Devices View

Design Technica just published Mark Fleischmann’s passionate take on Why High-End Audio Matters. I’m not quite as dogmatic as he is — I’m listening to "background music" off of a Portable Media Center as I write this, and I’m much more likely to be immersed in home theater than two channel audio — but his basic points are well taken: Component audio sales are down while iPod sales are way up. Most consumers today don’t know what high quality audio sounds like. The audio industry is isolationist, hastening its own demise. High end audio is not necessarily high priced (Mark …

Yesterday’s column on Atlantic Technology’s corner sub got me thinking about a beautiful glossy press package I got recently from Sound Advance, makers of completely invisible planar speakers. The idea is that the speaker is mounted in the wall, but the wall surface becomes the speaker – no unsightly grills (see picture). There are definite performance disadvantages to using the transmission line effect (i.e., your entire wall becomes a speaker), along with a more complicated and expensive installation process. But the end result is sound without an obvious source. Is this really necessary? Nearly every in-wall speaker I’ve ever come …

I love it when someone creates a product that invokes WDITOT (Why Didn’t I Think Of That). Atlantic Technology is not the first to create a triangular subwoofer, and they’re not the first to create an unobtrusive subwoofer, and they’re not the first to create a subwoofer that is equalized for a specific spot in the room. But the new $899 10 CSB may be the first to combine all three, by marketing the sub as a solution that is designed to be stuck off in a corner. Corners provide two advantages: they are out of the way, and they’re …