https://www.economist.com/science-and-te...udspeakers
EXCERPTS: Although picture quality has improved greatly with the development of flat-screen televisions (see article), sound has taken a dive. The problem is that TVs with slimmed-down screens have insufficient room for decent speakers to be fitted to them...
[...] The loudspeakers of early televisions were as big as the screen ... A conventional speaker produces sound waves using an electromagnet to vibrate a cone-shaped diaphragm, but there are other ways to generate sound, including employing an actuator to vibrate a flexible panel. That raises the question, why not vibrate the TV screen itself? And this is exactly what a couple of television-makers are now doing.
Sony, of Japan, was the first to announce it had developed such a system, which it calls Acoustic Surface. [...] Acoustic Surface employs a pair of rear-mounted actuators to vibrate a screen made with organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Unlike screens that employ regular inorganic LEDs as a backlight, OLEDs emit their light directly. This means OLED screens have few layers—and that, in turn, means they are easier to make flexible and are thus able to vibrate more easily.
This vibration is invisible to the viewer and, Sony says, does not affect picture quality... (MORE - details)
RELATED: Television-makers are pitting rival technologies against each other
EXCERPTS: Although picture quality has improved greatly with the development of flat-screen televisions (see article), sound has taken a dive. The problem is that TVs with slimmed-down screens have insufficient room for decent speakers to be fitted to them...
[...] The loudspeakers of early televisions were as big as the screen ... A conventional speaker produces sound waves using an electromagnet to vibrate a cone-shaped diaphragm, but there are other ways to generate sound, including employing an actuator to vibrate a flexible panel. That raises the question, why not vibrate the TV screen itself? And this is exactly what a couple of television-makers are now doing.
Sony, of Japan, was the first to announce it had developed such a system, which it calls Acoustic Surface. [...] Acoustic Surface employs a pair of rear-mounted actuators to vibrate a screen made with organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Unlike screens that employ regular inorganic LEDs as a backlight, OLEDs emit their light directly. This means OLED screens have few layers—and that, in turn, means they are easier to make flexible and are thus able to vibrate more easily.
This vibration is invisible to the viewer and, Sony says, does not affect picture quality... (MORE - details)
RELATED: Television-makers are pitting rival technologies against each other