Desmophen®, Desmodur®

Wall of sound

Together with Bayer MaterialScience and Siemens, polyurethane specialist Puren GmbH has developed an amazing “Total Wall” speaker system

The 120 x 60 cm rigid foam board, barely as thick as your thumb, is casually propped against a wall in the Bayer MaterialScience Creative Center. At first sight, it looks nothing like the diaphragm from a revolutionary speaker system. "Have a listen to this then," says Eckard Foltin, Head of the Creative Center, smiling to himself. As if to heighten the suspense, his finger hovers over the play button of the CD player before he finally presses it and the first track begins. The entire surface of the "soundboard" begins to vibrate gently and the polyurethane pores emit a familiar guitar riff – in superb hi-fi quality. Drums, bass and a keyboard quickly join in and soon Roger Waters from cult British band Pink Floyd starts singing the first few lines from hit song "Another Brick In the Wall". It's a smart choice of song and fits in well because Foltin is demonstrating purSonic®, an innovative “Total Wall” speaker system.
"Well, what do you think?" asks Foltin proudly. Although it's his job to amaze people with way-out developments, he is visibly pleased at the impressed looks on everyone's faces. "Almost everyone hearing purSonic® for the first time starts wondering what it would be like to have these ultra-flat speakers installed in their living room walls," says Foltin, speaking from experience.
Slimline speaker systems without visible tangles of cable and bulky speakers in the room have been around for several years, but purSonic® is a completely new concept. Thanks to a custom-tailored polyurethane rigid foam made from the Bayer MaterialScience raw materials Desmophen® and Desmodur®, polyurethane specialist Puren GmbH of Überlingen, south Germany was able to work with Bayer and Siemens to develop soundboards that are between around 6 and 8 mm thick and unrivaled in terms of their light weight. And the best thing is that the purSonic® high-end sound systems quite simply disappear into the wall.