Ears-On With Coby's 3D Soundbar Speakers

When a handful of Coby representatives at CES seemed clueless about their 3D Soundbar, I had almost written the product off, but then I found the booth of Sonic Emotion, which created the technology behind the speakers, and they floored me with the intro to Pink Floyd's "Money."

Though the speakers were directly in front of me, maybe 8 feet away, the sounds of cash registers and coin counters sounded like they were coming from my immediate right and left. The effect diminished somewhat as I moved around, but I could still pinpoint specific parts of the room where it sounded like the left and right sound effects were coming from.

Sonic Emotion, based in Switzerland, says it uses wave field synthesis to create the illusion of 3D sound with just stereo input. In another cool demonstration, the team turned the speakers around to face the wall and the sound quality barely changed.

Sonic Emotion licenses the technology to several speaker companies, but Coby will be the first to bring it stateside. The Soundbar will cost $100 and should be available in March or April. I'd love to test this out further to see how it performs in awkward-shaped rooms and compares to other speakers.

This story, "Ears-On With Coby's 3D Soundbar Speakers" was originally published by PCWorld.