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Singing Tesla Coil - Printable Version

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Singing Tesla Coil - Yazata - Jan 6, 2025

This is new to me, I'd never heard of it before.

We know that sound is air vibrations. Conventional loudspeakers make sound by vibrating a diaphram.

A plasma loudspeaker uses a more exotic method. It ionizes air around it with an electric field and then vibrates that plasma by varying the field. Tesla coils can be made into loudspeakers this way. The idea dates back to the "steampunk" technology of 1898.

People have used the same principle to make flames speak.

It never proved to be practical though, since very high voltages are necessary which make them more dangerous than conventional loudspeakers. They also aren't very good at producing bass, though they can produce crystal clear highs well beyond the range of human hearing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_speaker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_Tesla_coil

Video of a Tesla coil loudspeaker in action (got to admit it looks really cool!)

https://x.com/gadgetnat3/status/1876000940031131911


RE: Singing Tesla Coil - Magical Realist - Jan 6, 2025

Hmmm...might explain the source of all those weird metal grinding noises heard around the globe a few years back. Maybe the plasmosphere is warping and twisting itself into life! Birthpangs as it were.