Soundlazer VR speaker surrounds you with a virtual cloud of sound
Most speakers are designed to throw sound as far and loud as possible. However, the Soundlazer VR speaker is designed to give you an immersive experience right at your desk.
Richard Haberkern, founder and inventor of Soundlazer, reckons you should think of the speaker as an organic, floating personal cloud of sound. (Image: Soundlazer)
The VR speaker is an evolution from Soundlazer's early parametric speaker, which uses ultrasonic carrier waves to transmit audio to listeners in a focused beam of sound. The new version uses planar wave technology to beam sound at the listener's ears.
Parametric speakers operate like laser beams. Sound is focused at high intensity into a relatively small area. Two people can be standing only a few feet apart from each other, and only one of them will hear the sound waves emanating from the parametric audio source.
Soundlazer VR uses planar wave technology to transmit audio to listeners. The beam of stereo sound from the flat panel array delivers a high-fidelity experience. Its frequency response is across the full range (150Hz to 20kHz).
This virtual sound is in a spherical area directly below the hanging Soundlazer VR, with audio that is over four times louder than everywhere else in the room.
Power is delivered via the steel hanging cables. No wires are visible, which gives workers a geeky way to listen to music at their desk without disturbing others in the room.
The first Soundlazer project was successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2012, with a further successful round of funding for Soundlazer Snap in 2015. The Soundlazer VR has already smashed its Kickstarter targets.
Richard Haberkern, founder and inventor of Soundlazer, reckons you should think of the speaker as an organic, floating personal cloud of sound.
He says that when you sit under the device, sound appears to come from all around you.
With Soundlazer VR, you will be able to ignore your coworkers when they speak to you, with a very valid excuse.