Burger King uses 'musical shower' as latest trick to entice Japanese clientele
By Vlad Savov 
posted July 8th 2010 7:39AM
posted July 8th 2010 7:39AM
posted July 8th 2010 7:39AM
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@toddH
It looks like the Brown Innovations Sound Dome:
http://www.browninnovations.com/sounddomes.html
@LeftyX actually, this is a SoundTube FP6020-II www.soundtube.com
This is nothing new. I saw this 20 years ago (not with an iPod of course)
@winst Me too. they have it in the London Rock and Roll hall of Fame.
The tech may not have been as good, cause I was 9 when i first experienced it back in 1989, but I did run into this technology on the Rock and Roll hall of Fame in London.
When you walk around the place it is pretty quiet, but if you get close enough to an exhibit then you get blasted with load music and someone talking about the artist.. take 2 steps back and total silence.
So if the tech was that good in 1989 I assume it will probably be even better now. Granted I was 9 and at the time; Hero Turtles, Transformers, and GI Joe all looked amazing to me. As many of us know they now look kinda cruddy... so it's possible the tech was not THAT good at the time.
Looks like a great way to leave your mp3 player at the burger king because you forgot to take it off the charger. Thats how they pay for the extra overhead of installing all that, they sell the mp3 players that get left behind on ebay.
only 1??? mind you - if you put than one the place will be a cacophony of The Black Eyed Peas and Muse
@FuturismRave "more than one" i meant
We had these at BK Whopper Bar, Singapore. Problem is they don't support iPhone and the docks fall apart easily.
They had those things at Whole Foods a couple of years ago. They work :)
I'd be afraid of forgetting my phone or iPod. And I most certainly don't want that to end up in the greasy hands of someone else eating at Burger King.
@InternetPolice: kind of like leaving one's iPod in a bar perhaps?
I saw one of these being used as a register caller at B&H Photo Store in NY. I kept trying to listen at the sound outside the target area and indeed there is none!
this is already available in Singapore's Burger King at Ion Orchard since its opening last year. it works pretty alright i must say. too bad it's just for apple players...
I'm not sure if ANYTHING will make me want to eat at Burger King...
On a different note, they have something like this a the Fry's near me, and they work really well. You barely hear it at all until you are directly underneath it.
Only if they would've chosen an Android base device, they would be getting lotta love from the commenters of the engadget.
A lot of Fry's Electronics use these in the DVD/CD section - endcap displays have a monitor playing a selection of five or so discs, and the sound is piped into one of those bowls. Like the guy above says, you don't hear anything until you're about a foot away, and then it sounds fine. They'll need to size them pretty precisely for those booths, but that's the only thing I can think of.
I hardly dine-in at fast food restaurants anyway, so this doesn't interest me much, even though the technology is cool. Now, if there were only a way to enhance the drive-through experience...
Anyone thinking "Get Smart" and the "Cone of Silence"?
When I was in Japan last year, all the fast food places were packed as hell. I don't even know how you could even hold a conversation with so many people around, yet alone listening to music.
there's a local icecream shop in waco, texas that has these.
they work well, but i'm always afraid that the dock is going to mess up my ipwn :(
More iPod corporate synergy stupidity...
That has been in Orange Cup FroYo for a long time now. At least here in Dallas.
1. neat use of 15-20 year old technology.
2. Popular Science covered it decades ago. Inverted half sphere speaker for use initially in loud areas such as convention halls, etc. where the sound only goes straight down, and only those under it can hear what's being played. Forget which company has the patents....
I think this would work better in a more isolated booth.
We've had this at the BK bar in Singapore for a while now.
The greatest thing about that place though, is that you can upsize your drink to a beer.
Weird. I remember seeing these in a otherwise nondescript McDonalds in Moszkva tér, Budapest in 2006...
I've seen these in Norwegian airports as long ago as 2001. They're not particularily great; the audio is distorted quite badly. Also, albeit they are directional, they certainly won't play music within the confines of just one booth.
It's a neat idea, but it doesn't really work as advertised. To be honest, this'd be more of an annoyance than anything else. Every song becomes a shitty remix if there are 30 other songs leaking in...
You can see these domes at www.BrownInnovations.com. They work really well.