Plasma Speaker by StudentRND | Hacker News Reader

Plasma Speaker by StudentRND

kickstarter.com

22 pointsdavidedicillo13 comments

Why did the last few minutes of the video still have an audio soundtrack while playing with the plasma speaker? I want to hear the noises coming out of that, not the background audio.

That /was/ coming from the plasma speaker.

Compare this to an existing product: http://www.plasmatweeter.de/acapella.htm

One drawback is the production of ozone. You wouldn't want to run this sort of thing for several hours in a closed room.

It would be nice to see more of what they envision the actual speaker case to be. The effect is definitely impressive but seeing the arc, on a stand in a lab isn't as fulfilling as having an idea of the actual product they're going to build with it.

Here's a bigger brother of that speaker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEeWtBAE5LY

And the supper big daddy:

ArcAttack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJqoRaphiEk

1) 30,000 volts - what can possibly go wrong?

2) Other than being sort of a cool gimmick, what's the point? It's not that good at playing music. It's not that great at visualizing music - I can do much better with Raspberry Pi running some WinAmp plugins.

30KV, but low amps, using the same power as a speaker of similar size.

It's actually a pretty good speaker, as it contains no moving parts. The disadvantage is not being very good for indoor spaces, since electric arcs generate ozone.

Except that your regular speaker doesn't have live wires sticking out.

> It's actually a pretty good speaker, as it contains no moving parts

That's a strange qualification for a "good speaker". Reliable, maybe. Good - I don't know, but it sounded like crap in that video (maybe just a bad recording).

That's a strange qualification for a "good speaker". Reliable, maybe. Good - I don't know, but it sounded like crap in that video (maybe just a bad recording).

Less mass to move means less inertia. For precise playback of high frequencies, this is what you want. So having no moving parts in a tweeter is a great start. As a next step, one could figure out how to reduce the distortion that makes it "sound like crap".

The point is innovation. It may be nothing more the neat or cool today, but who know what it could be in the far future? And how can we find out but by starting with this cool toy? One fun step at a time!

So I'm guessing you never built one of the Radio Shack "build your own radio" kits when you were a kid. They sounded like garbage, but gosh-darnit, you built the thing with your own two hands! Any semblance of a sound coming out of the thing was cause for celebration. I was convinced I deserved a Nobel Prize.

Even though it was totally ridiculous, I was hooked. Hacking is an incredibly rewarding experience for kids and young adults. We should encourage it wherever possible

I totally understand the "hacking" aspect. That's why I asked, other than the "wow" factor, is there anything to it?

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