This Thread Will Self-Destruct in 5 seconds....
Jun 18, 2003 at 4:22 AM Post #2 of 35
Maybe I'm missing something, but...

in order to hear the sound coming from the speaker you either have to be immersed in xenon also (where you won't survive very long) or there has to be a gas-tight container surrounding the speaker. Won't the problems due to enclosing the speaker in that container be greater than any gains you might make by using a xenon atmosphere?

(If I thought up an idea that I hoped might make me millions - and I do, often, and mistakenly - I wouldn't go posting it here either.)
 
Jun 18, 2003 at 5:02 AM Post #5 of 35
My concerns about this would be twofold:

a) How are you going to couple the argon to the surrounding air? If you're going to leave the driver in an argon 'bath', with the top exposed to free air, then be warned air currents and the sound waves will dissipate the argon fairly quickly...

b) If you're planning to enclose the argon and driver entirely to prevent dissipation, you're effectively creating a driver of the size equal to the surface area of the membrane that's to be used to transmit the sound to the free air, and not afterall making a 4" woofer.
 
Jun 18, 2003 at 5:05 AM Post #6 of 35
Czilla, you are insane. And now that you've mentioned it, keep this thread - if we steal the idea, we won't be able to get away with it. Not that we're that insane...

If you can, go ahead and try it. Just remember the sound has to come through an airtight container. That or you're gonna need a vertical port, trusting gravity to keep the gas in the chamber. I doubt you'll get any kind of quickness to the bass, just from the kind of materials the sound has to come through. Might be interesting though - a sub-subwoofer, glass tubes poking out behind the couch.
 
Jun 18, 2003 at 5:31 AM Post #8 of 35
So in essence you're going to put a 4" high-excursion driver into a xenon-filled ziplock bag, and see how good of a subwoofer it makes...

Just remember, according to US patent law you need to patent the idea within a year of the date of publishing it like this. But ask your friendly neighboorhood patent lawyer - I might be wrong and it might already be public domain.
 
Jun 18, 2003 at 6:18 AM Post #9 of 35
Kerplunk!
 
Jun 18, 2003 at 7:12 AM Post #11 of 35
*saves*

Muahaha
biggrin.gif


Actually, I think you'll find that you can't delete the thread unless you're a moderator...
 
Jun 18, 2003 at 7:18 AM Post #12 of 35
*Presses the BIG RED BUTTON **Nothing happens**Checks for batteries*




Would everyone please do me the favor of destroying there posts?


I will make it worth your while.
wink.gif
 
Jun 18, 2003 at 7:52 AM Post #13 of 35
Czilla, I applaud you and your father for being thinkers and trying new things.

However, your father does not understand the physics of the situation correctly. (No disrespect intended -- he's probably a more accomplished scientist than I.) There's no need to get excited or greedy about patenting anything here.

The basic idea is relatively solid. You're working off the idea of a resonant cavity. Basic physics tells us that:
velocity = frequency * wavelength
in that cavity.

Based on the speed of waves in Xenon, you only need to have a 50 Hz speaker to excite the cavity if you want to excite the external world at 20 Hz. Nice.

There are two problems. The first explanation is more complicated, so hang on for the simpler one later.

In order to excite the external world, you need a "membrane" between the Xenon and the external world. This membrane may be just theoretical, since Xenon is heavier than air (i.e. you could have a top-open container). Whether it's a physical membrane or not doesn't matter.

The problem is that as you excite that membrane, the size of your cavity changes. Hence, we need to know the exact position of the membrane at any given time in order to determine what frequency to send to our driver. The simple equation:
velocity = frequency * wavelength
is now suddently complex and nonlinear, since the expression for the wavelength (size of the resonant cavity) is now nonlinear. Moreover, we can only estimate it, and then only with inaccurate sensors. Hence, modern low-distortion audio reproduction in this manner is extraordinarily difficult or impossible.

A simpler explanation for why this won't work comes from the principle of conservation of energy. Namely, to produce the same amount of bass in a room as a standard subwoofer, our "membrane" will have to have properties equivalent (either in size or throw) to a conventional speaker. So you don't win anything with your approach, even if you could construct a membrane with those properties (and that's hard, since there's no physical object with a grip on the membrane -- conventional magnetic coils are simply more practical).
 
Jun 18, 2003 at 9:24 AM Post #14 of 35
Thanks.....I told my dad about it briefly as we were walking. He just made some quick calculations in his head.


He is a theorist....not an experimentalist. In theory he liked the idea.





So basically there is no way for the idea to work?


(BTW....how did you figure out that 50Hz in xenon equals 20hz in real world?)
 
Jun 18, 2003 at 11:42 AM Post #15 of 35
By the time i got to this the post was edited and missing.

However this idea is not new. It is in fact 25 years old.

Dayton Wright electrostatic speakers. The entire speaker
was in a plastic bag filled with sulfur dioxide. The sulfur
dioxide with 7 times the density of air made the thing
much more efficient than any other loudspeaker of that
type.

And when the bag leaked, the whole room stunk. Real
bad.
 
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