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
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