WINNER: American Technology Corporation’s HyperSonic Sound System
INNOVATOR: Elwood Norris
Elwood Norris wants to make audio speakers obsolete. He would banish forever that cumbersome arrangement of woofer, tweeter, and midrange speaker that only an audiophile could love and substitute a single speaker the size of an Oreo cookie.
Norris calls it a HyperSonic Sound System, and it is no ordinary speaker. Instead of a vibrating membrane, it uses a crystal wafer that can project a beam of sound across a room like a spotlight. When the beam hits a wall or a ceiling, it bounces off and creates the impression that the sound originates at that spot, like a ventriloquist throwing his voice. To achieve a stereo effect, two beams can be trained on opposite sides of a room or theater. You can focus each beam on a point, and that’s where the sound will be created, Norris says. Equally important, he adds, is that his new way of generating sound has less distortion over the full range of human hearing than even the most expensive speakers and is five to ten times more efficient, so less power is needed.
