Reader Terrence Clay asks: “Are portable speakers that much better than phone or laptop speakers?”
There are many variables, but — if everything else is equal — high-quality larger speakers will sound better than high-quality smaller speakers. It’s partly physics, partly biology.
Music and nature produce sounds over a huge range of frequencies; but a normal, fully-healthy human ear can only hear in the range of around 20Hz to around 20KHz.
Dogs, bats, dolphins, (etc.), can hear sounds at normal volumes in the “ultrasonic” range above 20KHz, but to human ears, it’s almost as if those
It’s different at the low end; humans can’t hear sounds lower than about 20 cycles per second, but we can feel them resonate in our chests and soft tissues. (Think of the difference between hearing a live bass drum versus a recording of the drum; or hearing fireworks in person versus watching a video.) That’s because loud, low-frequency sound waves actually move a lot of air back and forth as they pass; enough so that we can feel the “infrasonic” pressure waves.
(An old audiophile trick is to hold a lighted candle or match in front of speakers, and play loud, bass-rich music: With good speakers, the flame will dance with the beat; with high-quality speakers, the flame may even blow out!)
Small speakers can handle human-range high frequencies just fine, but suffer on the bass end simply because they can’t move enough air to create realistic sound at room-level volumes; they start to sound “tinny.” Some people and some sound systems try to compensate by increasing the volume of low-frequency sounds; but that’s introducing a deliberate acoustic distortion into the mix to mask the speaker’s low-frequency inadequacies.
This is why concert halls, movie theaters, dance clubs (etc.), will often use a wall of speakers; not just for sheer acoustic volume but also to move enough air to reproduce naturalistic low-frequency sounds.
That’s also why aftermarket add-on TV soundbars also typically use a bank of multiple speakers, often with a separate bass woofer or subwoofer to help to move enough air to realistically reproduce low-frequency sounds.
Small speakers — such as phone or laptop speakers — are simply too small to produce naturalistic, “room-filling” sound. They’ll inevitably start to sound “tinny” as you increase the volume.
So, yes: If everything else is equal, high-quality, larger speakers (whether portable or not) will give you more naturalistic/realistic sound than similar-quality smaller speakers.
Permalink: https://langa.com/?p=1610
Want to ask Fred a question? Have a comment? Click here!
Want free notification of new content like this? Click here!
