greg ball: subsonic - teenager subwoofer chair

greg ball: subsonic - teenager subwoofer chair


'subsonic chair'
all images courtesy of greg ball



back in 2005, canadian designer john greg ball created the 'subsonic' chair' which became a shortlisted entry
in the designboom competition 'teenage furniture'.

since then, ball has developed the chair further at the insistence of his students at SAIT polytechnic in calgary, alberta.
tapping into the behaviours of teenagers, ball originally designed the chair based on the tendencies of youth
to play video games and music very loudly. still under the prototype phase, the updated design features
two 16-inch subwoofers in the chair's structure which emit a strong, thundering bass tone. having the capacity to connect
to an iPod, MP3 player or gaming system, 'subsonic' gives users a full range of sound.


detail of the subwoofer


front view



greg ball talks about his design

andrea db
04.26.11  
11
this has to be THE worst project to ever land on designboom...
jake   04.26.11
Hi Jake: I disagree. I thinks its one of THE best!
Thom   04.26.11
I actually really want one, now.

htp://arlon.at
arlon   04.26.11
"A 16 in. subwoofer" Blah, blah, blah!! For real!!! The concept is cool but this guy is just gay and I would not say that otherwise but he makes it sound so difficult and like it's art instead of a cool piece of tech..
j diesel   04.26.11
a Satyendra Pakhale's fish chair with sound system
Rio   04.27.11
I like it! the concept is simple but the risult is great
uke   04.27.11
Shame you don't get to hear what it sounds like :-(
Suterbud   04.27.11
It doesn't look very comfortable. Make me an 800 watt active sub-frequency box spring, then talk to me.
Mark Murder   04.28.11
unfortunately the bass would only be heard after it reflects off the walls sounding muddled to the person in the chair. The long frequencies of bass are inaudible that close to the source, the sitter would certainly feel the bass though.
transmogrifier   04.29.11
JL Audio is killer. I've got a 15" JL audio W0 sub for my car with a 1550W amp to power it. and needless to say it pounds incredibly hard. Having two 16" JL subs would just knock pictures off the walls hahaha. I would love to have one! anyone know a price or anything?
Tweek   04.29.11
Difficulties in design? Those sound like the easiest possible obstacles to overcome. I mean, really, how hard is it to draw something in CAD and have a CNC cutter cut it correctly? That's pretty much what the software and hardware were designed for.
Nom de plume   05.02.11

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