Prescient Audio premiered its ThinDriver technology in a 12-inch...

Prescient Audio premiered its ThinDriver technology in a 12-inch subwoofer at CES Unveiled Tuesday in New York. The light and thin technology has applications in the home, car and in pro audio, CEO Paul Niedermann told us. The company is initially targeting the home market, which has “the lowest barrier to entry,” Niedermann said, but it’s touting scalability overall. Beyond traditional speaker applications, the company is also eyeing implementation in smartphones, tablets and laptops, he said. “If some rock star wants an eight-foot-tall speaker, we can do that,” he said. ThinDriver technology, with patents pending in 15 countries, puts speaker components in the perimeter of the speaker frame rather than positioning them in a stacked configuration, Niedermann said. By eliminating the stack, Prescient can make speakers that are thinner and lighter and that run cooler, he said. The 1,000-watt, 12-inch TD-12 subwoofer the company showed at CES Unveiled measured 2-1/4-inch thick and weighed eight pounds, compared with a typical conventional subwoofer that measures 9-1/2 inches deep and weighs 50 pounds, he said. The sub has a cone area of a 14-inch driver, but requires only 6 inches of box volume, he said. Prescient expects speaker makers to adopt the technology for the form factor due to the design flexibility it offers, said Chief Operating Officer Karl Schmitt. “We're taking something that’s been clunky and big, and now you can put it into thin-line packages with curved boxes and all kinds of weird stuff,” Schmitt said. The TD-12 boasts the highest power-to-weight ratio of any speaker on the market, which could have applications in a vehicle or airplane where the goal is to keep weight to a minimum, Niedermann said. The technology can also enable different shapes of speakers, he said. Prescient will have a demo box showing several designs at CES, he said. A “good starting price” for the sub driver is $999, Schmitt said, which would translate to roughly $2,000 in a complete speaker. “We're not going for a $4,000 pair of MartinLogans, but maybe half that,” he said.