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Ho Hum...another major breakthrough


Mallette

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As the old Klipsch Heritage ads said.  However, this one is worth watching.  Graphene has only been around since 2004, but developments are suddenly accelerating.  UC Berkeley demonstrated the use of it for electrostatic speaker elements recently.  Earbuds, to be sure, but scaling up will work.  Couple that with the recent Journal of Advanced Functional Materials article announcing a potentially huge breakthrough in producing grapheme sheets of any size using a simple de Laval nozzle with readily available liquid suspension of low quality grapheme flakes.  They found that if you simply spray the stuff through the nozzle it will form the requisite perfect one atom thick sheet when it hits a solid object, glass, steel. or the like.  Bear in mind the stuff is 100 times stronger than steel so don't let the one atom think part worry you.  That's actually the good part for audio in that it will make the most accurate possible electrostatic speaker and one that is...believe it or not...highly efficient. 

 

Anyone who has heard the finest electrostatics admires their transparency and the wonderful image that comes from such a large emission area.  But the cost of them has always been a major problem, and the fact that large enough ones to really do adequate bass would simply be prohibitive both in terms of the power needed to drive them and the overall cost. 

 

This could fix that.  Of course, as a life long lover of ribbon microphones this stuff sounds like the ideal material for new designs that might even surpass those of the 30s, which remain unsurpassed for setting the bar in quality...and in extreme cost...as well.

 

Shouldn't be but a few years before we know.  I'd suggest Klipsch R&D follow this materials progress.

 

Dave

 

 

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Actually, I've PM'd Mike Bentz who worked for, or still works for, Shure.  After posting, it hit me that this might be an ideal material for a hybrid ribbon microphone that would be incredibly sensitive as well as extremely wide dynamic and frequency ranges.  Like, much better than our ears.  Then, I thought about phono cart design...

 

Crikey, no time for Ebola news with all the cool stuff taking off in science!

 

Dave

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I have been fascinated with graphene since the physics nobel prize was awarded for it back in 2010.

 

What I REALLY want to see is a 3D graphene printer. REALY REALY!!!

 

You could make your own gears, guns, ball bearings, connecting rods, etc etc.

 

Another cool thing about graphene is that it has been found to be a super capacitor.

 

The future is carbon. One day there will be graphene space elevators tethered to Earth by carbon nanotube cables. 

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Yea, this stuff is really cool.

I saw a show and they were talking about the space elevator. All that "nano" stuff.

If you really think about it we have come along way in a short time span.....just 100 years ago we were still mostly horse and buggie, now I'm sitting in this car looking at live engine data on this tablet.... then by a the press of my finger I'm back on the internet on the Klipsch forum......were will be in 100 years????

Cool stuff :-)

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Anyone who has heard the finest electrostatics admires their transparency and the wonderful image that comes from such a large emission area.  But the cost of them has always been a major problem, and the fact that large enough ones to really do adequate bass would simply be prohibitive both in terms of the power needed to drive them and the overall cost.

 

Dave

If you want to play, you have to pay. But seriously, the newer systems have a lot fewer issues than in the past and are quite efficient. I play mine with 25 watt tube amps. The larger systems are also much better than in the past and relatively affordable.

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If you want to play, you have to pay.

 

Useful...I don't have the time to be an all around expert so input from those with specific expertise is most welcome.  But the point is that grapheme may eliminate this "pay to play" make them cheaper than dynamic driver based systems.  BTW...graphene is essentially transparent which could make for some interesting designs. 

 

Dave

Edited by Mallette
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If you want to play, you have to pay.

 

Useful...I don't have the time to be an all around expert so input from those with specific expertise is most welcome.  But the point is that grapheme may eliminate this "pay to play" make them cheaper than dynamic driver based systems.  BTW...graphene is essentially transparent which could make for some interesting designs. 

 

Dave

 

Time will tell but since I'm living in the current world (for now) I just wanted to say that today's electrostatics are a major improvement from the 20 year old designs. The Sanders system is just lovely sounding with few drawbacks. It was an interesting post for sure.

Edited by russ69
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