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Bronze Member Username: LovegasolineNYC Post Number: 18 Registered: Jul-05 | I 'm reading an almost 20yr old source & it mentions Ionovac & Plasmatronic plasma drivers. The book states that a demonstration of the Threshold Speaker @ the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Vegas put the designer, Nelson Pass, straight into the hospital. "In a Wall Street Journal news piece, Pass humourously reported that his plasma speakers had the three qualities desired by most audiophiles -- it was ridiculously expensive, poisonous, and unavailible!!" DId anything become of the technology? |
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Silver Member Username: DiabloFylde Coast, England Post Number: 200 Registered: Dec-04 | May only be available on a do-it-yourself basis. |
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New member Username: Matt1234Post Number: 4 Registered: Aug-05 | Poisonous speakers? I have never heard of any such thing. |
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Silver Member Username: NuckParkhill, Ontario Canada Post Number: 115 Registered: Dec-04 | Quick post Diablo,danke. Some real sick individuals out there. I like it! |
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Silver Member Username: NuckParkhill, Ontario Canada Post Number: 116 Registered: Dec-04 | Sorry, I forgot. ONE POINT TWENTY-ONE JIGAWATTS! |
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Bronze Member Username: LovegasolineNYC Post Number: 23 Registered: Jul-05 | From the horse's mouth: 'The Wall Street Journal printed my comment: "It was the perfect high end audio product: Exotic, inefficient, expensive, unavailable, and toxic.".' grassyass Diablo Anyone have first hand experience? What's the point? |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 729 Registered: Sep-04 | Plasma technology was dangerous because the plasma drive unit created a great deal of ozone which could (and did) cause asphyxiation. I remember Max Townshend displaying a pair of plasma tweeters some years ago. These were made in Switzerland IIRC and they were sweet as a nut. They used a fair amount of power and you could see the purple glow of the plasma in their horn loaded throats. The makers claimed they had got around the ozone problem by causing some kind of chemical reaction after it was formed (it might even have been burned off by heat). Nobody fainted in that dem room over the two days, so it seemed ok. Sonically they were spectacular. The point of plasma drivers is that they have vanishingly low mass. An ordinary tweeter was meant to be several orders heavier. In a sense, it was an electrostatic speaker with a massless diaphragm. So in theory they were close to perfect. In practice the model Max was displaying was meant to have a response up to 150khz which even modern supertweeters can't come close to.Max has gone on to make his own supertweeters based on ribbon technology so I don't know what became of the ones he had been displaying all those years ago (must be early/mid nineties). Regards, Frank. |
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Silver Member Username: John_sColumbus, Ohio US Post Number: 401 Registered: Feb-04 | A friend had a pair of Hill Type Plasmatronics back in the seventies...one of the most bizarre and amazing audio experiences I've had. He eventually sold them as changing the helium tank was a pain. To borrow a phrase from Frank, sonically they were spectacular..... http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.plasmatweeter.de/ plasmatronic.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dplasmatronic%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG The plasma generated everything above 400Hz, as I recall. In his large and well ventilated room the ozone was not a problem. |