Gilmore Audio planars revealed

Caveat emptor, center channels like that can be very high maintenance. Sure looks like it's worth a try though.

Sellerwithintegrity,

Please, rethink your remark about some speaker manufacturer making ribbons that are lighter than air. It isn't going to happen. Here's some reading for you:

May 7, 2002 - A new version of aerogel, the particle-collecting substance on NASA's Stardust spacecraft, has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the solid with the lowest density.

Dr. Steven Jones of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., a materials scientist who created the aerogel used by Stardust, also created a lighter version that weighs only 3 milligrams per cubic centimeter (.00011 pounds per cubic inch.) The team received the official certificate yesterday.

Guinness World Records approved the new aerogel's application for the least dense solid in March. Astronomer David Hawksett, Guinness World Records' science and technology judge, decided that Jones' aerogel beat out the previous record holder, an aerogel that weighed 5 milligrams per cubic centimeter (.00018 pounds per cubic inch.)

Aerogel is pure silicon dioxide and sand, just as is glass, but aerogel is a thousand times less dense than glass because it is 99.8 percent air. It is prepared like gelatin by mixing a liquid silicon compound and a fast-evaporating liquid solvent, forming a gel that is then dried in an instrument similar to a pressure cooker. The mixture thickens, and then careful heating and depressurizing produce a glassy sponge of silicon.

What remains is sometimes called "solid smoke," for its cloudy translucent color and super-light weight. Surprisingly, this seemingly brittle substance is durable and easily survives launch and space environments.

"It's probably not possible to make aerogel any lighter than this because then it wouldn't gel," Jones said. "The molecules of silicon wouldn't connect. And it's not possible to make it lighter than the density of air, 1.2 milligrams per cubic centimeter (.00004 pounds per cubic inch), because aerogel is filled with air." To change the density, Jones simply changes the amount of silicon in the initial mixture.

Stardust will use aerogel to capture particles from comet Wild 2 in 2004. NASA used aerogel for thermal insulation on the Mars Pathfinder mission. It will also be used on the 2003 Mars Exploration Rover, and may aid a proposed fundamental-physics testing mission and the Mars Scout Program.

Those may be mighty fine speakers but...

Lugnut...What if the aerogel were made with helium in it instead of air? Maybe we will need speaker hold-down cables instead of cones!

Interesting looking speaker, but what does the statement "compresses at 127dB (dynamic range)" mean? Are you really saying the speaker will output at 127dB? At what frequency? With what input? At what distance? Frankly, it doesn't sound plausible.

Eldartford,

Yeah, but better yet, let's use Hydrogen. Seriously, here's the explaination:

"It's probably not possible to make aerogel any lighter than this because then it wouldn't gel," Jones said. "The molecules of silicon wouldn't connect. And it's not possible to make it lighter than the density of air, 1.2 milligrams per cubic centimeter (.00004 pounds per cubic inch), because aerogel is filled with air." To change the density, Jones simply changes the amount of silicon in the initial mixture.

Plus, I don't think the aerogel would make a good ribbon.

Anyway, I look forward to the day when speaker cables are also used as tie downs. Again, these may be great speakers but this claim is so outrageous that it cannot go unchallenged. Heavens, if they could develop such a material, the last engineering use for it would be in audio.