By David Ponce
We’d have to try this out before even thinking about taking our plastic out, but the premise is interesting: SolidDrive promises to turn any large surface that you slap its SD drives onto into a full-fledged speaker. So, you could turn your fridge, your patio door or even you cat’s litter into a speaker, while allegedly retaining “high-quality, full-range sound […] with a frequency response of 70 Hz to 15 kHz.” It does this by using “high-powered neodymium magnets and dual symmetrically opposed motors to convert audio signals into powerful vibrations that are transferred into solid surfaces by direct contact.”
As fun as turning everyday objects into sound emitting sources might seem, we believe the company’s goal is a little more lofty than the novelty of a talking bay window. The system is meant to be professionally installed behind walls, with special vibration-reducing brackets, to give the customer a location free, completely wirefree surround sound experience, while maintaining channel separation… and no visible speakers. At $500 a channel, we’re thinking that it better make your walls sound like God’s own voice. Mind you, telling your visitors that the wall is the speaker sure sounds like something we’d drop a grand or two over.
[ SolidDrive ] VIA [ Hacked Gadgets ]
Umm… I think that “full range” for audio speakers is more like 20 KHz, not 15.
Not an especially new idea. I had one of these and it was kind of neat but also nowhere near loud enough to be worthwhile. Maybe the new generation has more “kick.”