Reading speaker specifications explained

Have you ever wondered how speakers work? It may seem complicated on the surface, however, speakers utilize a couple of fairly simple concepts to achieve sound reproduction. By taking a closer look the anatomy of a speaker and understanding the basic specifications of audio technology helps you to be confident about your purchase. In this detailed blog-cum-guide, we help quickly understand the Science of Sound and the Anatomy of a Speaker.

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Content:

• How Much Power Do Speakers Need? Speaker Specs Explained
• Speaker Specs: Making Sense of the Technical Gibberish Part 1
• Definitions: Speaker Parameters
• The KEF Story
• THE INTERRELATIONSHIP OF SPEAKERS AND AMPLIFIERS
• Explained: What are the Different Speaker Specifications?
• Understanding Speaker Specs
• Understanding Frequency Response - Why it Matters
• The Complete Guide To Speaker Impedance (2Ω, 4Ω, 8Ω & More)
• Best speakers 2021: budget to premium stereo speakers

WATCH RELATED VIDEO: Speaker Specs Explained!

How Much Power Do Speakers Need? Speaker Specs Explained

A subwoofer or sub is a loudspeaker designed to reproduce low-pitched audio frequencies known as bass and sub-bass , lower in frequency than those which can be optimally generated by a woofer. The typical frequency range for a subwoofer is about 20— Hz for consumer products, [1] below Hz for professional live sound, [2] and below 80 Hz in THX -certified systems.

While the term "subwoofer" technically only refers to the speaker driver, in common parlance, the term often refers to a subwoofer driver mounted in a speaker enclosure cabinet , often with a built-in amplifier.

Subwoofers are made up of one or more woofers mounted in a loudspeaker enclosure —often made of wood—capable of withstanding air pressure while resisting deformation. Subwoofer enclosures come in a variety of designs, including bass reflex with a port or vent , using a subwoofer and one or more passive radiator speakers in the enclosure, acoustic suspension sealed enclosure , infinite baffle , horn-loaded , tapped horn , transmission line , bandpass or isobaric designs, representing unique trade-offs with respect to efficiency, low-frequency range, cabinet size and cost.

Passive subwoofers have a subwoofer driver and enclosure and they are powered by an external amplifier. Active subwoofers include a built-in amplifier.

The first home audio subwoofers were developed in the s to add bass response to home stereo systems. Subwoofers came into greater popular consciousness in the s with the introduction of Sensurround in movies such as Earthquake , which produced loud low-frequency sounds through large subwoofers. With the advent of the compact cassette and the compact disc in the s, the reproduction of deep and loud bass was no longer limited by the ability of a phonograph record stylus to track a groove, [5] and producers could add more low-frequency content to recordings.

As well, during the s, DVDs were increasingly recorded with " surround sound " processes that included a low-frequency effects LFE channel, which could be heard using the subwoofer in home theater systems. During the s, subwoofers also became increasingly popular in home stereo systems , custom car audio installations, and in PA systems.

By the s, subwoofers became almost universal in sound reinforcement systems in nightclubs and concert venues. From about to the s, the "lowest frequency in practical use" in recordings, broadcasting and music playback was Hz. Lansing who would later found Altec Lansing in and JBL in to develop a new speaker system that used a two-way enclosure with a W-shaped bass horn that could go as low as 40 Hz. During the s swing era , to get deeper bass, "pipelike opening[s]" were cut into speaker enclosures, creating bass reflex enclosures, as it was found that even a fairly inexpensive speaker enclosure, once modified in this way, could "transmit the driving power of a heavy In September , Raymon Dones, of El Cerrito, California, received the first patent for a subwoofer specifically designed to augment omnidirectionally the low frequency range of modern stereo systems US patent Able to reproduce distortion-free low frequencies down to 15 cycles per second 15 Hz , a specific objective of Dones's invention was to provide portable sound enclosures capable of high fidelity reproduction of low frequency sound waves without giving an audible indication of the direction from which they emanated.

Dones's loudspeaker was marketed in the US under the trade name "The Octavium" [10] from the early s to the mids. The Octavium was utilized by several recording artists of that era, most notably the Grateful Dead , bassist Monk Montgomery , bassist Nathan East , and the Pointer Sisters. The Octavium speaker and Dones's subwoofer technology were also utilized, in a few select theaters, to reproduce low pitch frequencies for the blockbuster movie Earthquake. Another early subwoofer enclosure made for home and studio use was the separate bass speaker for the Servo Statik 1 by New Technology Enterprises.

The SS-1 received very good reviews in from High Fidelity magazine. When Kreisel's business partner, Jonas Miller, who owned a high-end audio store in Los Angeles, told Kreisel that some purchasers of the store's high-end electrostatic speakers had complained about a lack of bass response in the electrostatics, Kreisel designed a powered woofer that would reproduce only those frequencies that were too low for the electrostatic speakers to convey. The first use of a subwoofer in a recording session was in for mixing the Steely Dan album Pretzel Logic , when recording engineer Roger Nichols arranged for Kreisel to bring a prototype of his subwoofer to Village Recorders.

D'Arcy ; record producer Daniel Levitin served as a consultant and " golden ears " for the design of the crossover network used to partition the frequency spectrum so that the subwoofer would not attempt to reproduce frequencies too high for its effective range, and so that the main speakers would not need to handle frequencies too low for their effective range. In , Kreisel created the first satellite speakers and subwoofer system, named "David and Goliath". Subwoofers received a great deal of publicity in with the movie Earthquake , which was released in Sensurround.

Initially installed in 17 U. Four of the subwoofers were positioned in front of the audience under or behind the film screen and two more were placed together at the rear of the audience on a platform. Powerful noise energy and loud rumbling in the range of 17 Hz to Hz were generated at the level of — decibels of sound pressure level , abbreviated dB SPL.

The new low frequency entertainment method helped the film become a box office success. More Sensurround systems were assembled and installed.

By , there were almost Sensurround systems leapfrogging through select theaters. For owners of 33 rpm LPs and 45 rpm singles, loud and deep bass was limited by the ability of the phonograph record stylus to track the groove.

In the early s, David Mancuso hired sound engineer Alex Rosner [18] to design additional subwoofers for his disco dance events, along with "tweeter arrays" to "boost the treble and bass at opportune moments" at his private, underground parties at The Loft. By the end of the s, subwoofers were used in dance venue sound systems to enable the playing of "[b]ass-heavy dance music" that we "do not 'hear' with our ears but with our entire body".

By the later s, disco club sound engineers were using the same large Cerwin Vega Sensurround-style folded horn subwoofers that were used in Earthquake and similar movies in dance club system installations. In Jamaica in the s and s, sound engineers for reggae sound systems began creating "heavily customized" subwoofer enclosures by adding foam and tuning the cabinets to achieve "rich and articulate speaker output below Hz". In sound system culture, there are both "low and high bass bins" in "towering piles" that are "delivered in large trucks" and set up by a crew of "box boys", and then positioned and adjusted by the sound engineer in a process known as "stringing up", all to create the "sound of reggae music you can literally feel as it comes off these big speakers".

In the s, the Bose Acoustimass AM-5 became a popular subwoofer and small high-range satellite speaker system for home listening. In the s, Origin Acoustics developed the first residential in-wall subwoofer named Composer. It used an aluminum 10" driver and a foam-lined enclosure designed to be mounted directly into wall studs during the construction of a new home. While in the s and s deep bass speakers were once an exotic commodity owned by audiophiles, by the mids they were much more popular and widely used, with different sizes and capabilities of sound output.

The dancefloor's sound system was based on Richard Long's design at Paradise Garage. The popularity of the CD made it possible to add more low frequency content to recordings and satisfy a larger number of consumers. In , Damon Krukowski wrote an article entitled "Drop the Bass: A Case Against Subwoofers" for Pitchfork magazine, based on his performing experience with Galaxie ; he argues that "for certain styles of music", especially acoustic music genres, "these low-end behemoths are actually ruining our listening experience" by reducing the clarity of the low end.

Subwoofers use speaker drivers woofers typically between 8-inch 20 cm and inch 53 cm in diameter. Some uncommon subwoofers use larger drivers, and single prototype subwoofers as large as inch cm have been fabricated.

Small subwoofer drivers in the 4-inch range are typically used in small computer speaker systems and compact home theatre subwoofer cabinets. The size of the driver and number of drivers in a cabinet depends on the design of the loudspeaker enclosure , the size of the cabinet, the desired sound pressure level, the lowest frequency targeted and the level of permitted distortion. The largest available sound reinforcement subwoofers, inch 53 cm drivers, are less commonly seen.

Deep low-frequency extension is a common goal for a subwoofer and small box volumes are also considered desirable, to save space and reduce the size for ease of transportation in the case of sound reinforcement and DJ subwoofers. Hofmann 's "Iron Law" therefore mandates low efficiency under those constraints, and indeed most subwoofers require considerable power, much more than other individual drivers. Therefore, a decrease in box volume i. For these reasons, subwoofers are typically very inefficient at converting electrical energy into sound energy.

This combination of factors accounts for the higher amplifier power required to drive subwoofers, and the requirement for greater power handling for subwoofer drivers. Enclosure variations e. Subwoofers are typically constructed by mounting one or more woofers in a cabinet of medium-density fibreboard MDF , oriented strand board OSB , plywood, fiberglass, aluminum or other stiff materials.

Because of the high air pressure they produce in the cabinet, subwoofer enclosures often require internal bracing to distribute the resulting forces. Subwoofers have been designed using a number of enclosure approaches: bass reflex with a port or vent , using a subwoofer and one or more passive radiator speakers in the enclosure, acoustic suspension sealed enclosure , infinite baffle , horn-loaded , tapped horn , transmission line and bandpass.

Each enclosure type has advantages and disadvantages in terms of efficiency increase, bass extension, cabinet size, distortion, and cost. While not necessarily an enclosure type, isobaric such as push-pull coupled loading of two drivers has sometimes been used in subwoofer products of computer, [38] home cinema [39] and sound reinforcement [40] class, and also DIY versions in automotive applications, to provide relatively deep bass for their size.

Self-contained "isobaric-like" driver assemblies have been manufactured since the s. The smallest subwoofers are typically those designed for desktop multimedia systems. The largest common subwoofer enclosures are those used for concert sound reinforcement systems or dance club sound systems.

An example of a large concert subwoofer enclosure is the s-era Electro-Voice MT-4 "Bass Cube" system, which used four inch 45 cm drivers. An example of a subwoofer that uses a bass horn is the Bassmaxx B-Two, which loads an inch 45 cm driver onto an foot 3.

Folded horn-type subwoofers can typically produce a deeper range with greater efficiency than the same driver in an enclosure that lacks a horn. However, folded horn cabinets are typically larger and heavier than front-firing enclosures, so folded horns are less commonly used. Some experimental fixed-installation subwoofer horns have been constructed using brick and concrete to produce a very long horn that allows a very deep sub-bass extension. Subwoofer output level can be increased by increasing cone surface area or by increasing cone excursion.

Since large drivers require undesirably large cabinets, most subwoofer drivers have large excursions. Unfortunately, high excursion, at high power levels, tends to produce more distortion from inherent mechanical and magnetic effects in electro-dynamic drivers the most common sort.

The conflict between assorted goals can never be fully resolved; subwoofer designs necessarily involve tradeoffs and compromises. Hofmann's Iron Law the efficiency of a woofer system is directly proportional to its cabinet volume as in size and to the cube of its cutoff frequency, that is how low in pitch it will go applies to subwoofers just as it does to all loudspeakers.

The frequency response specification of a speaker describes the range of frequencies or musical tones a speaker can reproduce, measured in hertz Hz. Specifications of frequency response depend wholly for relevance on an accompanying amplitude value—measurements taken with a wider amplitude tolerance will give any loudspeaker a wider frequency response.

Subwoofers also vary in regard to the sound pressure levels achievable and the distortion levels that they produce over their range. Some subwoofers, such as "The Abyss" by MartinLogan for example, can reproduce pitches down to around 18 Hz which is about the pitch of the lowest rumbling notes on a huge pipe organ with foot 9.

Some also include user-adjustable equalization that allows boosted or reduced output at particular frequencies; these vary from a simple "boost" switch, to fully parametric equalizers meant for detailed speaker and room correction. Some such systems are even supplied with a calibrated microphone to measure the subwoofer's in-room response, so the automatic equalizer can correct the combination of subwoofer, subwoofer location, and room response to minimize the effects of room modes and improve low-frequency performance.

They sometimes incorporate internal passive crossovers, with the filter frequency determined at the factory. These are generally used with third-party power amplifiers, taking their inputs from active crossovers earlier in the signal chain. Inexpensive Home Theatre in a Box packages often come with a passive subwoofer cabinet that is amplified by the multi-channel amplifier. While few high-end home-theater systems use passive subwoofers, this format is still popular in the professional sound industry.

Equalization can be used to adjust the in-room response of a subwoofer system. In addition, many amplifiers include an adjustable low-pass filter, which prevents undesired higher frequencies from reaching the subwoofer driver. For example, if a listener's main speakers are usable down to 80 Hz, then the subwoofer filter can be set so the subwoofer only works below 80 Hz.

The filter section may also include a high-pass " infrasonic " or "subsonic" filter, which prevents the subwoofer driver from attempting to reproduce frequencies below its safe capabilities. Setting an infrasonic filter is important on bass reflex subwoofer cabinets, as the bass reflex design tends to create the risk of cone overexcursion at pitches below those of the port tuning, which can cause distortion and damage the subwoofer driver.

For example, in a ported subwoofer enclosure tuned to 30 Hz, one may wish to filter out pitches below the tuning frequency; that is, frequencies below 30 Hz. Some systems use parametric equalization in an attempt to correct for room frequency response irregularities. Careful positioning of the subwoofer within the room can also help flatten the frequency response.

Changing the relative phase of the subwoofer with respect to the woofers in other speakers may or may not help to minimize unwanted destructive acoustic interference in the frequency region covered by both the subwoofer and the main speakers. It may not help at all frequencies, and may create further problems with frequency response, but even so is generally provided as an adjustment for subwoofer amplifiers. Continuously variable phase control circuits are common in subwoofer amplifiers, and may be found in crossovers and as do-it-yourself electronics projects.

A similar effect can be achieved with the delay control on many home theater receivers. The subwoofer phase control found on many subwoofer amplifiers is actually a polarity inversion switch.

Speaker Specs: Making Sense of the Technical Gibberish Part 1

Home English In-Depth Speaker power handling. Speaker power handling. Number of Views: One of the many confusing issues in professional audio is that of loudspeaker power handling. On one side, manufacturers use a variety of terms such as peak, RMS, average or program power. On another side, there exist differing methods to determine the power handling of speaker system or component which yield different results.

Definitions: Speaker Parameters

Buying speakers can be a lot of fun but for most of us does not happen too frequently. One typically bases their buying decision on a number of parameters such as how well the speakers perform, how much they cost, their physical size, aesthetics and specifications. Speaker specifications are typically noted right on the speakers or in the accompanying product literature. In this article I will walk you through basic speaker specifications which will help you to better understand how to interpret speaker specifications to aid in your future speaker buying decision. There is a good deal of confusion that surrounds loudspeaker specifications which seems to stem from a combination of limited information, different test methods and a lack of consumer knowledge. Some specifications are intuitive and easy to understand, such as dimensions, weight, type of speaker enclosure and crossover frequency among others. The purpose of this article is to explain the more technical, and often misinterpreted, specifications including speaker impedance, sensitivity and frequency response. Most loudspeakers have an impedance rating that falls between 2 and 16 ohms, with 4 and 8 ohm impedance ratings being the most common.

The KEF Story

Sonos basically invented the multi-room category of home audio, starting as a software company in the early s before integrating its Wi-Fi-enabled network into hardware a few years later. Its first amplifier which became the Connect:Amp and subsequent speakers were great, but the real beauty of Sonos is its ecosystem of audio products that make listening to music at home really easy. The magic of Sonos is the ability to group any number of Sonos speakers together, provided they are all connected to the same Wi-Fi network, and have them all playing in sync through out the house. Alternatively, they can all be playing different tunes if you'd like. And it's all controlled through a smartphone app.

THE INTERRELATIONSHIP OF SPEAKERS AND AMPLIFIERS

The adage that someone could write a book about a subject certainly holds true when it comes to a discussion of loudspeakers and their parameters. In fact, there are dozens of great books already available about the subject. This article provides an overview of some of the most commonly discussed speaker parameters. Using these parameters and a series of calculations, your installer can predict the performance of that speaker in an enclosure. Perhaps the most important set of calculations we can create is the output of the system. Every speaker enclosure acts as a high-pass filter and reduces the low-frequency output of the driver.

Explained: What are the Different Speaker Specifications?

The seemingly mysterious specification of speaker impedance should be understood in order for us to fully comprehend how speakers work. What is speaker impedance? Technically speaking, impedance is the combination of DC resistance and any reactance in an AC circuit. Because impedance acts on AC circuits rather than DC circuits, there are frequency and phase components. Every electrical device that has AC circuitry has an electrical impedance. Therefore, audio equipment, which passed AC audio signals, has impedance. This is certainly the case with speakers, which have input impedances and, in some cases, output impedances.

Understanding Speaker Specs

This article was written by Connor, one of our founding editors. Connor is a full-time travel and lifestyle photographer with extensive experience in the outdoors industry. One of the best ways to test how a speaker performs is to simply listen to it. This is especially true if you do most of your buying online.

Understanding Frequency Response - Why it Matters

RELATED VIDEO: Basic explanation of speaker wattage ratings

Note: Paul Dicomo was a great friend to Ecoustics and many of us over the past 2 decades. Paul contributed a number of excellent articles over the years and we hope that a new generation of readers finds great value in his writing. But people make audio buying decisions based on published specifications, such as the frequency response spec, everyday. The range of human hearing is generally regarded as being from 20Hz, very low bass tones, through 20kHz 20,Hz , the very highest treble. Presumably a speaker that could reproduce that range would sound lifelike. Alas, it is no guarantee.

The Complete Guide To Speaker Impedance (2Ω, 4Ω, 8Ω & More)

Well, when it comes to matching that amplifier with your speakers, the answer is; quite a bit, actually. Though we spend countless hours scouring local HiFi suppliers and reading reviews to find the perfect speakers, often, our choice of amplifier is something of an afterthought. This remains true despite the fact that amplifiers are almost as crucial to the tone and overall presentation of your audio as your speakers are. Yes, though that innocuous metal box might look similar to other amplifiers in the showroom, it will produce a unique sound profile and, through its technical specifications, support some — but not all — of the speakers available to you. As such, this guide is going to be something of an essentials piece, giving you all the information you need without the complicated maths or advanced terminology like slew rate, dampening or electromotive force, so you can get back to what matters — your music. So, for your devoted audiophiles, let that serve as a warning! Key to ensuring effective synergy between your speakers and your amplifier is having a basic grasp of HiFi vocabulary.

Best speakers 2021: budget to premium stereo speakers

When trying to choose the best speaker system for your application you may find yourself confronted by a bewildering list of specifications. You might be thinking, "I just need to pick a speaker that is a good fit for my power amplifier. Why does this say watts in one place and watts in another? What do all these numbers and unfamiliar words mean?