Tech That Flopped!


Every few months someone releases technology that seems to be revolutionary, but goes nowhere a couple of years later. Some tech gets acceptance and even imitation. Some goes wildly successful.

Ideas that are a huge success:
  • Acoustic suspension
  • Bass Reflex
  • Soft dome tweeters
Some ideas, well, it's not so clear:
  • Perfectly time aligned speakers ilke Thiel/Vandersteen
  • ESL
  • Line Arrays
  • Plasma tweeters
  • Transmission line
What tech have you seen come and go, was it worthwhile?

Best,

E
erik_squires

Showing 1 response by onhwy61

The Vandersteen 2 has probably the highest sales of any audiophile loudspeaker since it's introduction, so why wouldn't time aligned loudspeakers fall into the success category? 

Sometimes the case is not that a technology was bad, but that it has been eclipsed by a better or more practical technology.  The 24-track tape recorder was the world wide standard for recording studios, but multi-track hard drive based recording technology has supplanted it.

Whatever happen to the BGS Signal Completion processors?  Are Kimber Iso/Mike recordings still being made?