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- Sony’s Pulse Elevate speakers have planar magnetic drivers
- Sony acquired audio firm Audeze specifically for this tech
- Planar drivers deliver incredibly dynamic, accurate audio
Life isn’t fair, I know this. But as someone whose music listening is mostly desktop-based, I’m jealous of gamers today: why do they get small planar magnetic speakers before audio obsessives like me?
Sony‘s new Pulse Elevate are the first planar speakers for gaming setups, and promise great specs for modern speakers: low-latency connectivity, noise-cancelling mics, multi-device connections, a built-in battery, and so on.
But according to Sony they also feature something much more interesting: “studio-inspired planar magnetic drivers”. That means they’ve got the same kind of drivers as some of the very best over-ear headphones that require large amounts of money to buy.
These aren’t the world’s first planar speakers by any means – the Magneplanar entered production in 1969 and its successors are still in production today – but to the best of my knowledge they’re the first portable ones. And planar magnetic speakers are a really big deal, because the technology delivers incredibly accurate, lifelike audio.
So how has Sony beaten the big audio brands to the punch?
I think we’ve seen Sony’s planar tech already
The short answer is: Audeze. Sony Interactive Entertainment acquired Audeze in 2023 in order to “strengthen [Sony’s] efforts to continue innovating when it comes to the audio experience of PlayStation games”. Sony specifically mentioned Audeze’s planar magnetic drivers at the time it announced the acquisition.
Audeze doesn’t just make planar magnetic headphones. It makes planar magnetic speakerphones too, and those devices use both planar drivers and neural network-based noise cancellation. So perhaps the tech in the new Pulse Elevate speakers was hiding in plain sight all along, albeit in a distinctly non-gaming context.
The Audeze website gives a good overview of its driver tech, which features the firm’s Fluxor magnets and nano-scale diaphragms to deliver exceptionally fast performance; together they deliver what Audeze proudly says are “some of the best reviewed [headphones] in the world.”
That means the Pulse Elevate could be something special not just for gamers, but for music fans more widely – Audeze’s CEO promised TechRadar readers that its tech wouldn’t just be limited to PlayStation products, and said: “SIE encourages us to expand these product offerings … This acquisition will only enhance our efforts and provide us with more opportunities in our target markets.”
I hope the speakers are as exciting as they appear to be – and that they’re just the first in more options. I’d love to see a small planar option among the best Bluetooth speakers, or a beefier option that ranks among the best Wi-Fi speakers, bringing audiophile tech in a compact size.