A few companies, including Victor Talking Machine Company and Pathe, produced record players using compressed-air loudspeakers. However, these designs were significantly limited by their poor sound quality and their inability to reproduce sound at low volume. Variants of the system were used for public address applications, and more recently other variations have been used to test space equipment resistance to the very loud sound and vibration levels that launching rockets produce.
The fabrication of finished loudspeaker systems has become segmented, depending largely on price, shipping costs, and weight limitations. High-end speaker systems, which are heavier (and often larger) than economic shipping allows outside local regions, are usually made in their target market area and can cost $140,000 or more per pair.
