SOUND AS MONODIRECTIONAL AS A LIGHT BEAM!!

Ain't that great?! Yes, I just came accross a cutting edge technology developed by Dr. Joseph Pompie of MIT at its Media Laboratory which enables you to put sound where you want. Using this technology you can make sure that sound is heard only in a radius of a few ft. at a definite distance from the loud speaker(which is specific to its design) in the direction in which the louspeaker is facing. And the rest of the space can be keep quite. I'm damn fascinated by the technology and am trying to get more n more info on it. I'll keep posting it whenever I get more info.

Technology. Physicists researching in the area of sonar and other detection systems discovered about 4 decades ago that sound waves will be more directional if their wavelength is very small compared to their sound source. Audible sound comin out of regular speakers has a wavelength comparable to their source. So the sound produced by those speakers is omnidirectional. On the other hand this new technology uses ultrasound produced out of disc like loudspeakers having large cross section area. Ultrasound as we know, has a small wavelength of just a few millimeters results in highly directional sound. Now, the question is - "How on earth is ultrasound be heard by our earthly human ear?" Knowing the inherent qualities of the atmosphere we know that air causes the wavelength of the ultrasound waves to increase n come into the audible range. The distance at which this transition occurs can be calculated, thus making apparent atleast the possibility, if not the viability, of engineering loudspeakers giving out highly directional sound for specific applications.

Applications. Manufactured at holosonics, audiospotlights have been installed amusement parks and museums like Boston Science Museum. Dalmer Chrysler has ordered for installation of audio spotlight system in their cars as well, so different costumers could.

All my understanding of this topic and the graphic is courtesy audiospotlight.com