Hypersound Glass Speakers: Directional Sound Using Transparent Glass

[Megalith]

The fact that these speakers are basically panes of glass is interesting in itself, but they also focus sound so those who are off axis won’t be bothered by whatever you’re listening to. People seem to be skeptical of how it does the latter, but here’s a vid so you can decide.

The exact means the Glass uses to generate a tight beam of sound isn’t specifically disclosed, but according to the company, the glass is layered with transparent films. Like other highly directional speakers, what’s being generated isn’t audible sound waves but rather ultrasonic waves. Based on other products of this nature, it’s safe to guess that as those ultrasound waves pass through the glass/film sandwich they’re modulated in such a way that they become audible again while traveling in a straight line, though the details on specific improvements will likely remain trade secrets. Acoustics is, to put it mildly, a bizarre science.

 

[ShamisOMally]

Old tech, new implementation

Vibration sequence speakers have been around for forever, hell there's that whatever its called, the Rock-It thing that everyone jumped on for all of two years till they saw while loud, sound was not particularly good

Great for sticking on an empty beer cooler though for some loud tunes

 

[WheresWaldo]

Like ShamisOMally says, there is nothing new here, even the implementation is not exactly new. Why does no one remember Magnepan. I am surprised they didn't mention 3D technology too then give it a name that starts with a lower case i.

 

[Galvin]

Be nice if my speakers did this. I could watch a movie at night in DTS and have the window open and not disturb my neighbors.
I'd pay extra for this. But big glass speakers is too much for me. Make small direction cube speakers 4x4 inches and i'd be sold.

 

[ShamisOMally]

Like ShamisOMally says, there is nothing new here, even the implementation is not exactly new. Why does no one remember Magnepan. I am surprised they didn't mention 3D technology too then give it a name that starts with a lower case i.

Yeah Monsoon for ages did vibration sequence speakers

This just uses glass instead of flat metal

That said, glass is actually a terrible material to use as a speaker because glass is a natural insulator of sound

 

[ShamisOMally]

Sorry, monsoon did electrostatic, but same design in principal

A resonating magnet/motor/inductance field creates vibration and then transfers that vibration to something else

Said result causes the object to hum in its resonance, thus create sound

 

[Nenu]

Old tech, new implementation

Vibration sequence speakers have been around for forever, hell there's that whatever its called, the Rock-It thing that everyone jumped on for all of two years till they saw while loud, sound was not particularly good

Great for sticking on an empty beer cooler though for some loud tunes

Its nothing like the same.
Did you even read it?

 

[PhotoBobBarker]

Sorry, monsoon did electrostatic, but same design in principal

Monsoon did not do electrostatic, they did planar magnetic. Same as Magnepan uses (and some of the old Infinity's).

That said, glass is actually a terrible material to use as a speaker because glass is a natural insulator of sound

If you read the article this actually operates in the ultrasonic region and those waves combine to create directional sound. The reason they use glass is it's high sound propagation rate. I doubt this would work with something like aluminum or steel.

 

[B00nie]

Like ShamisOMally says, there is nothing new here, even the implementation is not exactly new. Why does no one remember Magnepan. I am surprised they didn't mention 3D technology too then give it a name that starts with a lower case i.

This technology has nothing to do with regular panel speakers like magnepan. It's a derivative of the technologies developed for the military. The speakers emit ultrasonic sound waves which are extremely beaming and you wouldn't normally be able to hear anything when they're playing.

They then modulate the ultrasonic waves so that it forms audible modulations which you can hear. The end result is an extremely directional speaker, way more directional than is achievable by using regular frequencies.

 

[AceGoober]

Why wasn't the box between the speakers on?

If it were a functional part of the set I would imagine there would be something displaying on the, what seems to be, LCD or even as simple as a power indicator.

 

[krotch]

I had a set of flat speakers back in like 2002. They sucked. I don't care what they do, they have a huge hurdle of a stigma to overcome. Odds are low that I will ever waste my time on these.

 

[Merc1138]

I had a set of flat speakers back in like 2002. They sucked. I don't care what they do, they have a huge hurdle of a stigma to overcome. Odds are low that I will ever waste my time on these.

There are some nice "flat" speakers out there, the martin logans come to mind but... they're also electrostatic speakers that are planted on top of individual subwoofers so the overall footprint is still huge because they need a decent frequency response. In commercial applications the audio quality isn't that much of a big deal but I question their examples. A laptop display as a directional speaker so I can have privacy? How about... headphones? An ATM screen makes a little more sense, but would manufacturers really be willing to implement things compared to a $1 speaker behind a grill since it's not like they're really that cramped for space? And while their demo video seems to indicate that the speakers are capable of at least some sort of bass, it's a video of a demo for an audio product(not really even that yet apparently), not exactly trustworthy.

 

[B00nie]

I had a set of flat speakers back in like 2002. They sucked. I don't care what they do, they have a huge hurdle of a stigma to overcome. Odds are low that I will ever waste my time on these.

Which panels did you have? Because panels generally have way superior sound compared to boxed speakers

 

[krotch]

I have no idea what the panels even were. They were some cheap like $75 2.1 audio set. I don't even remember what brand. They weren't like decent house speakers, but cheap computer speakers. There were like 3-4 cheap manufacturers making them for computers. All were pretty much horrible. The days before ppl were spamming out review threads on the internet for things. I never saw those kind of speakers again after that.