The Phoenix Electrostatic Speaker, designed and developed by my team and I, has been featured on Wired Magazine. Sniff…

Edit: Added gratuitous shot from the magazine. Ahhh so tasty.

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Here’s the write up, which I’m saving for eternity:

Electrostatic speakers, which make music by vibrating diaphragms between oppositely charged plates, have been around since the ’50s. But unlike poodle skirts, they never caught on, because the distortion-free sound was projected in a fairly narrow sonic field. Nakamichi has widened the optimal listening area by shaping the plates in its Phoenix speakers like teardrops. And to bump up the bass, notoriously lacking in electrostatics, each speaker has an integrated dual-cone subwoofer. The two drivers move opposite to each other, canceling out errant vibrations that would color the sound.
Phoenix: $8,600 per pair, www.nakamichi.com

This article is located in the latest Wired Magazine 15.03, grab it while you can! I know I will.

My design team and I recently bagged 2 “Innovations 2007 Design and Engineering Awards Honorees” at the world’s biggest consumer electronics show the CES in Viva Las Vegas in January 2007.

Sorry this is a little late, but I needed to be sure that the press release was cleared. The first award was for our High Definition Kimono LCDTV launched with a lot of criticism at last year’s IFA Berlin 2006 show, and the second award was for our “ultra-stealth” audiophile speaker project codename “Phoenix”.

Called the HD-A (High Definition Audio) Electrostatic Speaker, this speaker is a perfect fusion between engineering and aesthetics. HD-A, a proprietary technology, is the audio equivalent of HD-TV and its related marques.

Overall it was a tough project with many design and management constraints that needed to be overcome, but I think we managed to work it a design solution that did not sacrificed a lot of our design intent. The important thing as well is this speaker design (not the TV) represents, in its entirety the new Nakamichi design language that I had developed since I joined the company more than 4 years ago. This design language development process was in itself was a whole different battle to the product’s management, as acceptance was really the main criteria. I had to be tactful so as to allow the “new look” to be slowly absorbed and accepted by the brand, the organization and its culture, and most importantly by our customers.

This image was a representation of the product for selection for the Innovation Award, it is, however, a rendering of an early Industrial Design prototype as we had to submit the graphics early for consideration.

Meanwhile let me leave you with a slightly fuzzy shot taken by Ubergizmo, interestingly the only one that I have found on the internet. As its still in a prototype mode, so do stay tuned for an image of the actual product once we get the final R&D and marketing clearance.

Yesterday I got out of my National Service commitments just in time to attend the prize giving ceremony of the Red-Dot Award: design concept 2006. This award is the industrial design industry’s equivalent of the Oscars and it was held at the red-dot design museum here in Singapore.

red dot award: design concept 2006

The introduction of the red dot award: design concept is a timely answer to a gaping void: where does it begin. The celebration of an idea, the elevation of its driving potential at pre-production and pre-market stage places concrete claim on spontaneous sketches as intellectual anime, paper origami as floating prototypes and juxtaposed hyperlinks as virtual inter-connectors.

It was a pretty exciting affair, with a lot of great atmosphere, great people, and great designs. The awards ceremony was conducted very interestingly. The stage was actually set up like a fashion catwalk that ran the length of the rectangular room. It bisected the room and had 3 rows of seats on either side of the long stage. There was a large wide wall that were made up of 5 or so LCD projector screens located behind the audience’s seating positions that provided a 180 degree panoramic view of the different designs and rational that was projected on to it.

When the winners were called up, they would enter the catwalk from one of the ends. When they reach the middle, they accepted their award from Mr Ken Khoo (President of Red-Dot Singapore) and Mr Peter Zec (President of Red-Dot world wide) and would then continue their walk of fame to the other end. I really like the significance of this whole process, as product designers have always lived in the shadows of their fashion counterparts in both the glamour and remuneration!

Singapore did well for herself bagging 5-6 design awards, 1 “Best of the Best” which also won the “Luminary” award. This is Singapore’s second “Luminary” which beautifully goes to Lim Sun Liang for her “ring faucet”. Congrats Sun Liang!

Of the winners quite a few were notable local designers, including Jaren Goh (of black diamond fame), Nathan Yong (from Air division design) and yours truly!

So I thought it would be very cool, to end this review, for my dear readers to have a look at my 3 submission boards that I sent in for the award as they have only used 1 of my many pictures for the on-line winners portfolio.

The standard beauty shot! Edit: Click to view a larger image.



My favourite board as it showcase the concept development and thinking process. Edit: Click to view a larger image.



This last board describes the functionality of the product and the amazing thing is we have a semi-working prototype sitting in my studio! Edit: Click to view a larger image.

Edit: The official write up of the event can be found here, and my own personal winners page here! Judge’s Comments:

Though satisfying contemporary preferences for flexibility and customisation over bulk, the Modular Series still manages to pack a mighty audio punch.