Recently Made by Makers had a workshop in which three designers had to come up with twenty original speaker designs in just three days. Each design should be modelled and rendered and also be easily communicated in one image. These goals and the tight timeframe forced non-critical idea generation methods and high-speed 3d-visualisation to be used.
See six of those ideas at TFTS. I particularly liked the Jam Jar Speakers shown, designed for use with your computer. http://nexus404.com/Blog/2008/11/17/made-by-makers-concept-speaker-designs-tfts-exclusive-cutting-edge-design-from-the-designers-perspective/ -Thanks, Andrew!