Re: Small

[Tom Ritchford <tom@swirly.com>]

Mark Spookylaro wrote:

>The Danelectro post that talks about the small Smoky Amps made me think
>about a new type of speaker that I've heard about that uses very small
>electrostatic drivers and varies the phase of several ultrasonic
>(infrasonic?) frequencies to create a beat (interference) frequency in
>the range of human hearing.  Supposedly, the thing is the size of a CD
>or so, and can produce very large sound levels with very low wattage
>because of its efficiency.  CAN YOU IMAGINE THE IMPLICATIONS?  KEEPING
>YOUR SPEAKER CABINETS IN YOUR GUITAR CASE!

acoustic heterodyning is the name of the technique, I believe...

and the speakers are incredibly small, postage stamp sized.
you could get deafening sound from a quarter-watt speaker,
so I'm told.

However there are several downsides.

The first is that they are extremely directional... you could hear
immense sound, I could hear nothing.  The second is that they haven't
made it out of the lab into speakers yet as they are so new.

        /t