Mirai Speaker: This TV speaker throws a wicked curve

If you find yourself cranking your TV’s speakers to hear what’s being said, this curiously curved speaker promises to clear things up.

- JONATHAN TAKIFF

Having trouble discerning dialogue in a busy TV soundtrack? Feeling the wrath of viewing mates (and fighting over the remote control) for the sin of cranking the TV volume too loud? The Mirai Speaker (fave.co/421a62e) solves both problems-to a degree, at leastthanks to a design that's unlike any other I've encountered.

Created by veteran engineers from JVC Kenwood for a new venture called SoundFun, the amplified Mirai Speaker (Mirai is Japanese for "future") first caught my eyes and ears at CES 2023. During a show-floor demo, the chaps played a tinkly music box at a distance of 15 feet from the audience. Initially, the tune was inaudible over the din. But when the pitch man touched the mechanism to a convex-curved piece of plastic sheeting, the tinkling suddenly reached my ears with surprising clarity and volume. (A similar Mirai demo available as a YouTube video [fave.co/42laCNq] lets you witness the same party trick.)

A similarly curved rectangular wave guide visible behind the mesh grill of the Mirai speaker's wedge-shaped enclosure projects sound farther and across a wider horizontal arc than you'd get from a more conventional, concave cone driver. If you're reasonably close, you can turn the volume down to a "shush" and still hear what's going on. That's good for late-night talk-show watchers-like me-who don't want to wake housemates and party-wall neighbors. It's even better for Mirai's target audience: folks suffering from mild to moderate hearing loss. They won't need to crank this speaker to the max to get the gist of a TV conversation.

WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY, KENNETH?