# How do earbuds reproduce bass so well? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 25, 2014, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-earbuds-reproduce-bass-so-well/705601 "2014-11-25T15:54:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-earbuds-reproduce-bass-so-well/705601/21 "2014-11-26T21:54:49Z")
I’m no expert, but I learned this concept in a physics of sound course years ago. Does this not answer your question? > [@](#): > > While earbuds cannot accurately represent lower frequencies, they are, if anything, over representative of mid-range frequencies. > > So what producers and engineers have done, over the years, is to use all sorts of audio-chicanery to trick your ears into hearing a bass sound that’s fundamentally missing from your earbuds. > > For example, the 808 kick drum has become a hallmark of pop music—it’s the first instrument you hear in Lorde’s “Royals”. Yet left unmixed, an 808 kick drum could be almost inaudible on earbuds (or laptop speakers, which sport almost the same sound profile). > > To fool your ears into believing the 808 is present within the song, an engineer will manipulate an 808’s overtones to resonate in the mid-range frequencies. It’s from the link I provided above if you want to read more. inked to a Forbes article above ---
**Author:** ![Bert\_Nobbins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@Bert\_Nobbins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bert_Nobbins)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-earbuds-reproduce-bass-so-well/705601/22 "2014-11-26T23:00:15Z")
> [@D18](#): > > I’m no expert, but I learned this concept in a physics of sound course years ago. Does this not answer your question? > > It’s from the link I provided above if you want to read more. > inked to a Forbes article above I did read it all. It has nothing to do with the effect I described; and I really do not believe the recording industry works as it claims. I have been associated with that industry for decades. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-earbuds-reproduce-bass-so-well/705601/23 "2014-11-26T23:10:00Z")
Well, the recording industry may or may not work that way, but the physics is quite - ahem - sound! 😉 I see now that you aren’t the OP, and my post was directed at that question: how to explain the rich bass in such a small membrane. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2014, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-earbuds-reproduce-bass-so-well/705601/24 "2014-11-26T23:11:27Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > Why does it take a bigger driver to deliver more pressure? Well, the actual requirement isn’t driver size, but volume displacement, which is speaker cone area times linear displacement (that is, area times how far it moves). There are practical limits to the latter, so we make the woofer bigger to get more bass. This is true, and the amount of energy delivered in the low frequencies can be remarkable. If you hold your hand in front of the woofer of a fair-sized audio system cranked up to a moderate level, you can literally _feel_ the air pressure, and with speaker covers off, can see the diaphragm visibly oscillating. It’s that energy that causes your floors and walls to perceptibly vibrate – especially in home theater setups with powerful subwoofers. That same low-frequency air pressure can be delivered by smaller cones with large excursions, but as you say, there are limits, the major problem being that the large excursions necessitated by very low frequencies introduce distortions into the higher frequencies that the diaphragms are simultaneously trying to reproduce. On the argument about earbud-to-ear sealing, of course it never can be a perfect seal, but it does have to be _good enough_ so that the vast majority of the earbud’s low-frequency energy is trapped in the small air chamber in the ear canal. That typically means a really good seal. Try pulling an earbud even very slightly out of the ear and see what happens to the bass. That’s why many earbuds and so-called in-ear headphones come with a variety of adapter seals. ---
**Author:** ![Bert\_Nobbins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@Bert\_Nobbins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bert_Nobbins)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-earbuds-reproduce-bass-so-well/705601/25 "2014-11-27T17:19:11Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Try pulling an earbud even very slightly out of the ear and see what happens to the bass. That’s why many earbuds and so-called in-ear headphones come with a variety of adapter seals. Sigh. I keep saying that the issue is not the seal but the amount of air trapped in the ear canal. Having done some experiments last night I am quite sure this is the case. I thought this would be a simple matter of acoustics but we don’t seem to be getting much traction here. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-earbuds-reproduce-bass-so-well/705601/26 "2014-11-27T22:33:04Z")
> [@Bert\_Nobbins](#): > > Sigh. I keep saying that the issue is not the seal but the amount of air trapped in the ear canal. Having done some experiments last night I am quite sure this is the case. > > I thought this would be a simple matter of acoustics but we don’t seem to be getting much traction here. Actually, we’re saying roughly the same thing. The seal is what causes the air column to be trapped. Consider the analogy of an open pipe with an airtight obstruction stuck near one end of it, and you want to blow it out with a blast of compressed air from the other end. What is going to put more air pressure on the object – putting the hose from an air compressor loosely into the pipe, or putting it in the pipe with a seal around it so the object is hit with a compression wave? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-earbuds-reproduce-bass-so-well/705601.md?page=1)