Woman-size speakers make a big, room-filling sound
(Credit: Ferguson Hill)Heard, but hardly seen speakers aren't new.
There's a number of glass and clear plastic speakers on the market, but these fetching British models are something else again. People seem to want speakers and audio gear that "disappears" and still sound great. Ferguson Hill makes a full line of see-through designs, and from the looks of it the FH001 just might be a real contender.
It's a "horn" speaker made of clear acrylic, and its ultrahigh efficiency design allows it to play nice and loud with as little as 3 to 50 watts. So there's no need to use the FH001 with power hungry amplifiers! Horn speakers are easily the "greenest" of speaker types, and work well with even the smallest, most power-efficient amplifiers. I first heard about Ferguson Hill on the Ultimate AV Web site.
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(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)Listening comes naturally, doesn't it? Well sure, everyone with normal hearing can listen, but what do they hear? What I'm talking about is listening as a focused activity--as opposed listening where music serves as background to something else, reading, driving, running, working, or washing the dishes--active listening can be a lot more rewarding. You hear stuff in your favorite music, maybe rhythm guitar patterns, overdubbed vocals, or instruments you never knew were there can suddenly jump out of the mix. It's stuff the band may have put a huge effort into perfecting, that you only notice when you're really listening.
Bass drums and bass guitars can easily get lost when you're distracted, but they provide the very foundation of dance music and rock & roll. Paul McCartney's bass playing with the Beatles was amazing, and if you're really listening you'll hear every note. On acoustic jazz recordings you should be able to hear every pluck and slide.
Stereo imaging--the placement of instruments and vocals from left to right can be fascinating. Imaging is especially cool over headphones where it's all in your head. With speakers you can sometimes hear a sense of "space" surrounding each instrument. There might be spatial depth so some instruments sound like they're in front of other instruments. Over really good speakers you can almost "see" the musicians in front of the speakers.
The word "transparent" plays a key role in the audiophile lexicon and refers to the ability of components and speakers to disappear so you feel like you're hearing the original sound of the recording session. Of course, that's not literally true--transparency is a matter of degree. When everything's just right the heightened clarity lets you feel like you're getting closer to the true sound, and well, you feel closer to the music.
Just listening for these qualities will make you a better, more aware listener. One thing's for sure, the more you listen, the more you'll hear. And most importantly, you'll get more out of the music.
(Credit:
MoMA)
If simplicity creates good design, this is a perfect example. With so many MP3 speakers on the market, it's almost impossible to stand out. But this system from MoMA has managed to do just that, not by adding bells and whistles but by reducing its appearance.
The "Soundsticks II," as you can plainly see, has a transparent casing that lets you inspect its innards while enjoying "high-quality stereo sound for music, MP3s, movies, and games." Uber-Review says the bases of the speakers are easy to adjust, which is a good thing because you wouldn't want them to fall over and crack (no way to hide the damage).
(Credit:
Tokyomango)
We hadn't realized that the Age of Transparency had made its way into the kitchen, but apparently it has in Japan. On prominent display at the National Electronics' Invention Station in Tokyo were a refrigerator, a washing machine and an air conditioner all with completely transparent casings, according to Gizmodo.
It's interesting to note that, while the trend in many domestic products seems to be leaning toward the neon, these Japanese appliances have gone the opposite route altogether with no color at all. That would be OK with us in theory, but we wouldn't want to subject the contents of our fridge--much less our washing machine--to mixed company.
As new iPod cases are churned out all the time, everyone is trying to outdo each other with increasingly gaudy designs. But iPodMods, as Uncrate points out, is clearly going in the opposite direction.
Taking a cue from classic skeleton watch designs, iPodMods' iVue Crystal Case shows off the beauty of the media player's internal mechanics--exhibiting an unabashed appreciation for the true geek asthetic. Sometimes, less is indeed more.
(Photo: iLounge)
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