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unusual speakers
Hi, many years ago I remember being impressed by some speakers that looked a
bit like footballs. The ones I saw were made by Toshiba as I recall, but were out of my price range. They had literally speakers mounted in a multi sided solid a bit like a dodecahedron, and covered up with some kind of foam. You could hang them from the ceiling or on a stand. Very heavy for their size. The mounting was die cast. With a bass bin they actually sounded very nice. You do not see this sort of thing any more,, so I'd imagine they had a strange impedance. It was interesting as they seemed to not have any tweeters or anything and one would have thought the reflected sound would have mucked up the stereo, but at least in the couple of demos I attended this was not true. Another strange speaker I recall from long ago was just a gimmick I think, as it had a definite smell and a crackling kind of sound. It was a plasma modulated with audio. Weird. Completely impractical of course. As I'm talking about silly gimmicks, I used to have one of those VW minibus record players. You stood it on the lp and it played it as it followed the groove. Very bad audio and it could not get more than about a third of the way to the middle before it got confused. Talk about wow and flutter... Brian -- Brian Gaff - Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff' in the display name may be lost. Blind user, so no pictures please! |
unusual speakers
Brian Gaff wrote:
Hi, many years ago I remember being impressed by some speakers that looked a bit like footballs. The ones I saw were made by Toshiba as I recall, but were out of my price range. They had literally speakers mounted in a multi sided solid a bit like a dodecahedron, and covered up with some kind of foam. You could hang them from the ceiling or on a stand. Very heavy for their size. The mounting was die cast. With a bass bin they actually sounded very nice. You do not see this sort of thing any more,, so I'd imagine they had a strange impedance. It was interesting as they seemed to not have any tweeters or anything and one would have thought the reflected sound would have mucked up the stereo, but at least in the couple of demos I attended this was not true. It wouldn't necessarily have a strange impedance. With 12 8ohm drivers you could get 6ohm overall by connecting them in series-parallel. And it would work just as well as a Bose 901. Another strange speaker I recall from long ago was just a gimmick I think, as it had a definite smell and a crackling kind of sound. It was a plasma modulated with audio. Weird. Completely impractical of course. Gimmick? Impractical? Bugger the ozone layer, I want a pair of plasma tweeters. -- Eiron. |
unusual speakers
Brian Gaff wrote:
Hi, many years ago I remember being impressed by some speakers that looked a bit like footballs. The ones I saw were made by Toshiba as I recall, but were out of my price range. They had literally speakers mounted in a multi sided solid a bit like a dodecahedron, and covered up with some kind of foam. You could hang them from the ceiling or on a stand. Very heavy for their size. The mounting was die cast. You can get suspended ball speakers for public address use. Could be adapted for non-suspended use. searches ebay Oooh look http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Technics-Rare-...mZ140298747032 (no connection with the seller) Owain |
unusual speakers
"Brian Gaff" wrote in message om... Hi, many years ago I remember being impressed by some speakers that looked a bit like footballs. The ones I saw were made by Toshiba as I recall, but were out of my price range. They had literally speakers mounted in a multi sided solid a bit like a dodecahedron, and covered up with some kind of foam. You could hang them from the ceiling or on a stand. Very heavy for their size. The mounting was die cast. With a bass bin they actually sounded very nice. You do not see this sort of thing any more,, so I'd imagine they had a strange impedance. It was interesting as they seemed to not have any tweeters or anything and one would have thought the reflected sound would have mucked up the stereo, but at least in the couple of demos I attended this was not true. Another strange speaker I recall from long ago was just a gimmick I think, as it had a definite smell and a crackling kind of sound. It was a plasma modulated with audio. Weird. Completely impractical of course. As I'm talking about silly gimmicks, I used to have one of those VW minibus record players. You stood it on the lp and it played it as it followed the groove. Very bad audio and it could not get more than about a third of the way to the middle before it got confused. Talk about wow and flutter... Brian -- Brian Gaff - Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff' in the display name may be lost. Blind user, so no pictures please! Lorentz developed for German Radio an omni-directional loudspeaker that was triangular in plan, with a woofer on each wall, and surmounted by a ball with a number of tweeters (16 I think) so that it provided close to omni-directional coverage. In the days before stereo, it was supposed to be excellent. As to the plasma driver, this was no gimmick. Fane made a product called the Ionofane, which was an excellent tweeter with a full 2.5k - 30kHz bandwidth, tiny amounts of distortion, and a good output level. It worked by modulating a 27MHz plasma, and coupling this to a horn. Unfortunately, it released a fair amount of ozone, but audio-wise it was superb albeit at a very high price. It was over £29 in 1970 when a conventional tweeter, like the KEF T27, was £5. S. -- http://audiopages.googlepages.com |
unusual speakers
Serge Auckland wrote:
As to the plasma driver, this was no gimmick. Fane made a product called the Ionofane, which was an excellent tweeter with a full 2.5k - 30kHz bandwidth, tiny amounts of distortion, and a good output level. It worked by modulating a 27MHz plasma, and coupling this to a horn. Unfortunately, it released a fair amount of ozone, but audio-wise it was superb albeit at a very high price. It was over £29 in 1970 when a conventional tweeter, like the KEF T27, was £5. Cool-ish. I just about remember these on some programme like "Tomorrow's World" when I was very young. I wouldn't want one (or two) in my living room, though; ozone smells *horrible*. I remember when I was a teenager, my mate and I would salvage transformers from old valve 'scopes, and wire them in reverse, putting 10V or more into a 6.3V winding, and making fat, furry, orange noisy sparks at the EHT outputs, and then stretching the sparks. Fun, but it *mang*. So do some laser printers. Martin |
unusual speakers
On Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:13:44 +0000, Fleetie
wrote: Serge Auckland wrote: As to the plasma driver, this was no gimmick. Fane made a product called the Ionofane, which was an excellent tweeter with a full 2.5k - 30kHz bandwidth, tiny amounts of distortion, and a good output level. It worked by modulating a 27MHz plasma, and coupling this to a horn. Unfortunately, it released a fair amount of ozone, but audio-wise it was superb albeit at a very high price. It was over £29 in 1970 when a conventional tweeter, like the KEF T27, was £5. Cool-ish. I just about remember these on some programme like "Tomorrow's World" when I was very young. I wouldn't want one (or two) in my living room, though; ozone smells *horrible*. I remember when I was a teenager, my mate and I would salvage transformers from old valve 'scopes, and wire them in reverse, putting 10V or more into a 6.3V winding, and making fat, furry, orange noisy sparks at the EHT outputs, and then stretching the sparks. Fun, but it *mang*. So do some laser printers. Martin Bloody hell, I've learned two new things on one post! I always thought that minging was a gerund without an original verb, but now I know not only the verb, but its past participle as well. Brilliant d |
unusual speakers
Don Pearce wrote:
the sparks. Fun, but it *mang*. So do some laser printers. Martin Bloody hell, I've learned two new things on one post! I always thought that minging was a gerund without an original verb, but now I know not only the verb, but its past participle as well. Brilliant Well, "mang" as above would be the *imperfect* form, but "past participle" usually refers to the *perfect* tense, which does not appear above; so shall we have "mung" or still just "mang" for the perfect tense? You ming You mang You have mung / mang ? Or just plain old "minged"? Martin :-) |
unusual speakers
On Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:32:52 +0000, Fleetie
wrote: Don Pearce wrote: the sparks. Fun, but it *mang*. So do some laser printers. Martin Bloody hell, I've learned two new things on one post! I always thought that minging was a gerund without an original verb, but now I know not only the verb, but its past participle as well. Brilliant Well, "mang" as above would be the *imperfect* form, but "past participle" usually refers to the *perfect* tense, which does not appear above; so shall we have "mung" or still just "mang" for the perfect tense? You ming You mang You have mung / mang ? Or just plain old "minged"? You are going to let me start that with Thou mingest. d |
unusual speakers
So what is next then, shall we talk abut ribbon speakers now?
Brian -- Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email. graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them Email: __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________ Don Pearce wrote in message news:49899361.31801046@localhost... On Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:32:52 +0000, Fleetie wrote: Don Pearce wrote: the sparks. Fun, but it *mang*. So do some laser printers. Martin Bloody hell, I've learned two new things on one post! I always thought that minging was a gerund without an original verb, but now I know not only the verb, but its past participle as well. Brilliant Well, "mang" as above would be the *imperfect* form, but "past participle" usually refers to the *perfect* tense, which does not appear above; so shall we have "mung" or still just "mang" for the perfect tense? You ming You mang You have mung / mang ? Or just plain old "minged"? You are going to let me start that with Thou mingest. d |
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