Speakers

Speakers and other electroacoustic transducers are the most variable elements in a modern Audio System and are usually responsible for most distortion and audible differences when comparing sound systems.

It helps if you understand a little your Audio Systems speakers work so you can be sure you are looking for all the right elements when it comes to choosing your speakers. As we all know, there is no point spending thousands of dollars on a state of the art audio system if the speakers you attach to it are inadequate or incompatible.

A loudspeaker, or "speaker", is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical signal into sound. The speaker moves in accordance with the variations of an electrical signal and causes sound waves to propagate through a medium such as air or water.

The term loudspeaker may refer to individual transducers or "drivers", or to complete speaker systems consisting of an enclosure including one or more drivers.

To adequately reproduce a wide range of frequencies, most loudspeaker systems employ more than one driver, particularly for higher sound pressure level or maximum accuracy

Individual drivers are used to reproduce different frequency ranges and the most common ones are as follows:

  • Subwoofers - for very low frequencies
  • Woofers - low frequencies
  • Tweeters - high frequencies
  • Supertweeters - optimized for the highest audible frequencies

The terms for different speaker drivers differ, depending on the application.

In two-way systems there is no mid-range driver, so the task of reproducing the mid-range sounds falls upon the woofer and tweeter.

Home stereos use the designation Tweeter for the high frequency driver, while professional concert systems may designate them as HF or highs.

When multiple drivers are used in a system, a filter network, called a crossover, separates the incoming signal into different frequency ranges and routes them to the appropriate driver.

A Speaker System with n separate frequency bands is described as n-Way Speakers.

A two-way system will have a woofer and a tweeter.

A three-way system employs a woofer, a mid-range, and a tweeter.

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