Unusual Speaker Designs

[tuga]

Artistic Audio Mobius

 

[andreasmaaan]

Did youse guyses already cover Stig Carlsson's loudspeakers?
He is probably best known for loudspeakers he designed for Sonab, but his designs were sold under several brand names including (I think) his own.

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I've listened to some of the better Sonabs (way back when) and thought they sounded quite good, actually.

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Looks like ol' Stig's groovin' to tunes via a Fisher FM-1000 tuner! Whoo-hoo!

At first glance I thought it was a bunch of drivers left sitting randomly on a table.

 

[Wes]

We know that visual stimuli affect perceptions of sound and sound quality - so if a speaker is sufficiently weird (or frightening - like some Wilsons) then that is bad choice.

Unless you have some you trot out just for horror movie soundtracks...

 

[AthanasiosL]

Tune audio avaton

Arcadian audio

 

[pavuol]

Don't know if that unusual, but not common either:
Ante Supersonic One - price 160 000 €/pair, design inspired by Lamborghini Countach. These were at a local highend show, which I didn't attend.

 

[tuga]

The Sonus Faber Fenice with it's rotatable ambience piggyback-speaker and environment/soundstage controls:

 

[gr-e]

JBL S109 (Aquarius IV)

JBL S119

 

[Dogen]

I don’t get it...these time-aligned speakers are really only aligned if the listener is at one specific location from the speakers, right? How likely is that?

 

[bluefuzz]

I have a bit of soft spot for these Pod speakers. No idea what they sound like but they're rather cute ...

 

[peanuts]

facepalm speaker with sidemounted dipole (!) Gradient Helsinki

 

[HammerSandwich]

Stereophile reviews of 2 unusual acoustic approaches from the 1980s: the AR MGC-1 Magic Speaker & DBX Soundfield 1A.

(Boston sure had a bunch of creative speaker designers back in the day!)

 

[pozz]

I have a bit of soft spot for these Pod speakers. No idea what they sound like but they're rather cute ...

Those are the speakers produced in the collaboration of Blue Room Released (a progressive house label) and B&W. You know, the ones that were in the Friends series:

Original website: https://futureshapeofsound.com/

 

[mhardy6647]

Stereophile reviews of 2 unusual acoustic approaches from the 1980s: the AR MGC-1 Magic Speaker & DBX Soundfield 1A.

(Boston sure had a bunch of creative speaker designers back in the day!)

Yeah, they did -- more Cambridge than Boston per se, though...
(ahem -- MIT -- ahem)

... which was followed, of course, by...

... and Villchur et al. had some interesting ideas over the years

... as did their buddies (?) up in Newburyport.

Mr. Kloss even got in on the AR-LST-wannabe act, at one point, on his own...

 

[MattHooper]

Every time I see an unusual speaker design I feel "Damn, I'd love to hear what that thing sounds like!"

Even if the sound is idiosyncratic, it's fun to check them out. That's one reason why I enjoy audio shows; I see a zany looking speaker and get to experience how it sounds.

At the last Toronto audio show there was a wild looking pair of speakers, using I think a lowther driver but surounded by this huge plastic half-bowl lens that focused the sound toward the listener. Frequency limitations made it useless for anything needing substantial bass, but within it's frequency response it could do some damned impressive things. They produced probably the most believable sensation of listening to a solo acoustic guitar that I've ever heard. With eyes closed, the sense of life-like clarity and in particular the solidity of the guitar, like a solid object vibrating the air in front of me rather than the usual phantom image, was quite amazing. Fun as hell to experience.

 

[Rick Sykora]

From the designer of the Nautilus, figured the Vivid Audio Giya deserves recognition...

 

[williamwally]

Duevel Planets are interesting:

Martin

I have these, probably my first set of 'serious' speakers. I'd send them in but I need to replace at least the woofers, maybe both drivers as they are 12 years old and have been through many moves and also tipped a handful of times by kids...woofers falling out is a feature right?

 

[Hugo9000]

Vivid Audio 'Concept Laa-Laa' (prototype for Giya?):

 

[pozz]

Vivid Audio 'Concept Laa-Laa' (prototype for Giya?):

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+1

 

[Audiotone]

There were bigger ones. The Reference Monitors and this:

Similar to what I built way back when.

You call that a knive?

 

[mongobot]

The B&W Emphasis looks pretty tame compared to some of the previous entries