Who remembers 2 foot sphere speaker

[Coolin]

Just out of nostalgia and wondering if this kind of design was succesful soundwise.....................
(unfortunately i only saw them and didnt hear them then)

It was a while back whwn i saw them, i was about 12 jears old and it was around 1984.
They were totally white and if i remember correctly made out of something like fiberglass. They were about 2 foot in diameter and had about maby 12 3 or 4 inch speakers on the surface pointing 360 degrees H+Vertical.
The bottom had a (mid?)bass driver pointed at a piramid (which i believe was the stand as well). to spread the sound.

Does anyone remember back that far?

CO

[ThomasW]

Over the years there have been several people making dodecahedron speakers. These weren't true sphere, but instead had 12 facets with a driver mounted in each.

[Coolin]

The drivers were also a little recessed i believe.

CO

[Steven]

Hi Coolin,

Soundsphere makes that kind of speakers:
http://www.soundsphere.com/html/products.htm

Steven

[Da5id4Vz]

BBN Network Technologies makes a dodecahedron that is OEM'd by Bruel and Kjaer that is used for making noise reduction measurements, but I don’t think that’s the one your thinking of.

A while back at an AES I saw a presentation of some dodecahedrons that were built with Tannoy LGM-8 drivers. They weren’t a Tannoy product, just used the drivers. I think it was intended to do the same work as the BBN/B&K product.

I had the experience of listening to some speakers similar to what I think you were describing some tome ago. They were made by a japanese company. I think I first saw them around 1990, the letening expereince was around 1995. They had a big rack of DSP processing that went between the source and amplifiers to do some sort of special spacial enhancement. I wasn’t as impressed as the "specialists" who seemed very excited about them.

The room also had a set of JBL 4412 in it that I thought sounded much better.

I just found this web site:
http://www.oddnoise.com/spheres.html

This is a photo of the Bruel and Kjaer 4296:

[Da5id4Vz]

Well I give up, cant find them anywhere. I recall they were black spheres. They had a dozen or more transducers that I think I was told were Pioneer car speakers. I think they used speakeron connectors and stood on three black metal rods that mounted to a plate.

Dont try this at home:

[purplepeople]

Seems that you are describing a black VW Beetle MkII set up as a boom car. How many Pioneer speakers again?

:)ensen.

[Coolin]

a lot of 3 or 4 inch cheap HQ Tangband drivers

Maby with a sub.

The soundspheres look simular except for the lack of drivers on the sphere.

Has anyone ever heard a omnipolar system wrt imaging?

CO

[Pjotr]

Hi Coolin,

I know of a real existing spheres but have no pictures. Those are located at the acoustical department of the technical university in Delft for demonstration purposes. And indeed over 2 feet diam and completely covered with 10 cm full range speakers. How do they sound? Well for large orchestra work these sound great but a single singer sings with a mouth of over 2 feet wide

Cheers

[Pjotr]

He found! They have made a new and smaller one:




Larger picture (145 kB)