Funky, Ultrasonic Speakers That Only YOU Can Hear

For years, I struggled obsessively with a speaker dilemma. I had purchased a new stereo with large, floorstanding speakers. I wanted to crank up the volume and fill my entire apartment with music. But that was just the problem–I lived in an apartment–and when I cranked up the volume, the neighbors would be knocking down my door. So I looked out the window for the neighbors’ cars and snuck small music breaks in whenever I could verify that no one was home. Which wasn’t very often, leaving my speakers wasted on low-volume, ambient music.

If only they’d had these ultrasonic speakers when I was shopping for stereo gear. Designed to send a narrow beam of sound directly to the listener, the Klang speakers are supposedly inaudible to others. So you can all-out blast music, and neighbors, roommates and others won’t hear a thing.

The speakers send out sound in an ultrasonic frequency around 30,000 Hz. The sound travels straight ahead and creates music inside your drums–assuming your in line with the sound beam. You can also adjust these in different directions to make the sound feel like it’s coming from somewhere else (i.e. rear channels). In short, only those lined up directly with the narrow sound beam will hear the audio.

They sound like they’d be extremely placement-particular, but they’d also be a great addition to the hi-fi market. Unfortunately, they’re just a concept at the moment, developed by designer Adam Moller.  [Yanko via Dvice]

This video explains the ultrasonic tech behind this design better than I ever will: