Team-BHP - Continental develops speaker-free car audio system

This is quite interesting:

"Advances in technology and changes in consumer tastes have caused antennas, eight-tracks, cassette decks and CD players to disappear from their once-familiar places in our cars and trucks.

The next thing to go might be the speakers.

But thumping bass, rich midrange and soaring highs will still be there. They’ll just be coming from the car itself.

Continental, a German auto-components supplier, has developed technology that makes parts of the car’s interior vibrate to create high-fidelity audio on a par with any premium sound system on the road now.

The approach turns the rear window into a subwoofer. The windshield, floor, dashboard and seat frames produce the midrange. And the A-pillars — the posts between the windshield and the doors — become your tweeters, said Dominik Haefele, the leader of the team that developed the technology.

The result is something like an enhanced version of surround sound. “It’s a 3-D immersive sound, and you’re experiencing the music in a very different way,” Mr. Haefele said. “You’re in the sound. You feel it all around you, like you’re adding another dimension to it.”"

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/b...speakers.html?

PS: On a lighter note, wonder how some of our perennial rattle machines would perform with these in place :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by avisidhu (Post 4378802)

The next thing to go might be the speakers.

But thumping bass, rich midrange and soaring highs will still be there. They’ll just be coming from the car itself.

About 2 decades ago a company called NXT developed a flat panel technology for home and car use. Several companies tried using this technology (under license) most notably was Wharfedale with their Loudpanel and KEF with their KIT120.

http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/n...ker-technology

more details here
https://simeoncanada.com/wp-content/uploads/RandI3.pdf

and a discussion group was here
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=70541.0

Several companies tried to take this technology a step further notably Rega with their BMR designs.
http://www.rega.co.uk/rs10.html

Given all of this prior research and development, I doubt that these speakers will do anything that resembles quality hi fi sound. They might however find use in less demanding applications like PA. Armstrong for example has ceiling panels that incorporate NXT technology. https://www.canford.co.uk/ARMSTRONG-...E-LOUDSPEAKERS

NXT technology changed hands a few time and was last bought (in 2013) by Tectonic Labs. http://www.tectonicaudiolabs.com/

In the UK this same technology is sold by Feonic.
http://www.feonic.com/flat-panel-speakers

Glass speakers are also not new. A remember a company called GlasPlatz doing this around 2004-5. The technology was licensed to Turtle Beach for PC speakers and then disappeared.

The challenge is that midrange and higher frequencies are very difficult to reproduce accurately even with modern materials (diamond, ceramic, doped paper, metal alloys, etc.). About a decade or so ago Sigfried Linkwitz conducted some tests on some well known and respected midrange drivers.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/mid_dist.htm

You can see how much harmonic distortion even these well respected drivers have and these drivers have evolved over decades of research and listening tests. The SEAS 18WE0001 that Sigfried found having the best has been used in several speaker systems including by yours truly. :) (another example is linked here) http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/TJL3W.htm

Bass however is another matter. Bass Shakers have been around since the mid 70s. I remember several companies making these devices which in effect were a magnet and coil and then a way to attach this to your car seat and produce vibrations giving an impression of bass. Many early Home Theater installers stuffed these into the seats to augment the existing bass of their home theater systems. I too installed 4 of them under the seat of my 1995 Zen. The use was very, very, limited at best.

See links below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3R3mk09Gks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2e2-pzz4cU

http://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com...s-shaker-each/

http://loudspeakerfreaks.com/Product...roduct_ID=6004

Quote:

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR (Post 4378914)

Honda already had something similar in their 2017 Ridgeline....

A transducer (that is a generic term for all loudspeaker drivers) typically has to cover a range of frequencies with equal energy.

Most stiff materials aka glass and metals have a strong resonant frequency and not much energy outside that frequency of resonance. To get them to produce sound over a wider frequency range is a real challenge. I have my doubts that any QUALITY sound can be achieved using car body parts.

The video of the Ridgeline may not do justice to the sound but from what i heard it was pretty poor. Understandably too. That panel has to flex and move and do so in a controlled manner.

OT: Panel speakers have been around for about 5 decades. The most famous brands are:
https://www.martinlogan.com/
http://www.magnepan.com/

The precursor to both these brands is a speaker called the KLH Model 9. It came out around 1966-67. Here is a review of the same from 1968.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/...h-october-1968 and I can go completely OT by discussing Henry Kloss (the driving force in KLH) and all his work (AR, Advent, Cambridge etc..).

Oh man, I just realized all this dates me as a pretty old guy! lol: