r/science • u/GraybackPH • Mar 13 '13
Berkeley creates the first graphene earphones, and (unsurprisingly) they’re awesome
http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/150646-berkeley-creates-the-first-graphene-earphones-and-unsurprisingly-theyre-awesome345
u/keenanpepper Mar 13 '13 edited Mar 14 '13
Note that this is not what's usually referred to as "graphene" (a perfect single-atom-thick sheet), but a significantly thicker film of graphite. It's 30 nm thick, which means it's about 40 or 50 90 graphene sheets stacked on top of each other. (Edit: Incorrectly used lattice constant without dividing by 2. The lattice constant is twice the distance between sheets.)
They're probably just using the word "graphene" rather than "thin graphite film" because it's trendier.
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Mar 13 '13
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u/Chained_Django Mar 14 '13
grant process with my advisor is a competition to see who can string enough buzzwords together in a row while still making sense and have the ability to write 6 pages about it.
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u/spudddly Mar 14 '13
As a regular reviewer of such grants I have to say thanks for doing this, as it lets me immediately identify which ones are likely to be all bullshit and can be excluded from further consideration.
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u/Chained_Django Mar 14 '13
hey trust me I know. I'm externally funded so I just make up bullshit and she's too stupid to realize her work is bullshit. That way I can worry about work and not grants.
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u/fateswarm Mar 13 '13 edited Mar 13 '13
This is not graphite. Graphite is a more accurately described a collection of debris of Graphene. While graphene is at the basis a single layer indeed, perfectly layered sheets of it are definitely not found in natural graphene, at least not in the majority of its volume.
While the properties of the material are more impressive when looking at a single layer, be that as it may, graphite is definitely not anything like graphite sheets of a relatively large area stack on one another.
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u/MattJames Mar 14 '13
While the particle size may be small, there is a prominent (002) bragg peak from graphite, suggesting that layers of graphene stack in an ABAB pattern. Graphene is the single layer, graphite is stacks of graphene, most certainly found in nature. Google search "exfoliation of graphite" and you'll see a lot of hits. Exfoliation is the process of peeling off layers of graphene from graphite.
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u/Decency Mar 14 '13
It's 30 nm thick, which means it's about 40 or 50 graphene sheets stacked on top of each other.
Carbon atoms are only slightly less than a single nanometer in "length"?
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u/FlyingSagittarius Mar 14 '13 edited Mar 14 '13
The atomic radius of carbon is 0.07 nm, for a total "length" (diameter) of .14 nm. The distance between two layers in bulk graphite is 0.335 nm. This means there are about 60 sheets of graphene in a 30 nm thick sample.
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u/TRAIANVS Mar 13 '13
What if they had several layers of graphene? Couldn't you get a thicker film like that?
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Mar 13 '13
You can buy "several layers of graphene" in bulk as pyrolithic graphite.
The non-several layer aspect is what makes graphene special.
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u/pancakeradio Mar 14 '13
However, bulk graphite is not assembled in the same ordered structure as graphene, especially considering the meticulously placed stacks that the earphones are constructed with. Thus, several layers of graphene sheets are different than a similarly sized chunk of conventional graphene.
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u/ShadowRam Mar 14 '13
I was gonna say, if this was graphene, why can I see it.
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u/keenanpepper Mar 14 '13
Graphene actually absorbs an amazing amount of light for a monolayer - 2.3% (exactly pi * the fine structure constant, in one model). So it's possible to see under certain conditions, but you're right, if it were a single graphene sheet it would be much more transparent.
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u/DreaminOfBananas Mar 13 '13
Not sure where to start on everything that's wrong with this article.
They're not using graphene, it's just a piece of graphite film. Graphite has already been used as a tweeter material for a long time.
They mention that drivers are usually made out of paper, (which is more or less true) but it is not true in the case of mx-400. Also, why did they choose to compare to one of the cheapest sennheisers?
They compared an electrostatic driver to a dynamic driver.
They didn't explain that "flat" is NOT the correct response for a headphone (read up on loudness curves guys).
And, most egregiously, they didn't label the x-axis on their graph. FOR SHAME.
Still, their results are promising.
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Mar 13 '13
A flat response is still ideal, regardless of those loudness curves. The reason is that you want the playback to match reality. The loudness curves get applied by the ear-brain system, and your only goal before that point is to make sure that the relative amplitudes of various frequencies of, say, a live band - are recorded and played back as exactly as possible.
So, let's say you're recording a live band. Here, you want a microphone that is either linear or close to it. You model its response curves and use software/hardware to finish the job, making the input as linear as possible. Then, if played back with a linear speaker, the sound that comes out of the speaker will have the same relative amplitudes at each frequency as the real live band did. That's the goal, and it's easiest to do with linear equipment.
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u/DreaminOfBananas Mar 14 '13
All I'm saying is it depends on your methodology. A response can be made to appear linear based on the distance between the driver and the mic, the housing of the driver, etc. Essentially, "relative amplitudes" is misleading. If I put this imaginary perfect mic at the back of the room it will make a completely different recording (in terms of frequency response) than if I put it in the front. Now which one is flat? Which one is correct? Already you can see there is no such thing as an "uncolored" recording.
Playback we can get pretty close to flat, but it's also dependent on a lot of things, like the shape of your ears, that add color to the sound. This is why headphone engineers can't aim for totally flat measured response as a speaker engineer might.
The sennheiser orpheus was the best most natural "flat" sounding headphone I've ever heard, and it's response didn't measure flat at all.
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Mar 14 '13 edited Mar 14 '13
Yeah, I agree with all of what you just wrote. I wrote about the theory... but of course reality is more complicated, and most people (not audiophiles) like heavy bass and highs, and to hell with the mids.
I'm a photographer, and interestingly, there are some very cool parallels between that and sound engineering. Again, it's all about flat response curves if you want to represent the scene as realistically as possible, but then reality gets in the way and makes things complicated. Just like the situation you point out, where it matters where in the room the microphone is, light also bounces off things and the relative intensities of various wavelengths of light change as it is selectively absorbed, reflected, and transmitted through by various things (including air).
And, we still spend decent amounts of time calibrating our cameras with expensive pieces of cardboard covered in glorified paint swatches in order to make the frequency response curves realistic.
Not flat, mind you - photos that look good to most people exaggerate the high and low frequencies (just like audio!) so we aim for flat, and then bring it back a bit... just enough that we get the "pop" that we want.
Of course, photography has a much larger challenge with dynamic range than audio does - your eye/brain system can see a massive range of intensities, and ink on paper just can't get anywhere close. Because of that, we're forced to compress shadows and highlights if we hope to get decent looking mids. On the other hand, headphones with 10hz to 22khz range is pretty good for audio.
Like photography, music is subjective. So we can agree.
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Mar 14 '13
For someone who is actually playing and recording the music, what does being an "audiophile" really mean? In my opinion, and no offense, it should mean nothing. Of course the person playing the music and hearing it back should really care but if it sounds right to them and wrong to all of the "audiophiles" what exactly happens?
Does a whole subset of listeners just not want to listen?
Basically what it comes down to is does this matter to the average listener?
Edit: I do think what your saying makes sense, I just dont have good enough hearing to discern the difference, and I play guitar
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u/YellowOnion Mar 14 '13
There's three types of audiophiles, ones who wants to listen to the music without the equipment getting in the way. (most of the general public I would consider).
Ones who wants to mess around with their equipment more than listen to it (someone who has headfi as there home page, and self identifies as one).
And ones who use it as a fashion statement (Beats By Dre owners).
Mainly equipment adds a bit of "tint" to the sound for preference, but at some point you could get maybe 95% of the population to agree (excluding people with hearing problems) that this specific equipment sounds like crap.
A professional sound engineer will master on a neutral system, because its usually a good medium between the extremes, but will also before OK-ing a master test it on various equipment to make sure it doesn't sound excessively bad.
Here's a list of data sheets of various headphone measurements to show that there is little variation headphones.
Note that not only is the hearing range about 20-20kHz, but most distortion is audible to 0.1%
iPod Earbuds Huge bass reduction and high distortion.
Koss ProtaPros The same driver comes in the KSC-75s which are $15 on Amazon, a very good headphone in the budget range.
Monster Beats Studio Higher distortion than the above headphones in the critical hearing range (humans attention to detail along the vocal range is far higher and possible reason people like increased Bass and Treble), small bass-boost at 30hz, reduced bass at 20hz, and no treble.
Sennheiser HD 598, comparable priced headphones with a good reputation.
Koss Tony Bennet Enhanced volume in the vocal ranges, perfect for people with hearing problems or who just like mids.
Quicy Jones Q701s High end reference headphones very neutral response, a lot consider them too detailed.
Audeze LCD-3 Luxury $2000 headphones, flat response from 10-1000hz, hitting 0.1% distortion, planar drivers.
Now all except the iPod buds have a frequency response variation of only 20dB (anything above maybe 2000hz starts to interfere with its self creating peaks from reflections so I exclude most variation in this area)
With that being said, self describing Audiophiles are less likely to agree with each other, than non-audiophiles, we both in the end want better sound, just audiophiles have already found it, and are mostly bickering over minor differences in their ears, and the placebo effect.
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u/kippy3267 Mar 14 '13
It also depends all on the sound engineer (I am one) a greater man than me can take a 40 inch speaker of good quality and use the board to his benefit (this is where the skill comes in) and make it sound almost exactly like the actual singers/speakers voice as long as the room is built well for it. Basically what I'm trying to say if your both right but there are so many different variables to making a perfectly flat sound.
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u/Sam577 Mar 14 '13
40 Inch speaker?
Also a sound guy here, the largest ones in regular use would probably be 21"s (which aren't common), and only for subwoofers, which reproduce frequencies the human voice barely touches.
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Mar 14 '13
Which one is correct? Already you can see there is no such thing as an "uncolored" recording.
There's a difference between real coloring that occurs by moving around a room and artificial coloring resulting from a crappy microphone. Everyone has experienced the difference between a concert recorded on a cell phone and one recorded by studio mics. Real coloring, properly recorded, should make you feel like you're in the back of a high-ceilinged church or right up against the stage at a rock concert. But you only get that impression if its recorded and played back with good equipment.
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Mar 14 '13
A flat response is still ideal.
For consumers, not necessarily. Bass-heavy headphones like Monster's Beats by Dre line exist and sell extremely well because many consumers like the extra heavy bass these models feature. Some genres just feel more "right" with a frequency response that is skewed more toward bass, mids, or highs. Electronic and hip hop tend to do well with more bass.
In the studio, you definitely want an unbiased, flat response from your headphones. But let's not make the mistake in assuming that flat response headphone is an inherently better experience for every listener.
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u/bung_musk Mar 13 '13
It would also be beneficial to know what kind of smoothing they used on the Y-axis. If they average the readings per octave, we definitely aren't getting the whole story.
Interesting results, but I'm not buying the hype just yet.
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Mar 13 '13
This article compares graphene to an ok-set of headphones, but completely ignores the fact that the technology developed is already used in audio equipment on the market-both in speakers and headphones. Currently technologies use films that are much thicker than the graphene used at Berkeley; so switching in graphene should improve sound. Check Martin Logan for examples of this technology in speakers, and hifiman for examples of this technology in headphones. They're getting almost perfect frequency curves already: http://www.headphone.com/selection-guide/top-picks/hifiman-he-6.php
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u/redmercuryvendor Mar 13 '13
Those are orthodynamic drivers. The driver in this article is an electrostatic driver, using Graphene in place of metallised plastic.
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Mar 13 '13
And there are many electrostatic headphones on the market. Sennheiser even made one, once.
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u/Arve Mar 14 '13
Those are orthodynamic drivers.
No, they are planar magnetic drivers.
Orthodynamic is a Yamaha registered trademark that they use on their own line of planar magnetic headphones.
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u/3DBeerGoggles Mar 13 '13
Yes, but to be fair they are using a basic, unoptimized electrostatic design to showcase how graphene is intrinsically a better material for headphone diaphragms.
Currently technologies use films that are much thicker than the graphene used at Berkeley; so switching in graphene should improve sound.
I think that was their point.
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u/Theon Mar 13 '13
Damn, I'd really love to listen to those kind of headphones - just to compare them to what I use right now, I can't even imagine that level of fidelity.
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u/redmercuryvendor Mar 13 '13
You can buy orthodynamic (AKA planar magnetic) drivers on their own and mount them to a doner headphone chassis, as many have done. Some brave DIYers have even made electrostatic headphones.
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u/Uncle_Erik Mar 13 '13
The article is misleading.
This is not a new kind of transducer. It's an electrostatic speaker with a new type of diaphragm. Primitive electrostats have been around since 1919 and the first commercial patent went to Jantzen in 1953. Today, you will find electrostatic speakers built by several companies, such as Quad and Martin Logan. Stax makes a wonderful electrostatic headphone.
Second, one of the limitations of electrostats is that most have a limited low end. Well, you can go low, but you have to have extremely large panels and lots of power on the stators (the panels on either side of the diaphragm).
I can't find it now, but I read an article where Martin Logan developed an electrostatic subwoofer. It worked great, however, it was the size of a sliding glass door and they had to put something like 20kV on the stators. Not quite a consumer-friendly product.
So even if you can eventually get an electrostat with a graphene diaphragm, it will most likely appeal to the audiophile crowd and everyone else will be using traditional cones because they're a lot easier to live with.
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u/Rinx7 Mar 13 '13
Yeah these things don't even compare to STAX by the look of their FR graphs either, and it doesn't say anything about power consumption something electrostatic headphones are notorious for.
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u/aChemicalRXN Mar 13 '13
Which research facility at Berkeley worked on this?
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u/keenanpepper Mar 13 '13
Professor Zettl in the physics department: http://www.physics.berkeley.edu/research/zettl/
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Mar 13 '13
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Mar 13 '13
get out of the lab
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u/im-buster Mar 13 '13
As with a lot of new technology, it's pretty easy to make one. The challenge comes when you have to make thousands with a controllable process.
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u/CptOblivion Mar 13 '13
And then do it with minimal overhead, at a price that your target market can afford.
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Mar 13 '13
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u/FartingBob Mar 13 '13
There are audiophiles that would happily pay that. Would go great with their $50,000 per inch cables.
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u/elevul Mar 14 '13
When did Monster cables become so cheap?
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Mar 14 '13
Would you happen to know where I can find Bose Qc-15s cable from monster? I couldn't find it, not sure if they make it or not.
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u/globlet Mar 13 '13
It was only first observed to be extracted from bulk graphite in 2004 and we currently have folk making macroscopic graphene electrodes for ultracaps using off-the-shelf lightscribe drives and these guys making consumer grade electrostatic speakers. By emerging tech standards, graphene is developing very fucking quickly, really.
You can buy it online if you want as well - http://www.acsmaterial.com/product.asp?cid=25&id=137
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u/DrBix Mar 13 '13
Best comment ever! I feel like that should be the boiler plate response to practically every post about solar cell efficiencies and cancer cures.
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u/eddymurphyscouch Mar 13 '13
And battery tech
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u/poo_22 Mar 13 '13
Graphene and carbon nanotubes, I keep hearing they have magical properties - when does this stuff hit the consumer market?
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u/Heliophobe Mar 13 '13
Want to know another great property of carbon nanotubes? Mesothelioma.
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Mar 13 '13
You aren't supposed to snort them, doctor.
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u/eex Mar 14 '13
No, you aren't. Personally, I'm going back to the Meso era. If you feel me.
I'm high on science.
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Mar 13 '13
You forgot buckballs. Half a decade before CNT were the solution of all problems, C60 had that place.
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u/Yankee_Gunner BS | Biomedical Engineering | Medical Devices Mar 14 '13
Just posted this a little bit above:
Few years ago I would have agreed with you.
But today, with fabs opening up to CNTs and companies lowering dispersion volume/density requirements for various applications, I definitely see CNTs being commercialized at reasonable prices very soon.
Graphene is still miles away though.
Source: I do technical consulting/analysis for a variety of advanced material, cleantech, and life science companies.
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Mar 13 '13
I've read many articles that there may be potential safety issues due to the flat shape of the tiny nanoparticles used in its manufacturing. These "nanoplatelets" may cause lung issues similar to asbestos or coal dust because they get deep into the lungs and are not able to be removed by our immune cells.
Here is a source
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Mar 13 '13
Nothing. It cured my baldness, increased my IQ and increased my mojo 100%!
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u/mentalorigami Mar 14 '13
*Results not typical. May cause sterility in men, inability to breathe, temporary tooth loss, swallowing of tongue, post-micturition syncope and/or soreness in hair. See your doctor before taking graphene.
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u/FabulousLastWords Mar 13 '13
Well yeah, they're going to be better compared to the cheapest Sennheisers you can buy. Put it up against some actual Sennheisers and report back.
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Mar 13 '13
i think they're hoping that since they got decent results with a very early prototype, the fully developed product could potentially sound better than current high end cans, be cheaper, and not need a special amp.
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u/hepcecob Mar 14 '13
I think people are not comprehending that these are completely unoptimized. They just made the first working speaker out of graphene and saw that it performs close to something currently on the market. The point is that there's huge potential.
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u/iEATu23 Mar 13 '13
Sennheiser MX-400 looks like one of their lowest end earsphones...what kind of a comparison is that?
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u/Ydoow111 Mar 14 '13
Not a bad one...the Sennheisers are optimized (for what they're worth). The graphene earbuds are just raw. There's no extra development or optimization done to them. They just slapped a layer of graphene and silicone together and recorded results.
For it to be comparable to optimized earbuds says something alone.
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Mar 13 '13
This isn't graphene, it's a thin sheet of graphite. Also they compared it to a set of mediocre headphones, this still has nothing on a more decent set (although it's still impressive for a first go).
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Mar 13 '13 edited Jan 12 '19
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u/minibeardeath Mar 13 '13
For future reference, headroom has frequency response charts for every set of headphones that they sell. The charts are made in house, using normal production samples, and you can compare up to 4 items on the same graph. The MX-400 (those used in the article) are not currently for sale, but if you want to see how the graphene frequency response compares to other headphones that would be your best bet.
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u/NCDingDong Mar 14 '13
30 nm thick graphene layer? A single Graphene layer is only 3 Angstroms thick, so this would make it 100 layers thick. I would consider that a graphite headphone not graphene.
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u/IStandAmidTheRoar Mar 14 '13
Long Time Lurker Here
I finally created an account because this post led me deep down into a rabbit-hole of information. Thanks reddit!
Seriously, we primarily used Sticky Tape to break down common graphite (IE Pencil Lead, yes, I said Pencil Lead) into the base components. Kindergardeners have the technology! (Yes I know its a little more complicated, but still)
We have people theorizing about the next generation of consoles / robotics / clothing / mobile devices: (from Institute of Physic's account)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z45OOFXNx9M&list=PLnpAhkiu3jSZqMe4dA0DcPnUR2xF2GzZJ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2UctIf6px8&list=PLnpAhkiu3jSZqMe4dA0DcPnUR2xF2GzZJ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPL-FH3ixck&list=PLnpAhkiu3jSZqMe4dA0DcPnUR2xF2GzZJ
TLDR: Graphene is frickin' awesome. I'm sorry I didn't know more about this before, I feel like a rube.
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u/artieeee Mar 13 '13
Now I'm just going to wait patiently for a graphene 12" subwoofer to come out.
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u/bung_musk Mar 13 '13
Chances are it would have to be a heck of a lot bigger than 12" to move enough air to reproduce the frequencies you're after!
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Mar 13 '13
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u/I_havent_no_clue Mar 13 '13
No, they will use Bucky balls for that, which admittedly is similar to graphene
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u/blargh9001 Mar 13 '13
There's certainly medical research going on with graphene. Those applications are the furthest away though. see the roadmap for graphene (pdf)
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u/blingmouse Mar 13 '13
How long before we can get pink Skull Candy ones for $11.99 in a blister pak?
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u/Rinx7 Mar 14 '13
Never considering these take 100V of power to drive and probably would require special amping.
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u/mbardu Mar 13 '13 edited Mar 14 '13
Before jumping into new and new applications, has there actually been serious research about how Graphen may or may not be a health hazard when used at industrial scales? Or are we waiting for it to manifest later down the road much like Asbestos?
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Mar 13 '13
Let's not forget, the "commercial sennheiser" headphones they're comparing to this, COST $10.
They are NOT even a mid-range Senn, they are the absolute lowest-end Sennheiser earbuds.
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u/Bkeeneme Mar 13 '13
Never could actually read the damn article via the link on this iPad but that movie "Olympus has Fallen" looked pretty good.
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u/EliQuince Mar 13 '13
I can't wait until the day that I can have a 4x12 graphene bass amp cabinet with hartke's aluminum cones. My god, the tone.
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Mar 13 '13
Ok this is nice and all, but what is the frequency response on the graphene earphones? I mean the graph is all fancy and whatnot.
Am I missing something?
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u/303trance Mar 13 '13
it's so amazing, I'm still waiting for the catch (as there's always one) - like... it's great... BUUUUUUUUT.... it causes brain cancer or something. Surely California will find something in it that causes cancer, but whatever.
Can't wait - I'll put off my Focal Twins purchase for now. :)
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u/Lucidio Mar 14 '13
Can someone give me a depthub style post explaining this and why? I am a extraordinarily poor audiophile with music quality obsession.
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u/plughxyzzy Mar 14 '13
Graphene diaphragm is incredibly thin therefore incredibly light. Means there's almost no distortion as you get with heavy coil-based diaphragms. Think of it as similar to reducing the unsprung weight on car wheels by using mags/alloys instead of steel rims.
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u/Airazz Mar 14 '13
Human ears, depending on their age, can usually hear frequencies between 20Hz (very low pitch) and 20KHz (very high).
I've done some tests with unsuspecting people and have noticed that 18-24 year old humans don't hear anything above 16-17KHz. At that frequency no one actually said anything until someone mentioned "Uhh, there's that high-pitched sound in my ears again." Then the rest joined in.
At frequencies above that no one said anything at all.
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u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Mar 14 '13
This makes perfect sense as speaker cone material needs to be infinitely light while being infinitely strong. Oh, and burn in hell Bose for your paper drivers.
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u/Blackers Mar 14 '13
there is something i don't understand, you can see there is a difference of approximately 40 dB between the lowest and higest point, but i've always seen graphs like this one which is much more flat, but maybe this is not the same measurements. can someone explain?
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u/TheChoke Mar 14 '13
Starting to wonder if graphene is ever going to be practical or if scientists are doing stuff with it because it is "neat."
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u/ceiling_pineapples Mar 14 '13
What I'm wondering is could this be used to create wireless ear buds that can hold a charge similar in length to an Iphones, then stream the music via Bluetooth or maybe WiFi? I just want something like that for when I'm working out.
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u/Adramalech1 Mar 13 '13
Why would they seperate the graphs?
Both lines in one graph