Inside AudioAdam Conrad

Cell phones

Stereos

Alarm Clocks

Concerts

PA Systems

We Use Speakers Everyday

The telephone housed the first speaker

Speakers that we know today came around in the 1920’s.

The materials for these speakers were too expensive for the everyday person so the technology did not really take of until the 1950’s.

Speakers Have Been Around for a Long Time

Sound is essentially vibrations.

The vibrations cause air to move Creating sound waves

The human ear then picks up these vibrations and the brain reads these vibrations and interprets them as what we know as sound.

What is Sound?

The frequency of the wave determines the pitch that our brain will interpret.

The amplitude of the wave will determine the volume of the sound.

What Causes Things to Sound Different From One Another?

The speaker takes electrical current and using magnets transforms it back into differences in air pressure.

This is done by magnetically pushing a cone in and out as the current being put into the speaker changes polarity.

The magnetic charges are created by putting the current through a, usually copper, coil.

How a Speaker Accomplishes Its Task

The smaller the size of the cone the easier it is for it to vibrate quickly.

This directly translates to smaller speakers being better apt to create high frequency sounds.

Larger ones make it easier to hit the low frequency noises.

Why Are There Different Types of Speakers?

The box is actually a very important part of making a speaker work correctly.

Without the box the exact opposite waves would be given out the backside of the speaker.

The fact that the box is sealed also allows the speaker to manipulate the air around it easier because it has just the right amount of air to use.

Ever Wonder Why Speakers Are Put In Such Large Boxes?

Decibels(dB) – measure of volume. Unique in that for every 10 more decibels the noise is 10 times as loud

Hertz(Hz) – measure of frequency.

Common Measurements