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Fujifilm's flexible Beat speaker diaphragm lets us roll up the rhythm
While there's been no shortage of rollable displays, rollable speakers are rare -- the softness needed for a bendy design is the very thing that would usually neuter the sound. Fujifilm's new Beat diaphragm manages to reconcile those seemingly conflicting requirements. The surface depends on a polymer that stays soft when the surface is being curled or folded, but hardens when subjected to the 20Hz to 20kHz audio range we'd expect from a speaker. Piezoelectric ceramics, in turn, provide the sound itself. The Beat system doesn't have any known customers, but Fujifilm has already shown some creative possibilities such as a folding fan speaker or the portable, retractable unit shown above. If we ever see the day when we tuck a set of speakers into our pockets as neatly as we do our phones, we'll know who to thank.
Final Audio Design's Piano Forte earphones promise concert hall sound at bank-breaking prices
Behold Final Audio Design's latest high-end earphones: the Piano Forte X-VII Series. Each of the four models that comprise the series features a large neodymium magnet driver, nestled inside a rigid metal housing made of alloy powder and natural resin, designed to minimize bad vibrations. The driver is a hefty 16 mm in diameter, and boasts roughly three times the surface area of your garden variety earphones, resulting in enhanced low frequency soundscapes. Final Audio Design also added a proprietary pressure ring to each model's diaphragm (to ward off sound artifacts), as well as special pressure vents (to optimize air pressure around the diaphragm). Internal air pressure, on the other hand, is kept in check thanks to the X-VIII Series' metallic earpads, which allegedly allow your ear to naturally adjust to any barometric shifts. Each of the four models comes in a unique metallic housing, reportedly capable of delivering different audio blends. But they all share one important characteristic -- they're really expensive. At the high end of the price spectrum are the X-G and X-CC models, which will put you back some ¥220,000 ($2,668). Bargain hunters, meanwhile, will have to settle for the VIII, priced at a slightly less obscene ¥80,000 ($970). Granted, these earphones may very well warrant that kind of cash and scientific hyperbole, though it's certainly difficult to gauge their value without taking them out for a spin ourselves.
Pioneer debuts new Sound Wing HVT speakers, novel tech touted within
There's a ton of gadgetry that goes into speakers, but the notable thing here is that the Pioneer folks have begun using HVT, or Horizontal-Vertical Transforming technology -- but more on that in sec. This beauty is engineered to reduce unwanted vibration and preserve bass caliber while outputting 100W of sound. Featuring a double diaphragm packaged close together, the Sound Wing gives off omnidirectional sound -- that's 360 degrees of noise. And thanks to HVT, the coils within the speaker have been rearranged to reduce the wasted space in traditional speakers -- though for some reason this particular unit still measures a portly 109mm thick. Seeing that the tech Pioneer has implemented here is novel, we're interested to see how this thing will sound in the real world. You'll find the Sound Wing in Japan for ¥41,000 (about $507) come June.
