Building a kick-arse home theatre requires lots of money and space for speakers, amps and other equipment. But THX wants to replace all of that with their new Steerable Line Array speaker system that can discreetly hide under your massive TV.
As the name implies, the system uses an array of 92 speakers in total: 30 low, 30 mid-range and 32 high-end tweeters that blast sound through a 3.6cm-tall gap. The system allows the sound to be directed more precisely, creating eight individual sweet spots that can be targeted directly via a wireless app running on a smartphone or tablet during set-up.
Furthermore, to accomodate the large number of speakers THX also had to develop a new 100W amplifier that connects to each driver and only runs when the speaker is needed. This results in a smaller power draw, and in turn less heat minimising the need for cooling hardware and reducing the overall size of the system.
Pricing and availability for the new home theatre technology hasn’t been announced yet, but THX has been developing it for a few years now, so what’s a few more months to make sure they’ve worked out all the kinks? [Popular Science]