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New Opalum Speakers Sport 48 Drivers
It's a flag. No, it's a sheet of paper. No, it's an on-wall Opalum loudspeaker with 48 separate drivers. Remote looks like a round bar of soap.
Rune Karsbaek shows off the Opalum Flow 1010 on-wall speaker with 48 separate drivers on the 1.5-inch deep speakers.
My first reaction to seeing the Opalum Flow series speakers at CEDIA Expo 2011 was, “What the heck are they?”
Opalum is a brand new company based in Sweden who is just launching with a new line of wired and wireless speakers using what it calls Actisonic technology. The active-speaker technology allows the super thin on-wall and bookshelf speakers to move lots of low frequency air out of a small package, as described by Rune Karsbaek, managing director in the U.S.
The largest of the speakers—the Flow 1010 on-wall version--looks like a sheet of paper waving in the wind, almost contemporary baroque in design, with no grilles. The 1.5-inch deep speaker has 48 separate 1-inch drivers that play down to 43Hz. All the round drivers reminded me of the Star Trek episode where a couple of red-shirted crew members get grabbed by the tentacles of a "salt monster" that leaves large round circles all over their faces. Cool!
Built into each speaker is 21 amplifiers. Each frequency band has its own amplifier. Since all the electronics are in the speakers, they cannot be connected out of phase to the system’s control hub, which is controlled by an RF remote that looks like a round bar of soap.
Karsbaek spent his time at CEDIA demoing the product in a private suite for potential manufacturer’s reps. After they heard the system, he was able to ink 12 of his 18 territories at the show. The speakers, which are designed for two-channel listening, come in black or white.
"The simplicity is in the mechanics," says Karsbaek, who adds that the system will be shipping this month. The power supply, remote and control hub are $199 without Wi-Fi and $399 with Wi-Fi. The Flow 1010 speakers run $3,999 a pair. The bookshelf speakers, called the Stream 310 and Stream 210, are $1,499 and $1`,299 respectively.
The Opalum remote is very sleek and comes with the power supply and control hub.
Opalum is a brand new company based in Sweden who is just launching with a new line of wired and wireless speakers using what it calls Actisonic technology. The active-speaker technology allows the super thin on-wall and bookshelf speakers to move lots of low frequency air out of a small package, as described by Rune Karsbaek, managing director in the U.S.
The largest of the speakers—the Flow 1010 on-wall version--looks like a sheet of paper waving in the wind, almost contemporary baroque in design, with no grilles. The 1.5-inch deep speaker has 48 separate 1-inch drivers that play down to 43Hz. All the round drivers reminded me of the Star Trek episode where a couple of red-shirted crew members get grabbed by the tentacles of a "salt monster" that leaves large round circles all over their faces. Cool!
Built into each speaker is 21 amplifiers. Each frequency band has its own amplifier. Since all the electronics are in the speakers, they cannot be connected out of phase to the system’s control hub, which is controlled by an RF remote that looks like a round bar of soap.
Karsbaek spent his time at CEDIA demoing the product in a private suite for potential manufacturer’s reps. After they heard the system, he was able to ink 12 of his 18 territories at the show. The speakers, which are designed for two-channel listening, come in black or white.
"The simplicity is in the mechanics," says Karsbaek, who adds that the system will be shipping this month. The power supply, remote and control hub are $199 without Wi-Fi and $399 with Wi-Fi. The Flow 1010 speakers run $3,999 a pair. The bookshelf speakers, called the Stream 310 and Stream 210, are $1,499 and $1`,299 respectively.
The Opalum remote is very sleek and comes with the power supply and control hub.
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About the Author
Jason Knott, Editor, CE Pro
Jason has covered low-voltage electronics as an editor since 1990. He joined EH Publishing in 2000, and before that served as publisher and editor of Security Sales, a leading magazine for the security industry. He served as chairman of the Security Industry Association’s Education Committee from 2000-2004 and sat on the board of that association from 1998-2002. He is also a former board member of the Alarm Industry Research and Educational Foundation. He is currently a member of the CEDIA Education Action Team for Electronic Systems Business. Jason graduated from the University of Southern California.
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