How a Speaker Works

solacedagony · Post by **solacedagony** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 7:14 am

Hey guys, I need to do a process analysis paper in English, so I figured I'd either do the paper on how guitar pickups work, or how a speaker works. It's only gotta be a 3 pg paper, so I think I'm going to do it on how a speaker works, just cause it's more interesting to me :)
Since you guys are all extremely knowledgable, I figured you might know a few books or websites that have specific information.

Thanks a ton!
Jake

William from NOLA · Post by **William from NOLA** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 7:21 am

Here's some:

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/electromag/java/speaker/

http://www.howstuffworks.com/speaker.htm

geolemon · Post by **geolemon** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:34 am

What kind of speaker?
Interestingly, there are tons of ways to make a speaker - you might want to reference that in your paper, if for no other reason than for brownie points to shoot for that A+.

Yes, there are speakers that use a cone, connected to a voice coil, that's suspended in a magnetic gap (there's a magnetic circuit that's interesting to understand that makes it all work) - traditional stuff.
But there are also:

Ribbon loudspeakers - check out Bohlender Graebner
Electrostatic loudspeakers - check out Martin Logan or Quad
Plasma tweeters - sound from a flame! Make toxic Ozone, have to Google for DIY info
Magnetic Planar loudspeakers - check out Magnepan
Distributed Mode loudspeakers - check out NXT for this interesting non-linear technology
Servo motor linear motion loudspeakers - check out ServoDrive and TWD Audio
Servo motor rotary loudspeakers - the Phoenix Gold cyclone was the only one!
Bending wave transducers - check out Manger
Radial Dynamic loudspeakers - check out MBL Radialstahler
Walsh drivers - check out Ohm acoustics or Decware and DIY walsh

These are all very fundamentally different than a traditional dynamic loudspeaker - the most similar might be the Walsh driver.

And even within the realm of a "traditional dynamic loudspeaker" utilizing a voice coil based motor - there are variations that affect how they work - most fundamentally the difference between "overhung" and "underhung" architectures - but there are also a couple dual-gap technologies out there as well - you might check out XBL^2 and JBL's DDD technology (they used to have great cutaways and tech info on their site).

For traditional loudspeakers, I know that http://www.bcae1.com/ had a good amount of information related to that, and a ton of other stuff you might find useful.

solacedagony · Post by **solacedagony** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:41 am

Thanks guys, this'll make for an interesting paper. :)
Thanks also for your insight geo!

High Society · Post by **High Society** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:58 am

http://www.bcae1.com you can get some more info on speakers here too.

OnYrMrk · Post by **OnYrMrk** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:27 am

You know what guys, I consider myself a little more knowledgeble than alot of peeps on forums, but when I come here, and listen to KiKi and Geo talk shop, well I leave here just a bit smarter than when I come in. Excellent knowledge base here. I am blown away. --Joe

Bwcad1 · Post by **Bwcad1** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:36 am

as am i joe as am i!

Post by **GlassWolf** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:40 am

magnetic planars and electrostatics are somewhat similar in how they function.
one of my favorites, when combined with a good woofer..
but that's common knowledge. I've yet to be really awed by any speaker the way I've always been by Martin Logan and their ESL panels.

That aside, it's almost a shame your paper is only 3 pages. There's so much you could go into when it comes down to how speakers interact with the enclosures they're placed in, or the environment around them. reflections and harmonics, psychoacoustics.. I'll just say it's one really deep rabbit hole.

Jonathan · Post by **Jonathan** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:44 am

You could even go into Gestalt Response and how the theory relates to psychoacoustics.

geolemon · Post by **geolemon** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 2:11 pm

GlassWolf wrote:I've yet to be really awed by any speaker the way I've always been by Martin Logan and their ESL panels..

My old favorites "wish I owned a pair" were one of Martin Logan's most entry level model... a smaller floorstanding set, the Martin Logan "Clarity" model.
Of course, I'm never sitting still when I'm at home - I hardly have "dedicated listening sessions" where I plant my butt in some sweet spot- that's one huge reason I'm a fan of these - the dipole effect of that panel really sounds natural.
(my 32 NSB's I picked up are going into a line-array dipole)

And at $1700, they were acheivable, not too horrible.

But after this year's CES, I've found something that makes the ML stuff sound like Bose (and this, in a world where big price jumps usually account for subtleties in quality).

Check these out, if you want to be absolutely blown away by a speaker:
http://www.bolzanovilletri.com

Unbelievable. My favorites are now a $4,000 set, that quite literally blew everything out of the water at CES - even sets like TAD's behemoth flagship with the Beryllium coincident-source drivers, McIntosh's $85,000 line array towers, Focal's $80,000 Grand Utopia cabinets, and even MBL's $90,000 Radialstrahlers (which would be the closest to accomplishing the same sort of spacial illusionary trickery).

If you want to be blown away by realism and dimensionality, that's the one.
The head engineer was demoing a simple stereo pair, in a small side room off their main room (Alexia Park complex).
Unlike most of the other exhibitors, I noticed a lack of exotic wall treatments - in fact none at all.
Unlike most of the other exhibitors, there was also a lack of uber-high-end exotic cabling, $20,000 pairs of monoblock tube amps, or other outragious gear - just a CD player leading to a 50x2 solid state amp.

(I heard the Torre, part of their Campanile series, if you click their website - the smaller of the two floorstanders in the set)

It's not hard to picture how the speaker works - it truly sets up a 360 degree radiating pattern - just like how sound naturally occurs, like a musician plucking a string, or a stick hitting a drum.

Never before have I been in a situation where my ears made me suspect my eyes were what was lying to me... it seriously was that dimensional, and realistic.