Since the early 2000s serious research into metamaterials for use in a wide-ranging variety of products and utilizations has been taken up by physicists, electrical engineers and researchers in materials science, optics and nanoscience. Basically, a metamaterial is an artificially structured material that can do things the base material found in nature cannot do. The internal structure of the natural material is manipulated resulting in a material that can have a profound effect on the performance of energy waves, light and sound being the most prominent, but research into other fields such as electromagnetism among other disciplines are also taking place.
In optics, metamaterials have been developed that offer a novel control of light wave propagation. In one such branch of research, metamaterials were used to develop an invisibility cloak where light smoothly wrapped around the surface of the metamaterial without scattering or diffracting. This created a virtual empty space inside the “cloak” where the object itself became invisible. This experiment was first demonstrated in 2006 using microwave frequencies.
As a result of our partnership with Acoustic Materials Group we have developed a first-of-its-kind structure that has proven to eliminate 99% of all the unwanted sound that radiates from the rear of a driver. This rearward firing energy reflects back with some delay to the driver interfering with the sound currently being produced by the driver. Standard technologies can reduce or eliminate up to 60% of this energy. The pure audio bliss that has been uncovered in that 39% difference is utterly astonishing. You’ll hear detail in the soundstage unlike any detail you’ve heard before.
Metamaterial is coming and it will change the audio world forever.