Basic Home Audio
Speakers
Okay, you are starting to shop for home audio speakers
for your living room or apartment and already are bogged down
in unfamiliar terms and names. Lets try to discuss
the different types of home speakers as simply as possible.
Honestly speaking, the basic audio speaker technology hasn't
changed in several decades. Most all types of speakers
have a combination of drivers or speakers with a crossover
installed inside a cabinet. The cabinet might be of a
plastic or composite material or a wood box of one type or
another. The crossover circuitry actually divides the
audio signal into various frequency bands and sends those bands
to the drivers best capable of reproducing them. This
simple setup enables the most accurate reproduction of sound
possible depending upon the range and quality of the
drivers.
You will regularly read of terms like "2-way" and "3-way"
which indicates how many separate frequency bands each speaker
system will handle. For example, a 2-way, full range
speaker has two drivers including a tweeter and a woofer which
handle two different bands. The tweeter handles upper or
higher frequencies while the woofer handles the middle to lower
frequencies. A 3-way speaker will normally have the
tweeter for higher frequencies, a mid-range driver for mid
range frequencies and a woofer for the lower frequencies.
You can see why the 3-way might be a bit more desirable then
just a 2-way and why it might also be a bit more expensive to
purchase.
There are many improvements that have been made over the
years so today, sound quality is also related to many other
factors such as speaker size, materials, room placement and so
on. Many new designs present almost unbelievable sound
clarity and quality. They are now engineered for
reproduction of dynamic digital sound sources so there really
are no hard set rules leading to best sound quality.
Where decades ago you could find standard 18" bookshelf
speakers and 3' to 4' floor standing tower speakers, today
speaker sizes range from huge tower speakers in heavy wood
cabinets to small satellite speakers that will actually fit
into the palm of your hand.
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