Have you ever heard of using graphene to make headphones? The sound quality is great!

Many people have said that graphene is a miracle material that will change everything from tiny ultra-low-power transistors to ultra-long and strong cables used in space elevators. Graphene has been invented for 13 years now, with billions of dollars invested in research and development, but it has only appeared in a handful of products. The obvious one is the small amount of graphene used in tennis racquets, which stiffens the frame.

Ora Sound is a startup based in Montreal, Canada, with big ambitions and wants to change everything. On June 20, Ora launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise funds for new graphene headphones, which use cones (that is, membranes) made of graphene. “To our knowledge, we are the first company to find a large-scale, commercially feasible application for graphene,” said Ari Pinkas, co-founder of Ora. The cones in the headphones are 95 percent The material is graphene.

Why is graphene so attractive to audiophiles? In the offices of IEEE Spectrum, Pincus and co-founder Robert-Eric Gaskell explained why. “Making a film out of graphene has some perfect properties,” Gaskell said. “It’s a rare combination of being super hard, super light, and it has a very good damping coefficient.” In other words, it reduces spurious vibrations. . Because of its many advantages, graphene is more ideal than other materials, including Mylar, paper, aluminum, and beryllium.

The problem is that it’s a bit difficult to make sheets of graphene large enough to shape into cones. So-called “Pristine graphene” exists in the form of small flakes, about 10 microns wide and as thick as 1 atom. To make graphene flakes large enough and strong enough, researchers attach oxygen atoms to small flakes, and then other elements attach to the oxygen atoms, connecting the flakes and sticking them together to form what scientists call ” layered structure”. Gaskell said Ora has patented a technology that allows the layered structure to reach the right thickness and shape to be used as a speaker cone. In Gaskell’s words, new technologies make it possible to manufacture on a large scale and in any geometric shape, which is a big breakthrough.

R&D work was led by Ora, with much of it done at McGill University in Canada, where computer engineering professor Thomas Szopek contributed his wisdom. In addition, the Nguyen Group of Northwestern University is also studying graphene and has obtained some patents. Ora will utilize these patented technologies.

Gaskell and Pincus brought pre-production headphone models to the Spectrum interview, as well as some other headphones for comparison. Compared to the competing headsets, Ora’s prototype was a clear winner, no surprise there. Other headphones sell for as little as $100, but Ora’s production version has a suggested retail price of $499.

Although the price is high, the headphones�It did not disappoint. I spent about 20 minutes auditioning, listening to classical and jazz music, and the sound quality was outstanding. The sound is precise and detailed. They reminded me that these are planar-magnetic headphones, which are increasingly popular at the high end of the audiophile headphone market. The bass is smooth and tight. Overall, Ora’s headphones can compete with the $400-$500 closed-back headphones I’ve heard, including those from Grado, Bowers & Wilkins, and Audeze.

Consumer headphones are just the starting point for Ora. Pincus said the company is negotiating with many companies, including smartphones, tablets, smartphone speakers, hearing aids, and AR companies, who may put graphene cone speakers into their products. For these companies, graphene has some advantages, such as high efficiency (because graphene is very light) and good thermal conductivity. Consumer-grade products are not large and the space is small. Speaker coils will emit heat, and graphene can quickly heat dissipation. Gaskell said Ora’s graphene headphone cones weigh only one-third of the mylar cones, which can increase battery life by 70% after replacement.

In addition to Ora, some companies are also using graphene to develop audio products. The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the University of Exeter in the UK recently announced that they have made a breakthrough and can apply graphene to production speakers to obtain some features that traditional speakers cannot have. Audio loudspeakers were invented as early as the Victorian era and have changed very little since then, but looking at the current situation, big changes may be coming.