Classicamiga Forum Retro Edition
Thread: Maddest Loud Speaker ever?
Harrison 11:39 17th September 2010
Have any of you seen the Brothers Wall of Sound, or WOS for short?

It is very mad indeed. Described as an iPodSpeaker, the dimensions of the speaker are 0.95 meters high by 1.25 meters wide, and weighing in at 102KG. It's hand crafted and Tube valve amplified, to create the classic smooth sound you can't get from modern digital amps.

And it costs... $4,495!

http://thewosexperience.com/

If you are tempted, sadly they are currently sold out!
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Teho 13:21 17th September 2010
That price, and it peaks at 20.000 kHz? If all you're going to listen to is mp3s then ok, but it's still definitely not worth that. Personally I'd never want one. Mad is right.
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Submeg 14:54 17th September 2010
Yea, they seem pretty meh, that doesn't excite me in the slightest. Why only to 40 Hz? Crazy price as well!
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Demon Cleaner 15:06 17th September 2010
...ok, but it looks kinda cool
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Stephen Coates 17:52 17th September 2010
Originally Posted by Teho:
That price, and it peaks at 20.000 kHz? If all you're going to listen to is mp3s then ok, but it's still definitely not worth that. Personally I'd never want one. Mad is right.
Are you/their site referring to twenty thousand kHz or to twenty point zero zero zero kHz. If it is the former, it would be very interesting. If it is the latter, you probably can't hear any higher than that.

Originally Posted by :
Why only to 40 Hz?
I bet a lot of people would struggle to hear much lower.

It says it is made up of 28 elements. Judging by the pictures, I assume that it means that this 'speaker' is made up of 28 different speakers. When I first read Harrison's post, I thought it was one massive speaker. If it is 28 separate speakers, presumably of different sizes, I would expect the frequency response to be very good (even if it is only 40Hz-20kHz), as then you are not relying on just two or three speakers to reproduce the whole spectrum.

Originally Posted by :
It's hand crafted and Tube valve amplified, to create the classic smooth sound you can't get from modern digital amps.
I think you would struggle to 'digitally' amplify sound before sending it to a speaker.

Does anyone here have a valve amplifier? I wouldn't mind having a fiddle with valves one day. I have been intending to for a few years but never got round to it.

Certainly an interesting speaker, but I think I will stick with the 30 year old Keesonic Audio speakers that I got for free.
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Teho 19:32 17th September 2010
Probably 20kHz. The other would be as you say; interesting. Maybe they're referring to tube valve amps technically not having a ceiling as opposed to digital amps? As for hearing it.. If someone were to play a test tone higher than that then you probably wouldn't actually hear it, no. But listening to lossless music on a stereo that can produce ranges higher than that still has that little 'extra', so to speak. It's hard to explain. My own stereo has a range of 29Hz-192kHz, and switching between lossless and lossy playback really has a tangible difference. But it's not something you can easily pinpoint. Someone once likened it to looking out a window without seeing the glass.

As for lower than 40Hz, even if you don't hear it you definitely feel it.
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Submeg 14:22 18th September 2010
Originally Posted by Teho:
As for lower than 40Hz, even if you don't hear it you definitely feel it.
You definitely feel it. I have now got a good set of speakers that play down to 20Hz, and I now have a great equaliser, so I can give the bass some more body...can feel it in my feet!
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Jay 17:34 20th September 2010
If it doesn't recreate the opening scene from Back to the Future I'd be looking my money back.
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Sharingan 12:07 21st September 2010
It boggles the mind that something overpriced like that can be sold out.

Some DIY speaker makers can probably make something superior at 1/20th the cost - less snazzy-looking, but superior nonetheless
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Shoonay 18:27 21st September 2010
You guys, please don't confuse the frequency range of the human ear hearing range, with the quality of the sampling rate's frequency of today's digital devices.

We can hear something from 20Hz to 20000Hz (20kHz).
Sure, below 40Hz we can "feel" or see the speaker moving rather then hear anything, and everything above - don't remember - 15kHz is completely silent with a slight hiss, but that's the general assumption.

The actual sampling rate quality of lossy mp3's mentioned above for example is usually something from 44100Hz to 48000Hz (in 16-bit, which is the limit to most people) while studio devices can use lossless 24-bit 96000Hz up to 192000Hz.

But those are two different things.

It's easy to test your ears using the Audacity proggie, just generate a full spectrum and listen. Choose: Sinus, 1 to 24000, Logarythmic and a few minutes long. It's super cool to see your speaker slowly start vibrating and your ears "noticing" the low bass sound.

Oh, and BTW: OGG gives much better results in 192kb/s then MP3's even in 320kb/s, I converted my whole music collection to that long time ago and wouldn't want to go back.
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