Good sound from tiny speakers - HOW?

Over the last few years devices have produced some impressive sounds
from a tiny crappy looking almost-flat speaker.

For example, many cells phones have a "no hands" mode where the tiny
speaker can easily projects the sound for several yards.

My USB memory device can also play music and the sound is very
impressive for such a tiny, weany, small speaker.

How the heck is this done?

(1) Is it done by better compenents like stronger magnets, stiffer cone
materials, longer or shorter (?) throw voicecoils, etc.

(2) A lot of devices have acoustic processing like SRS Labs's "WOW!"
but I don't think we has that a few years ago when the better speakers
started showing up.

How is it done?

On Wed, 10 May 2006 11:08:59 +0100, Andy <nomail@nomail.com> wrote:


>Over the last few years devices have produced some impressive sounds
>from a tiny crappy looking almost-flat speaker.

>For example, many cells phones have a "no hands" mode where the tiny
>speaker can easily projects the sound for several yards.

>My USB memory device can also play music and the sound is very
>impressive for such a tiny, weany, small speaker.

>How the heck is this done?

It's simple. You're nearly deaf and such rasping devices sound good to your
tin ears.

On 2006-05-10 06:08:59 -0400, Andy <nomail@nomail.com> said:

> Over the last few years devices have produced some impressive sounds
> from a tiny crappy looking almost-flat speaker.
>
> For example, many cells phones have a "no hands" mode where the tiny
> speaker can easily projects the sound for several yards.
>
> My USB memory device can also play music and the sound is very
> impressive for such a tiny, weany, small speaker.
>
> How the heck is this done?
>
> (1) Is it done by better compenents like stronger magnets, stiffer
> cone materials, longer or shorter (?) throw voicecoils, etc.
>
> (2) A lot of devices have acoustic processing like SRS Labs's "WOW!"
> but I don't think we has that a few years ago when the better speakers
> started showing up.
>
> How is it done?

Forgive my cynicism, but I think most of it is due to greatly lessened
expectations.
--
Michael | "You're going to need a bigger boat."

On Wed, 10 May 2006 11:08:59 +0100, Andy wrote:

> Over the last few years devices have produced some impressive sounds
> from a tiny crappy looking almost-flat speaker.
[...]
> How the heck is this done?
>
> (1) Is it done by better compenents like stronger magnets, stiffer cone
> materials, longer or shorter (?) throw voicecoils, etc.
>
> (2) A lot of devices have acoustic processing like SRS Labs's "WOW!"
> but I don't think we has that a few years ago when the better speakers
> started showing up.

None of these. The recipe for a big impressive sound is amazingly simple:
remove the bass and the trebles which are very difficult frequencies to
reproduce and can make the music sound awful if poorly reproduced; then
boost the medium (that's all that's left anyway) and raise the volume =>
very big sound (that's how the Super Bass or XTra Bass systems work by the
way, they don't increase the bass at all since the immutable laws of
physics make that small speakers simply can't reproduce bass frequencies).

Of course, if you listen to a quality recording on such a system, it's
gonna sound terrible compared to a quality system since all you'll hear is
going to be the voice and the guitar (that both belong to the medium range)
and you won't be able to hear the drums, bass, violins, part of piano...
But thankfully, the recording industry have long realized that porly
recorded crap music was a much more lucrative market than quality
recordings of good music. Hence, most new recordings nowdays are made in
such a way that they only contain medium frenquencies. As a result, when
people listen to those recordings on their tiny speakers or 50p earphones
supplied with their MP3 players, they think that they sound just great even
compared with higher quality and bigger speakers since the recordings
itself is so bad that the quality of the system on which it is listened to
doesn't really matter anymore.

On 10 May 2006, Mehdi<vioccc@REMOVEME.gmail.com> wrote:

> None of these. The recipe for a big impressive sound is amazingly
> simple: remove the bass and the trebles which are very difficult
> frequencies to reproduce and can make the music sound awful if
> poorly reproduced; then boost the medium (that's all that's left
> anyway) and raise the volume => very big sound (that's how the
> Super Bass or XTra Bass systems work by the way, they don't
> increase the bass at all since the immutable laws of physics make
> that small speakers simply can't reproduce bass frequencies).
>

Have you got a link for Xtra Bass?

All sorts of crud comes up in Google


> Of course, if you listen to a quality recording on such a system,
> it's gonna sound terrible compared to a quality system since all
> you'll hear is going to be the voice and the guitar (that both
> belong to the medium range) and you won't be able to hear the
> drums, bass, violins, part of piano... But thankfully, the
> recording industry have long realized that porly recorded crap
> music was a much more lucrative market than quality recordings of
> good music. Hence, most new recordings nowdays are made in such a
> way that they only contain medium frenquencies. As a result, when
> people listen to those recordings on their tiny speakers or 50p
> earphones supplied with their MP3 players, they think that they
> sound just great even compared with higher quality and bigger
> speakers since the recordings itself is so bad that the quality of
> the system on which it is listened to doesn't really matter
> anymore.

In article <Xns97BF716C4FF8B74C1H4@127.0.0.1>, Andy <nomail@nomail.com>
wrote:

> Over the last few years devices have produced some impressive sounds
> from a tiny crappy looking almost-flat speaker.
>
> For example, many cells phones have a "no hands" mode where the tiny
> speaker can easily projects the sound for several yards.
>
> My USB memory device can also play music and the sound is very
> impressive for such a tiny, weany, small speaker.
>
> How the heck is this done?
>
> (1) Is it done by better compenents like stronger magnets, stiffer cone
> materials, longer or shorter (?) throw voicecoils, etc.
>
> (2) A lot of devices have acoustic processing like SRS Labs's "WOW!"
> but I don't think we has that a few years ago when the better speakers
> started showing up.
>
> How is it done?

New mini speakers have better dampening and more excursion. Small
plastic and aluminum cones with foam surrounds have replaced large paper
diaphragms.

The sound isn't good but it's not annoying either.

Kevin McMurtrie spake thus:

> New mini speakers have better dampening and more excursion.

"Dampening"? Maybe with a continuous water spray?

I think you meant "damping".


--
Pierre, mon ami. Jetez encore un Scientologiste
dans le baquet d'acide.

- from a posting in alt.religion.scientology titled
"France recommends dissolving Scientologists"

In article <44662cb7$0$3693$822641b3@news.adtechcomputers.com >,
David Nebenzahl <nobody@but.us.chickens> wrote:

> Kevin McMurtrie spake thus:
>
> > New mini speakers have better dampening and more excursion.
>
> "Dampening"? Maybe with a continuous water spray?
>
> I think you meant "damping".

Um... Yeah. That sounds better than water ; )