Light + Speaker Movement: Did Triad Start it All?

Larry Pexton and his crew at Triad have often been ahead of the curve and are most definitely a class act. I fondly remember their BassBase, a very clever TV stand with a built-in powered sub and room to store a couple of components behind a fabric grille/door. Even the carton was clever, with a picture of the stand on one side and a picture of a TV on the other so that two of them stacked showed how the product was utilized.

I love Triad, but I think the honor will have to go to Jamo. They had a speaker sconce combo years ago. Leave it to the Danish to come up with such a concept.

Marc, someone else pointed this out to me privately via email. Jamo apparently had one. And I believe Sonance may have made something in the 90s.

Where are they now, though?

And who believes this is the wave of the future? I sure do.

In the future not all speakers will have built-in lights, nor will all lights have built-in speakers - but all speakers will produce sound and all lights will produce illumination. ~

However, nonsense aside, I agree with you that this will be a growing trend, and I have a personal use for the Klipsch version coming up this Summer.

isf, please keep me posted on the install!

btw, the origination of this concept may well belong to our friends at Pioneer whose Corian enclosure garden speakers had built-in lights over 20 years ago.

Julie, will do. We have two light cans we never use that are in the perfect location for a pair of speakers for background music when we have company. It’s wonderful when need and solution converge!

Also, isf4hd, can you let me know who you are? We appreciate your contributions to the site.

Oops! Thought that we did this awhile back. It’s Rob Robinson, former Director of Sales for D-BOX Technologies and a 40-year veteran of the consumer electronics industry (Bose, JBL, harman/kardon, Infinity Systems, Precision Wood Concepts, Paramount Pictures, Diamond Audio, Rogersound Labs, etc.). I retired over 3 years ago but remain active as an ISF-certified HDTV calibrator and as a judge for various CEA awards competitions.

Hi Julie,
Jamo has been doing this for sometime as well.  10 years ago I was installing Jamo Atmosphere which was a wall sconce/speaker combo.  I also installed a version that hung by it’s cable that looked simular to a light you would hang above a kitchen island.

Walt….

Triad is a late-comer. the idea of lighting in speakers began two decades ago with Jamo, the Danish speaker company. Their sconce/speakers were used all over Europe before coming to North America and failing miserably in this market. The product was eventually withdrawn here. North American-derived designs are destined to fail as well, since most interior designers don’t find the quality of design good enough for custom interiors. Off-the-shelf hybrid solutions are rarely successful. Pioneer also had an outdoor speaker/light pillar 20 years ago for the garden pathway. It failed to take hold in the outdoor market, giving way to rocks instead. Editors at CEPro need to look seriously at audio history before declaring something as mundane as light speakers are the “next new thing.” -Hal Clark

Yup, I installed the pioneer Pet’s as well.  They were great.  Thanks Verkinder!

I was installing the Jamo sconce speakers in the 80’s,
they had 12 volt MR style halogen lamps,they not only looked good, but they sounded to.
we also used gels,cookies and dimming controls for ambiance.