Sountina NSA-PF1: Sony's high-end speaker?
Sony's glass tube speaker projects a 360 degree soundfield!
(Credit: Sony)Sony's making high-end speakers?
It's kind of like hearing master chef Mario Batali is concocting a $25 Quarter Pounder for McDonalds. It's just that I associate Sony speakers with the sort I hear in home-theater-in-a-box systems. You know, little plastic boxes with low-tech drivers. Those speakers can be decent enough, but they're light years away from bona-fide high-end audio devices.
Well, the Sountina NSA-PF1 doesn't look like anything I've seen from Sony, or any other speaker manufacturer. Exact design details are sketchy, other than to claim the speaker uses "Four columns linking these parts contain oscillators to vibrate the organic glass tube." OK, sure.
It's a stereo speaker; one Sountina NSA-PF1 can produce stereo sound. Cool. Thing is, while the Sountina NSA-PF1 is available in Japan, Europe, Russia, Taiwan, Brazil, Panama, and Chile, it's not for sale here in the U.S.A. I can only wonder why.
Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to magazines and Web sites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
NO, IT'S NOT A STEREO SPEAKER. It's an omnidirectional MONO speaker, with cone-style midrange and woofer. The glass tube is a tweeter. The tweeter drivers are those four columns it's monted one; the wire in the center is purely decorative. My guess the drivers are piezo, and they drive with 90 degrees phase shift.
- by DaveOCP May 29, 2009 5:31 PM PDT
- I have no idea why anyone would buy this, when there are MUCH better omni-radiators available. Mirage has several affordable models, and at the higher end you have Duevel and Bolzano Villetri, and MBL and German Physiks at the ultra high-end. All of these companies know a hell of a lot more than Sony about designing real speakers.
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