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Hello everyone. This is Takashi Park from Hi-Fi Do Kyoto Repair Department. Today's theme is "biomorphic speakers". You may have no idea what it is so let me explain. First of all, "biomorphism" is a term often used in design and architecture. I thought of "organic" but the nuance differed from that. Typically, designs of Art Nouveau or Frank Lloyd Wright are cited as the examples. However, I think of designers such as Finish architect Matti Suuronen, Hungarian architect Antti Lovag who designed Palais Bulles de Pierre Cardin, and German multi industrial designer Luigi Colani.
"FUTURO" by Matti Suuronen, 1968
	"Palais Bulles de Pierre Cardin" by Antti Lovag
"Round Kitchen" by Luigi Colani, 1968
Luigi Colani is widely known here in Japan as well. He has designed many kinds of things other than a kitchen. Below are some of his works.
Schimmel Pegasus Grand Piano
	Mercedes-Benz Colani Truck
Tachikichi Mugs from Luigi Colani 2020 Collection These mugs were designed by Colani in collaboration of Tachikichi, an old ceramic shop in Kyoto.
There are many more kinds of things he designed but many of them are just concept models and didn't end up as actual products. Interestingly, he designed concept speakers as well.

These speakers are inspired by human ears apparently. (I do not thing their performances are not very good though...) In my opinion Colani reached such designs via stylization, aestheticism such as exoticism or eroticism, or comparative cultural approach. Interestingly, there are more than one examples in the audio industry that the designs reached "biomorphism" pursuing better sound efficacy.
The first examples are some models invented by a French old manufacturer Elipson, that is not very well known in Japan. The company was founded in 1938 and started developing speakers sometime around 1940. Their audio engineer Joseph Léon produced many prototypes that consist of sphere enclosures and reflections.

Joseph Léon (1908-1984) He obtained many patents via his research in the era.

Of many models he produced, Elipson A45S8 is a good example of today's theme.

These are called "oreille de lapin" meaning "ear of rabbit" as they look. (Rabbits have high-performance ears.) Now I could only imagine how they sounded and I think they were designed to spread sound in a natural, soft, and unidirectional way seeing the ear-like reflectors and almost sphere enclosures made of ceramic or plaster.
The peculiar-looking speakers with unique philosophy of sound reproduction were seemingly used by professional environments including television stations, public facilities, or studios. Despite their fascinating looks like contemporary sculptures, not large number of these were manufactured. Due to the quantity and the frailness, it seems there are not many left today. *In fact, I have seen one BS40 at Hi-Fi Do Kyoto Shop in person but found the stuff very fragile.

The next is this model that I think of first when it comes to speakers in organic forms. The Nautilus Speaker Bowers & Wilkins 1993

The most interesting thing about this speaker I think is, the ultimate goal, sound without distortion, were fully achieved via an idea by a young engineer. Sometime around 1990, a 30 year old researcher Laurence Dickie came up with an idea to solve distortion due to antiphase with exponential tapered tubes. However, it takes too much length to do that for woofers, they made them into spiral shapes like horns. The bizarre shapes are designed that way.

These very complicated & distortion free speakers born from a simple idea were named nautilus due to their shapes just like spiral shells. The invention, exponential tapered tubes are still used for tweeters and midrange units of 800 series, one of the main speaker lines of Bowers & Wilkins.

Laurence also founded Vivid Audio in South Africa with the then CEO of Bowers & Wilkins Robert Trunz, where he designed highly-acclaimed models like Oval K1 and GIYA G1.
Another nickname of Elipson A45S8 is "conque" meaning conch, as it looks like one seen from a different perspective. Even this was designed from the total opposite place, the both ended up like spiral shells. This might be the result of embodiment of sound, I guess.
In the end, why don't we watch a video of a nautilus.

This grosses me out for some reason. The next blog of me will be something related to the current "Asadora", morning NHK soap operas "Toto Neechan". I will relate it with Japanese legendary magazine "Kurashi no Techo", that is the topic of the serie. So, see you next time.

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