Bigger Sound In Smaller Packages, As Sonos Buys Mayht For $100 Million (techcrunch.com) 42
Sonos has acquired Dutch startup Mayht for approximately $100 million in a cash-only deal. "Mayht created a new type of speaker technology that makes it possible to pack a lot more oomph into much smaller spaces, with power savings as a nifty side-effect," reports TechCrunch. "Specifically, it created a new type of transducer -- the foundational element within speakers that create sound. Mayht has re-engineered them to enable smaller and lighter form factors without compromising on quality." From the report: Interestingly, outside of some reference speakers, the Mayht team was never planning to put its own products out to market, clearly flirting with existing speaker giants for an acquisition. Sonos liked what it saw and decided to put a $100 million ring on it to consummate the relationship, acquiring the startup. The acquisition was formally announced today.
"Mayht's breakthrough in transducer technology will enable Sonos to take another leap forward in our product portfolio," said Patrick Spence, CEO of Sonos. "This strategic acquisition gives us more incredible people, technology and intellectual property that will further distinguish the Sonos experience, enhance our competitive advantage, and accelerate our future roadmap." The Mayht team, in turn, was also pretty psyched to find a corporate partner to bring its tech to market. "We are very excited and proud to become a part of Sonos," said Scheek. "Our dream has always been to set a new standard in the audio industry. The integration of our technology into Sonos products will further revolutionize high quality sound."
"Mayht's breakthrough in transducer technology will enable Sonos to take another leap forward in our product portfolio," said Patrick Spence, CEO of Sonos. "This strategic acquisition gives us more incredible people, technology and intellectual property that will further distinguish the Sonos experience, enhance our competitive advantage, and accelerate our future roadmap." The Mayht team, in turn, was also pretty psyched to find a corporate partner to bring its tech to market. "We are very excited and proud to become a part of Sonos," said Scheek. "Our dream has always been to set a new standard in the audio industry. The integration of our technology into Sonos products will further revolutionize high quality sound."
Huh? (Score:2)
My guess is that it will perform slightly poorer than a normal speaker of twice the area.
Re: (Score:3)
I guess they're going for essentially a large Xmax, small-diameter driver using an innovative magnet/suspension design. My guess is that, like with most high-excursion drivers, you sacrifice quite a bit of fidelity for this. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I really doubt they're breaking any real ground here. Loudspeaker driver technology is both highly limited by physics and very mature.
Re: (Score:1)
HiFi is too obsessed with analogue ... in digital you can simply correct non-linearity.
Re: (Score:3)
Ah yes, the old 'you can correct it in the digital domain' argument ;)
You can correct for some stuff, but anything properly non-linear is really tricky, and the compromises can lead to other problems. However, it's a valid point, and we shouldn't be too dismissive until we've actually seen and heard the product.
Are there any public posted efficiency figures for the design? There's such a range of efficiencies in the marketplace from 85db up to above 100db that any marketing stuff like 'twice as efficient' d
Re: (Score:2)
HiFi is too obsessed with analogue ... in digital you can simply correct non-linearity.
Can you correct 180 degrees out of phase sound?
Non linearity called (Score:3)
It's nearly impossible to correct for non linearity in the digital domain. By non linearity I don't mean simply correcting for an amplitude response that falls off at higher drive voltages. I mean signal mixing. A quadratic response of two frequencies present results in sum and difference frequencies. Such non linearities can depend not just in the instantaneous voltages but on the position of the speaker due to past time series. It's effectively impossible to remodukare the input in real time to fix th
Re: (Score:2)
That's what Volterra series are for and it's been done, but servo'ing is probably more reliable long term (ie. measuring excursion and feeding that back instead of output voltage in an amplifier with a lot of loop gain).
Re: Non linearity called (Score:2)
No that's hilariously niece about what non linearities in physical systems are. The volterra series might be fit to a time invariant non linearity but your fit is kaput the moment the non linearity changes. And of course that's what happens in reality. Of course one could try to argue a volterra series could consume all inputs like say dust and temperature and ozone and time itself. But then you'd have to wait till the device was dead before you started fitting the series. So this would only work if yo
Re: (Score:2)
Don't need to travel into the distant future for a microphone.
Re: (Score:2)
Also with the fixed diaphragm with multiple drivers, you have a lot of room for an optical distance sensor in the middle for servo control (with icky high amounts of feedback which HiFi also doesn't like).
Re: (Score:3)
I guess they're going for essentially a large Xmax, small-diameter driver using an innovative magnet/suspension design. My guess is that, like with most high-excursion drivers, you sacrifice quite a bit of fidelity for this. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I really doubt they're breaking any real ground here. Loudspeaker driver technology is both highly limited by physics and very mature.
Yes - this. Audio is vibration, and these folks seem to be claiming some interesting stuff.
So we have equal and opposite excursions of the speaker. Better have something somewhere for the back speaker's audio to get into phase with the front speaker, unless you want a speaker version of a noise cancelling microphone. With normalspeakers, we do things like put a reflector or folded horn setup. This way you can get that second sound from the back of the speaker added to the front.
Assuming this ground b
Re: (Score:2)
Boy those Sonos guys sure are idiots. They should have hired some slashdot audiophiles instead of whatever garbage engineers they have on staff before dropping $100m on this tech.
Well, an audiophile as about the last thing I am, coward. What they did, is hire some p.r. types to spin some hyperbole.
Air motion transformer (Score:2)
A different driver technology goes by the fancy name "air motion transformer". It's a fantastic different approach to high air motion tgat actually makes the speaker lighter, smaller and cheaper. It's not well known because it was locked up by patents but recently those patents expired and cheap Chinese made ones are available . Okay bought one and it sounds fantastic and gives more sound at lower driver powers. So I'm impressed. The way it works superficially resembles a ribbon tweater but it's fundamen
Re: (Score:2)
A different driver technology goes by the fancy name "air motion transformer".
Thank you!. I'm on that right now. Time to go to Wikipedia.
Re: (Score:2)
With normalspeakers, we do things like put a reflector or folded horn setup
Their website shows exactly this. They aren't big on details about making sure the diaphragm on the back is creating sound that is in-phase with the front, but they specifically speak to having "directivity flexibility" [mayht.com] to use their term - "dual firing", "front / side firing", and "front firing".
I'm not drinking the fruity sugar water on this just yet, but if they can make something that can create clean sound in a fraction of the footprint, they've got a winner in the market. Being able to buy a sound ba
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sound is still based on the volume of air that can be moved, as noted. This is why Bose, although a fine speaker, could not really compete with top of line 30 years ago. That said, the way we record music, reproduce music, and listen to recorded music is very different from 30 years ago, except of course for the kids who push vinyl analog through a/d converters. No one is going to dedicate 2- square feet of space to speakers in most homes.
It has that problem of equal and opposite excursion though and more
Now if his is going to work, they have a couple issues to solve. In order to get volume you have to move a fair amount of air, especially at lower frequencies. And if you have a smaller speaker, you have to move that speaker element further than a larger speaker. This is some physics that is hard to get away from.
The second issue is that moving that mass further back and forth is going to put some limits on the frequencies involved. Yo
Re: (Score:3)
This is an interesting development as Sonos already use a similar concept in their compact Sub.
They have two drivers facing each other across the central hole in the sub, firing in opposition to each other.
https://www.sonos.com/en-au/sh... [sonos.com]
This cancels out vibrations in the cabinet and increases the displacement over a single driver.
Re: (Score:3)
That sub configuration has been used since the 80’s in pro audio 6th order bandpass subs.
Re: (Score:2)
This is an interesting development as Sonos already use a similar concept in their compact Sub. They have two drivers facing each other across the central hole in the sub, firing in opposition to each other. https://www.sonos.com/en-au/sh... [sonos.com] This cancels out vibrations in the cabinet and increases the displacement over a single driver.
Weeooh - it's some pretty specific requirements. You have to have an all Sonos system. That connects via Wifi. The other details tell us that the sound is highly shaped. and that it is tuned to the room. And use Apps and something called truplay to make all this happen.
The strangest thing is this is supposed to be really simple.
Simple is my headphones. Even the stereo system I had when I could still hear sorta, was some decent speakers in a room that was wall to wall carpeted and on the wall carpeted.
Re: (Score:2)
Sonos is not supposed to be really simple, it's supposed to be a multi-room, wireless audio system with decent sound and an app controller that allows access to your own music library as well as popular streaming services.
If you want really simple, you'll get a stereo amplifier, a pair of speakers and whatever audio source you want, and you'll listen to it in one room.
If you want convenience, and audio synchronised across different rooms, then that's where Sonos enters the picture. It's not cheap and it's t
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
They also use seem to be driving a hard surface rather as a diaphragm, twice the displacement for the same excursion because the diaphragm isn't clamped at the periphery. Makes more sense for small speakers and lets them use multiple drivers in parallel, then they offset them so they don't have to be back to back with the drivers for the opposite diaphragm.
A normal speaker needs to be 4 times the area for the same air displacement.
Re: (Score:2)
They also use seem to be driving a hard surface rather as a diaphragm, twice the displacement for the same excursion because the diaphragm isn't clamped at the periphery. Makes more sense for small speakers and lets them use multiple drivers in parallel, then they offset them so they don't have to be back to back with the drivers for the opposite diaphragm.
A normal speaker needs to be 4 times the area for the same air displacement.
Yup yup. As I noted in another post, their claim would be that they can equal my 12 inch speaker I built a long time ago with a 1.2 inch one.
Or maybe that is a 3.8 square inch speaker equaling the 38 square inches my 12 inch speaker had. They are'n quite clear what their 10X smaller means.
I'll note that my cabinet was a bass reflex with a path to reinforce the sound, not cancel it out as opposing speakers can do if not designed correctly.
Super simplified stuff now for people.
Now let's think of
Re: (Score:2)
If a long time ago is decades, something like Bob Carver's Sunfire and it's descendants could probably get over >3 times the excursion to begin with, excursion has evolved. 3x excursion, 2x increase in average displacement for the same excursion from flat diaphragm, a 2x increase from the opposing speakers ... that would be getting there.
If they do manage it, at least it won't try to walk across the floor like the Sunfire does, balanced forces are important for really high power densities.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure that is the full concept what they are doing with that is counter balance which stops the vibration sound you get from a bass speaker turned up. With respect to it performing poorer Sonos bets $100 Million that you are wrong.
Good for them. We are in an age of grifts and "game changers", so if I were a betting man, I'd take that bet. Now make no mistake - Sonos is a real product, there is no flim flamming here.
I simply don't think this is going to work to be that game changer.
side note - if the cabinet is designed correctly, you can put a pretty big woofer in it. You just make a sturdy cabinet, and use the sound coming out of the back of the speaker to offset that coming out the front. Bass reflex. Very efficient. I design
Re: (Score:2)
No need to be skeptical. The only thing new here is that they made that arrangement and put it in a single drive unit. People have been designing things like this for years putting around two separate drivers, rather than one unit.
Re: (Score:2)
No need to be skeptical. The only thing new here is that they made that arrangement and put it in a single drive unit. People have been designing things like this for years putting around two separate drivers, rather than one unit.
Or just one driver, and using the sound off the back and getting it in phase with the sound coming out the front. They tend to be pretty efficient too. I'm beginning to wonder if they are comparing their speakers to bookshelf speakers. build a small cabinet, stuff it with fiberglas, and there ya go. Really inefficient, but I've heard a few that actually sounded okay.
Odd use of nomenclature (Score:1)
Specifically, it created a new type of transducer -- the foundational element within speakers that create sound.
Usually those are referred to as "drivers", or by the frequency range they're intended to reproduce (woofer, midrange, tweeter). Enclosures with a single full-range drivers frequently just refer to the driver itself as a "speaker". In that case, it's like that "Yo dawg, I heard you like speakers, so I put a speaker in your speaker." meme.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Specifically, it created a new type of transducer -- the foundational element within speakers that create sound.
Usually those are referred to as "drivers", or by the frequency range they're intended to reproduce (woofer, midrange, tweeter). Enclosures with a single full-range drivers frequently just refer to the driver itself as a "speaker".
Eh, by definition, the term, "transducer" is applicable:
albeit an odd choice by the editor(s)/author(s). That said, reading the available copyprint (not about to try to get through their B2B portal for something I have no intent on making), it seems like it's taking the passive radiator [wikipedia.org] design and creating an active variant (presumably overcoming the phase alignment somewhere i
Not new (Score:4, Informative)
As a concept this isn't new. There are companies which have been building speakers on this design since the 70s. The only thing novel here is that they are selling a ready made driver locked into this configuration whereas past speakers have been built from two separate drivers, and the only true benefit here is the reduction of space behind the driver by eliminating the spider frame and magnets between the radiating elements.
Here's KEF's concept for their compact sub which works on a similar principle but with a more traditional looking execution. https://www.lbtechreviews.com/... [lbtechreviews.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Push-pull is not new, but that is not all they are doing. They are driving the radiators at the edges with small voice coil actuators. The combination is what they are claiming is new. There must be something not disclosed in the actuators that is important.
I am seriously skeptical, I see nothing desirable about the motor design and push-pull is easily accomplished already. The driver still has to be put in an enclosure that obeys physics, and that is where the trade offs of size, power and frequency ra
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not skeptical. As you said push-pull is an established concept and the "desirable" trait here is that the voice coils are positioned such to make the setup more compact, nothing more, nothing less. There's no snake oil to fall for, the downsides of flex across the cone may be relevant if you're replacing a set of nice floor standers, but that's hardly the target market here. They are targeting lifestyle products which isn't exactly known to attract audiophiles.
The physics is understood. There's no snake
Patent (Score:3)
I found this patent.
https://patents.google.com/pat... [google.com]
The pdf also has drawings:
https://patentimages.storage.g... [googleapis.com]
Re: (Score:2)
US publication: https://patents.google.com/pat... [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
This is just a push pull configuration, not what the company is pushing. This exists on the market already, and I built a subwoofer using this in 1987 personally.
Note that what is patented here is the "coupling device" between the drivers, along with various features of the enclosure itself, and enclosure that does not even exist in the designs being purchased by Sonos. This is what allowed patentability over decades old art.
Sonos at the Dentist's (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You may "make records" but you do not understand technology, even slightly. Speakers cannot selectively remove "everything...except the singer and the bass player". You're a moron.
Sonos is NOT HiFi. It is ambient whole house audio. It is great at its intended application, better than its competitors. Its competitors are NOT HiFi companies.
BTW, if you want more of a "HiFi" result with Sonos, you can integrate other gear with Sonos electronics and get something with better sound and all the Sonos benefit