Speaker Components
This part of a speaker is attached to the voice coil and moves to produce sound.
diaphragm
Moving coil speakers operate on this physical principle.
What is electromagnetic induction?
The minimum impedance a speaker presents to an amplifier is called this.
What is nominal impedance?
The front panel of a speaker enclosure is called this.
What is the baffle?
This device boosts a line-level audio signal to loudspeaker level.
What is an amplifier?
This component connects the cone to the basket and keeps the voice coil aligned.
What is the spider suspension?
This type of speaker uses a large, thin, conductive diaphragm suspended between two charged plates.
What is an electrostatic/condenser speaker?
RMS power can be calculated from the peak power by multiplying by this constant.
What is 0.707?
A sealed box with no acoustical contact between front and rear of the cone is also called this.
What is a closed box or infinite baffle?
A 500 W per-channel, 4Ω amplifier is bridged into mono. What is the new output power and impedance seen by the speake
Power = 1000 W; Impedance = 8Ω.
This metal frame maintains the cone’s symmetry and dissipates heat, often made of aluminum.
What is the basket?
This driver type bends a crystal when an audio signal is applied to move a diaphragm, commonly for high frequencies.
What is a piezo driver?
This type of speaker power rating indicates the maximum short-duration output.
What is peak power?
This type of enclosure uses a port to enhance output by reinforcing rear sound waves.
What is a bass reflex or ported enclosure?
Name two types of linear distortion in amplifiers.
What are frequency distortion (harmonics) and phase distortion (delay)?
This part prevents dirt from entering the voice coil gap and is often dome-shaped.
What is the dust cover or dome?
Ribbon drivers cannot reproduce this range of sound.
What are low frequencies?
If a speaker has a 200W continuous rating at 4Ω, this would be its approximate program rating.
What is 400W?
Horns increase driver efficiency and control this aspect of sound.
What is dispersion (coverage) or sound throw?
You are using an active crossover to split a signal at 3 kHz for a two-way system. The high-frequency driver is rated at 300 W program power and 8Ω. What is the minimum amplifier rating you should use to safely drive this driver without clipping, based on the program rating?
300 W into 8Ω (matching the program rating).
Name three chief properties that designers seek in speaker cones for minimal distortion.
What are low mass, stiffness, and lack of coloration(ringing)?
Servo-driven speakers were originally developed by this organization to test low-frequency vibrations on helicopters.
What is NASA?
The typical excursion of a low-frequency driver is about this value in inches.
What is 1 inch?
In a multi-way speaker system, what ensures that drivers of different sizes work together without overlapping destructive frequencies?
What is a crossover?
Two amplifiers are used in parallel mode, each rated 300 W into 8Ω. What is the total power delivered to one 8Ω speaker?
Total power = 600 W.