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Pinholes and Plastic Wrap Make Solid Walls "Transparent" To Sound

Posted by timothy on from the need-a-better-cone-of-silence dept.

First time accepted submitter benonemusic writes "Researchers have devised a means of making sound transmit easily through rigid surfaces, including walls. The process relies on creating small holes on a wall, and covering them on one side with a thin covering made from plastic wrap."

2 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Is it one way or bidirectional? by niftymitch · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Is this trick bidirectional?

    If it is mono-directional it has application as sound proofing.

    If it is bidirectional then the listener can be heard doing what listeners do as well as the "target".

    If regions could be made "transparent" then 3D audio precision might be possible.

    Interesting.... but I am not going to dig holes in my walls.

    --
    Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
  2. And the downsides not mentioned. by queazocotal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The 'walls' were thin sheets of metal - yes - this is an interesting breakthrough, but will not help much for thick walls.
    The effect is strongly frequency dependant, and relies on tuned membranes.
    It will not work for signals such as voice.

    Or at least - it will not work as well as it would for tuned signals.
    It is unclear if you can get a useful effect with a large number (say 50) of tuned membranes covering the voice band.
    You can perhaps also do interesting novel things with tuning, if this is possible.
    You can have a 'transparent' wall - that mutes certain tones - for example if you want to notch out a train whistle that goes past every day.

    Audio prisms are another application that springs to mind.