Massless - plasma speaker tweeter ionophone ion loudspeaker

Have a look at the Beginners Guide for an introduction.

History takes you through the decades of work that has been done on plasma tweeters and full range plasma speakers, ionophones and all other massless speakers and related technology.

Design gives details of the types and uses of plasma speaker and related devices, their benefits and problems.

Archive helps you find hundreds of connections to every resource including papers, patents, books and magazines published for more than a century, as well as details of the prototype and commercial speakers.

If you are researching or investigating your own designs of massless speaker you can use this site to get a head start and learn from everything others have done before. It reveals the large variety of work that has already been done and hopefully moves the field further more quickly.

The most common type of this rare category of loudspeaker is the plasma tweeter and this is the most successful class, especially commercially with the early Ionophone and Magnat tweeters and later with Acapella Ion, Lansche Audio Corona and Vaughn Plasma Signature.

Why massless? Here is a definition of massless when used in the audio world. This website was previously known as AirSpeaker and all of its information is now here and has been expanded on.

"… the speaking incandescent electric lamp, the singing arc, and the talking flame — measures of desperation these were; yet each came in for its share of attention as the search continued"
Frederick Hunt, Electroacoustics, 1954

"... I tried talking arcs and thermophones, and also a corona discharge device - all of which avoid mechanical moving parts - but none of these appeared promising."
Edward Kellogg, 1955, on his study with Rice, 1925

"Plasma loudspeakers represent what might be called a "beautiful dead end" in audio technology—a theoretically elegant approach that couldn't overcome its practical limitations."
Manus AI, 2025

Plasma Speaker and Tweeter Ionophone Information

Plasma Loudspeakers

Ionovac and Plasmatronic

Plasma Tweeters

Plasma Speaker

Corona Wind or Ionic and Ion Speakers