Wacky JVC, what will they come up with next? This time around, JVC is showing a pulsating dodecahedral speaker (that's 12 sides to you), touted as the ultimate in sonic reproduction. Why, you ask? Omni directional dispersion. As the translation describes it, "the eye is closed the speaker goes out." I sure hope so.

The speaker is only 4" across and, naturally, has some limitations like, oh, the highs and lows. 10k is the upper limit and the bottom end dies at 250Hz, requiring a plain vanilla driver to take over (the bass driver sits in the top of the base above).

While this is, as far as I know, the first 12 sided, inverted-nipple-diaphram speaker, it's not the first truly omni directional speaker. MBL of Germany has been perfecting their vibrating footballs for years now (read about my tryst with MBL). Most everyone loves MBL and hates the Robb Report price. Whatever you think of MBL's sound, they are some of the only functional hyper exotic speakers out there.

It's hard to tell if JVC will ever put these speakers into production. If you're at the A&V Festa in Pacifico Yokohoma come Sept 22-24, let us know how they sound.

Check out the oh-so fun Japanese translation.
A good English article.
The English JVC PDF.
(Thanks for the tip, Fred!)