Hong Kong Audio Visual Show 2012

Sometimes you see something at a show that is mind-boggling in its scale, ambition and sheer impracticality. Sometimes, just sometimes, you even have to stop and ask yourself, "Why?" As well as making some seriously expensive panel speakers, Wisdom Audio makes a truly massive subwoofer called the STS. In a flash of common sense and practicality rare in the high end, the speakers can be placed on walls and the subs sunk into them. So what does Wisdom Audio's Hong Kong distributor do? He creates a massive, 200-pound cradle that connects the panel segment securely to the front of a subwoofer cabinet.

Now, we all know that two subs is better than one, but is it really a good idea to couple a delicate panel membrane this closely to a low-frequency generator so large that some Hong Kong families would be happy to live in it? Not only do you risk intermodulation distortion on an unprecedented scale, you sacrifice all the placement benefits of independent enclosures as well as destroy the practicality that constitutes the speaker system’s unique selling point. The language barrier prevented me from getting pricing details.

So, having committed sonic and commercial suicide, only domestic Armageddon remains. Take one look at the pictures and see what you think. These guys must surely love to suffer for their art!