Sony re-enters the glass tube business, with an innovative new speaker

Sony is a company well known for creating new and innovative products, and has done it again with a new transparent tube speaker that will be released in Japan for a hefty price tag.

During a press event at Sony headquarters in Tokyo, the company introduced an innovative speaker design that uses hard glass instead of paper and magnesium used in regular speaker designs.

The Sony Sountina NSA-PF1 - the words "sound" and "fountain" combined - stands almost six feet high, has the width of a baseball bat, and can help music listeners cover 360 degrees of a room without stereophonics. It's said to have an audible range of between 50 and 20,000 Hz.

Traditional speakers produce sound in one direction by pushing sound waves over a diaphragm, but the Sony speakers vibrates a glass tube that is able to send sound waves 360 degrees.

Aside from the home music market, Sony plans to market the pricey speakers ($10,000, or over a million yen) to department stores, hotels and other public places where one speaker may be ideal.

To add a certain ambiance, Sony also included three different LEDs for owners to use: blue, amber, pink, or purple. The LED is located at the bottom of the speaker, and reflects off of a stainless steel casing at the top of the tube. If used in a room dark enough, the glow can be seen off a steel string located inside the top of the tube. The colors must be changed via remote control and cannot change automatically.

Scheduled to launch on June 20, Sony hopes to sell several hundred speakers per year. The company plans to market the speaker in the United States, Brazil, Russia and Middle East starting in the fall, with additional locations to be added if demand is high enough.