Here at Dvice we love people who are willing to push the envelope into the danger zone to perfect their creations. Plasma speakers that drive the surrounding air directly through the expansion and contraction of a plasma arc have long been a sort of holy grail for speaker designers, but they also come with a dark side. Legendary maverick audio designer Nelson Pass once created a prototype full range plasma speaker, and ended up in the emergency room suffering from ozone poisoning. Following the incident, he was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying, "It was the perfect high end audio product: Exotic, inefficient, expensive, unavailable, and toxic."

Here's a video from a guy called Richard in England who has also built his own plasma speaker, using tungsten tipped electrodes and a whopping 60,000 volts to develop a pretty big plasma arc. He says it develops no ozone at all, but somehow I still think it would be tough to get it UL certified. Unfortunately the audio limitations of both Richard's camcorder and YouTube mean that you really can't appreciate the true audio potential in the video, but you've got to admit that it looks awesome.

7/17/2008 12:29:55 PM

HOLD ME NOW!

7/17/2008 12:32:50 PM

I have a hard time believing that sound could come from that.

Also, how can it not develop ozone?

In any case, i'd buy a pair of them.

7/17/2008 12:37:01 PM

wicked

7/17/2008 12:46:38 PM

Quote :

"I have a hard time believing that sound could come from that."

well feel free to watch the other videos

7/17/2008 12:49:49 PM

what would happen if you touched it

7/17/2008 12:50:09 PM

Kitty seems to like it

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=579629655479

7/17/2008 12:54:17 PM

Quote :

"I have a hard time believing that sound could come from that. Also, how can it not develop ozone? In any case, i'd buy a pair of them."

punch yourself in the face, jesus

7/17/2008 2:46:16 PM