An ex-Apple designer has released his own new speaker. Claiming to be the world's first "triphonic speaker," the new device has a unique focus on spatial audio far beyond what we've seen in other speakers.
The First "Triphonic" Speaker Has Launched
Ex-Apple designer Christian Stringer, known for designing the Apple HomePod, has launched what he claims to be the world's first "triphonic" speaker. The speaker is called the Cell Alpha, and has been released by Stringer's start-up Syng for $1,799.
What stands out first is arguably the design of the speaker. Coming from a designer you'd expect the speaker to look good, and it does. In a rounded shape, the speaker drivers are surrounded by glass, so you can look at the insides of your new speaker.
As you can see through the glass, the speaker consists of two main woofers at the top and bottom. There are also three drivers distributed around the middle of the two woofers, hence the name "triphonic".
What Features Does the Cell Alpha Boast?
The main focus of the new speaker is its spatial audio capabilities. What this means is that there are three microphones in the stand measuring the shape of the room surrounding it. The three drivers in the speaker can then fill the entire room with sound in different directions, to emulate surround sound.
Syng claims that the Cell Alpha can "virtualize any speaker array" and "accurately spatialize sound for your room". Users can also control the placement of the sound manually from the companion app.
To get an even better experience, you can pair up to three of these speakers together. This provides even more sound coverage in a room, and will help to produce the "fullest expression of triphonic audio". However, adding up the cost of all three speakers brings the total to $5,397, which makes for a very expensive audio solution.
The Cell Alpha supports both AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect for streaming your music over your network. For physical connections, the speaker uses USB-C cables. Syng has said it will release a USB-C to HDMI cable to connect the speaker to a TV, but if you already have one of those it'll work.
Is "Triphonic" Audio the Next Big Thing?
"Triphonic" audio certainly seems impressive. Syng has done a great job at packing advanced spatial audio into a high quality speaker, and the speakers will undoubtedly sound great.
However, such impressive features come at a very high price to customers, and you'd need to be very serious about your audio set-up to spend so much money on speakers.
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