At shows I am always interested to spend time a bit farther away from the larger booths, looking for new and interesting technologies that have potential for disrupting the market a bit. Audio Spotlight by Holosonics made a big impact on me on the first day of DSE, and I think it might be a good technology to watch.

The concept of audio isolation is not new, and there are several well known audio vendors offering various products that provide focused sound for customer experiences and displays. This is most common in museum environments, but applications in supermarkets, walk-in retail locations, temporary outdoor marketing campaigns and trade shows are increasing in popularity.

What makes Audio Spotlight so distinctive is the surprising focus of the audio delivery. At the show floor you literally can’t hear the audio from the two displays unless you stand directly on the floor target. One foot to either side, and the audio drops off dramatically. In the show environment, with all the local white noise, the audio completely disappears. Holosonics claims that their product has 10x the isolation of any other speaker, and I believe that to be pretty accurate.

However, the physical aspects of the speakers are also very surprising. These speakers come in three models, all of them are only 1 3/4″ (3.5 cm) thick! In addition, the speaker covering is entirely custom printable seamlessly blending into the design of your environment.

-bj