article closely. They haven't "invented" any new speaker technology, they've invented a new way to bond the electrodes to the surface. Whoop de doo.

  • great. (Score:5)

    by sllort ( 442574 ) on Thursday April 19, 2001 @12:06PM (#278879) Homepage Journal
    you mean you can make clothes that act as a loudspeaker
    riding the subway is hard enough already!!

    that said, think of the applications for screwing with people if you could make your sweater talk... or a window... or a mirror.... oh my.

    sorry, need to go make devilish plans...

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