Frequently Asked Questions
Over the past few years, selling speakers by word-of-mouth,
we have answered some questions quite frequently.
Perhaps some of your questions are included in our: FAQ
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Product Information
Purchase a Hemisphere from Electrotap here
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Hemisphere
A Brief History of the Hemispheres
1997
The Bomb
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The first speakers in this line were developed as a part of Perry Cook and Dan Trueman's N-Body project at Princeton University, which studied the emanation of sound in different directions from a variety of musical instruments. The first working models included the full-sphere "Bomb" and the "Boulder". A slightly later version of a performance rig included "R2", a spherical speaker built from Ikea salad bowls. |
"The Boulder" |
"R2" |
1997-1999
Critter |
After several permutations, the first generation of performance-ready spherical speakers was built. A dodecahedron (12-sided) cabinet was designed by Dr. T. Laurence Trueman and Dan Trueman, and several instruments were developed from it, including Dan Trueman's "critter" speaker, and Curtis Bahn's large "Bubba" speaker. These were integrated into Trueman's Bowed Sensor-Speaker Array (BoSSA) and Bahn's Sensor Bass R!g, respectively.
Bubba |
1999
2nd Generation |
The second generation of spheres featured truly spherical cabinets. These were designed and fabricated by Universal Enclosures, and solved many problems of construction. However, this design proved to be problematic in other regards, such as the difficulty of mounting speakers tightly to a curved surface. |
2002
| Returning to the Trueman design for inspiration, hemispherical speakers were developed which could be fastened together into a sphere or used as separates. A major project was undertaken at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute under the guidance of Professor Curtis Bahn and graduate student Stephan Moore to build a large quantity of these speakers. In all, fifty-five third generation hemispheres were built in the first eight months of the year. |
3rd Generation |
2003-2005
Hemisphere goes public |
The new Hemisphere develops a cult following, with a multitude of musicians, artists, and composers using Hemispheres in their performances and installations. Stephan Moore takes over the project of manufacturing new hemispherical speakers, and master furniture maker Ken Malz is enlisted to build the speakers. Malz and Moore make several incremental improvements to the design, including larger high-quality speaker drivers, rounded edges, and a durable powder coating finish. |
2006
2007
The tenth anniversary of Hemisphere speaker family! For the first time, Six-channel Hemispheres, originally designed for the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, are offered to the public.
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2008
Today's Hemisphere |
The Hemisphere design is updated to incorporate the most recent Polk Audio speaker technology and a simple but wonderful improvement - handles! We also begin offering an adapter cable to easily allow Six-Channel Hemispheres to behave as Monaurals. |
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Order Hemisphere
Hemisphere
Speaker Array
[$599]
Hemisphere6
Six-channel Speaker Array
[$799]
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