# Advances in speaker technology? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 17, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416 "2015-07-17T14:21:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/21 "2015-07-18T21:15:19Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Yeah, I meant to add that that’s why it doesn’t matter much where you put a subwoofer - it handles frequencies below the ability of human hearing to echolocate, and since the purpose is more physical resonance than hearing, shoving it in a corner is just as good and putting it in the center of the room. > > For low-range musical reproduction, it’s a little more sensitive to location, but not for Gojira stomping through your living room while being nuked. 😃 it does matter where you put it, because the room has “modes” where the acoustic output is either enhanced or canceled depending on where in space you are observing. tossing the subwoofer in a corner is considered the default if you don’t have the tools or the knowledge to map the room. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I am thinking of the textbook definition. 🙂 > > Sure you can connect a speaker to DC. I did it when I was a kid to see the polarization, which way the cone moved. what **Crafter\_Man** is saying is that the idea that RMS AC voltage is equivalent to a certain DC Voltage only holds true for resistive loads where the AC voltage waveform and current waveform are similar and in phase. A loudspeaker is not a resistive load, it has a resonant portion and an inductive portion, and the phase difference between voltage and current varies all over the place. plus the AC frequency driving the loudspeaker varies greatly as well. So if you just measure the RMS voltage and current across/through the speaker, you’re only going to get “apparent power” (V\*A) and not true watts. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/22 "2015-07-18T21:29:20Z")
Again, I was giving a definition for RMS. I’m sure the load of inductance is different that a resistor. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/23 "2015-07-18T21:55:40Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > it does matter where you put it, because the room has “modes” where the acoustic output is either enhanced or canceled depending on where in space you are observing. tossing the subwoofer in a corner is considered the default if you don’t have the tools or the knowledge to map the room. I know. This is like some of the automotive threads, though - trying to accommodate both the “car is making a funny noise” crowd and the ASME mechanics. 🙂 For most people, putting the woofer wherever it’s convenient in terms of furniture and room use is “good enough.” If you’re even a little sophisticated, you know to try as many locations as you can to find the best that works in other ways. If you’re an audiophile, the room gets fitted to the audio needs, not the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/24 "2015-07-18T22:03:03Z")
Don’t forget about planar transducers! The tech has been around for a while, but they aren’t that widely used. Carver and BG mostly. Four feet tall and three inches thick! > **[planar transducers - Bing](http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=planar%2Btransducers&qpvt=planar%2Btransducers&qpvt=planar%2Btransducers&FORM=IGRE)** > > Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you. Great mids and highs, but you need a sub or a small woofer in conjunction. I’ve got a few kicking around. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/25 "2015-07-18T22:05:56Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Don’t forget about planar transducers! The tech has been around for a while, but they aren’t that widely used. Carver and BG mostly. Four feet tall and three inches thick! > […] > Great mids and highs, but you need a sub or a small woofer in conjunction. I’ve got a few kicking around. And at the other end were the Heil “air-motion transformer” tweeters. We had a concert stack with those, mid-1970s, and they were weird to watch at high volumes. Not sure if they’re still around, or if the ribbon tweeters have replaced them. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/26 "2015-07-18T22:13:43Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I know. This is like some of the automotive threads, though - trying to accommodate both the “car is making a funny noise” crowd and the ASME mechanics. 🙂 > > For most people, putting the woofer wherever it’s convenient in terms of furniture and room use is “good enough.” If you’re even a little sophisticated, you know to try as many locations as you can to find the best that works in other ways. If you’re an audiophile, the room gets fitted to the audio needs, not the other way around. Fair enough. One common trick (though it’s not weird) is to put the subwoofer in your listening position, then walk around the room to see where it sounds the best. Boom, that’s where you put it. > [@Gatopescado](#): > > Don’t forget about planar transducers! The tech has been around for a while, but they aren’t that widely used. Carver and BG mostly. Four feet tall and three inches thick! > > [planar transducers - Search Images](http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=planar+transducers&qpvt=planar+transducers&qpvt=planar+transducers&FORM=IGRE) > > Great mids and highs, but you need a sub or a small woofer in conjunction. I’ve got a few kicking around. Planars have the disadvantages of being pretty large and (more importantly) dipolar, so room size and placement is even more critical. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/27 "2015-07-18T22:52:26Z")
> [@Doughbag](#): > > Your little handheld, doesn’t have the power to drive big speakers by itself - neither did/does a cassette player, record player or CD. > An amplification is always needed, those docking stations have their own amplifier build in. Or go [**old school**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ILtUma8E-Y). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/28 "2015-07-18T23:18:59Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Don’t forget about planar transducers! The tech has been around for a while, but they aren’t that widely used. Carver and BG mostly. Four feet tall and three inches thick! I had a friend in college who had [Magnaplanar speakers](http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=magnaplanar+speakers&view=detailv2&&id=3C86BFF87D924FDC88947A853DB5DA477B08C5B7&selectedIndex=2&ccid=KJIERsRi&simid=608040148535085755&thid=JN.uxQ3g84punfRF4jrkVejyQ&ajaxhist=0). The sound was amazing, and the speakers even more so. I remember he put on a Beatles albums and you could watch the individual notes move around the space. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/29 "2015-07-18T23:50:26Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I had a friend in college who had [Magnaplanar speakers](http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=magnaplanar+speakers&view=detailv2&&id=3C86BFF87D924FDC88947A853DB5DA477B08C5B7&selectedIndex=2&ccid=KJIERsRi&simid=608040148535085755&thid=JN.uxQ3g84punfRF4jrkVejyQ&ajaxhist=0). The sound was amazing, and the speakers even more so. I remember he put on a Beatles albums and you could watch the individual notes move around the space. How? Were you on acid? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/30 "2015-07-19T00:34:42Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > How? Were you on acid? Acid? It wasn’t the 60s, man. It was the early 70s. I meant that the notes emerged from seemingly different points on the face of the speaker. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/31 "2015-07-19T04:54:46Z")
Planar drivers are an interesting technology. (The ribbon drivers in the Carver Amazing were actually made by BG.) Ribbons are made by a lot of niche companies, and many people like the sound. They are not the most accurate, but they can sound nice. Magneplanar make some very interesting speakers, and they can also sound pretty splendid. In addition you get an entire family of electrostatic speakers, from the original Quad ESL 57 to current designs like Martin Logan. Dipole speakers are an interesting corner of the world, and remain favoured by some for some unexpected reasons. Designs like those from [Siegfried Linkwitz](http://www.linkwitzlab.com/) provide a sound field that many feel presents a much more natural result in a real life domestic room than closed boxes. The speakers need very high quality drivers as they must move a lot of air to cope with the natural cancellation around the baffle, and Linkwitz’s designs are all active crossover designs. The big trick is in managing the polar response so that the response at 90 degrees is zero, which it is claimed helps control early reflections and yields a better outcome. Probably one of the big advances in speakers across the board has been the use of active compensation and crossovers. A typical soundbar will contain a one chip wonder class D amplifier with quite a number of amplifiers in it, capable of being driven by a DSP which can include the needed processing to derive the subwoofer signal and add any needed frequency compensation to cope with the design of the subwoofer. Similarly the drivers in the soundbar itself can be compensated to cope with the physical design and for its location. Another evil trick often pulled in small systems is to create a perceived phantom bass by utilising the phenomenon of the missing fundamental - where you take the low bass signal and filter it out (as your small subwoofer is unable to safely handle it anyway) and synthesise a signal that contains the harmonics of the removed signal - whereby the ear/brain will insert the fundamental again, and perceive the presence of the low frequency. Sadly however, the advent of home theatre has produced a generation of lowered expectations of sound quality, and many people are prepared to accept sound that is much poorer than in the heyday of HiFi. The idea of sitting down to listen to music as a single activity, and especially the idea of listening to an entire album (!) at once seems to have vanished. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416/32 "2015-07-19T12:52:49Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > The trick with setting up the inputs to the sound bar are going to be in working out what device has ultimate control of the switching and volume. The trouble with a lot of modern devices is that they all they they should. Usually the choice is either a central home theatre receiver, or for more simple system, the TV. Usually your blu-ray player is one a a number of possible sources - even if the only other source is a receiver for free-to air transmissions in the TV. This means you need to get the sound to the TV (so over HDMI) and thence to the sound bar from the TV with whatever it can provide. This means that the TV remote can be used to select input sources and control the volume. Good thoughts. It would keep sound from the BluRay digital all the way to the sound bar anyway. The only other non-TV input would be from a CD player and I’m pretty sure there is a spare RCA pair on the TV for that (the TV is new too). I have a cassette player but haven’t used it in years and a turntable, ditto. The TV’s inputs would be the BluRay, internet streaming (WiFi or hard connected) and over-the-air. I haven’t had cable for years as almost all my electronic entertainment has been rented movies and a handful of series that I wait for the discs to arrive and binge on. Streaming’s been a boon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advances-in-speaker-technology/725416.md?page=1)