new speaker design

[RWebb]

perfect for that pesky package shelf spot...

Paper your walls with loudspeakers : Nature News

[bell]

sound kinda like electrostats?

[Zeke]

Didn't Yamaha have the precursor to that 25 years ago?

[kach22i]

Sounds like a new type of bending wave loudspeaker.

.................five centimetres square.......................

The wavelength and range of frequency a driver can generate is typically restricted by it's size. Which is why tweeters (high notes) are small and woofers (deep notes) are large.

Not sure how they claim to get around certain laws of physics here.

The copyright on the original article goes back to the year 2000.

Acoustical performance of an electrostrictive polymer film loudspeaker | Browse - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

2000 Acoustical Society of America.

Some diagrams and photos in this PDF link:
http://murphylibrary.uwlax.edu/digital/journals/JASA/JASA2000/pdfs/vol_107/iss_2/833_1.pdf

Little round things, should have known they would not be square.

[sc_rufctr]

VAF SoundWall - Soundwall - Loudspeakers - VAF Research

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

VAF SoundWall - Soundwall - Loudspeakers - VAF Research

VAF’s SoundWall™(Patent) concept comprises three individual module types: a Speaker module, an Acoustic Treatment module, and a Bass module. These can be used in any combination to suit the unique needs of every single room.

No technical details on how these modules operate, so I cannot comment further.

[RWebb]

Nature is a scientific journal, so no idea when a product might emerge.

if I read the article right, the plastic is actually expanding in the planar axes (a sheet of rubber stretching and contracting but being driven by an electrical signal), not vibrating back and forth

[lane912]

have you seen the infinite baffle speakers?
Infinite Baffle Subwoofer
takes a whole other room but very efficient