Small speaker design - advice/info needed

[twain]

just having a chat with a collegue about creating a small portable speaker - this sort of size/shape:

having little knowledge of sound production, we were wondering if there is any advantage of using 2 x 2W speakers to produce steroe sound compared to 1 x 5W speaker with mono sound?

at this size, i'm not sure what difference it would make?

 

[Raging_Bulls]

There's little point in stereo if it's in a single enclosure like the one pictured.
Stereo is intended to allow one speaker to play a different sound than the other. When the speakers are further apart than the width of your head, this allows the music to "move" from the left to the right or vice versa (Queen's "The invisible man" being an excellent example, but there should be many more songs that use the stereo effect).

You may be better off putting a mono speaker in there, but then again most phones only know how to output stereo. That pictured enclosure probably has stereo speakers indeed, or a mono speaker and a PCB which converts the sound from stereo to mono.

 

[MikeD]

You don't need a PCB or to worry about the phone output. Use a mono jack plug, it bridges the L and R outputs in the headphone socket and sends it all to the single speaker.

 

[twain]

thansk for the info chaps. Would a small coaxial 3 way speaker bee too much? just thinking about the bass/mid/treble reproduction - if its all coming out of one speaker, it usually mutes alot of the high end and the low end becomes shallow....

 

[rosstheboss]

You could try messing about with one of these...

http://www.gak.co.uk/en/marshall-ms-4-micro-stack/4365

 

[xerxes]

The idea of stereo is so that the two speakers can reproduce the effect of an array of instruments and voices in space in front of you. Positioned either side with the listener at the centre, roughly forming an equilateral triangle it's possible to position sounds or instruments as if they were originating from different locations for example the vocals in the centre, the lead guitarist to the right of him, rhythm to the left, drummer behind etc., much like if you were in front of a real group of musicians.

Read some hi-fi magazines and they will often talk about imaging or sound stage and this is what they mean, the ability for a stereo set-up to recreate the illusion of the recording coming from separate sources within a 3 dimensional space generated by the two speakers. When it works well it can be really magical and you can pinpoint the location of a sound in front of you and it doesn't seem as though the sound is coming from the speakers at all, but rather the space between, around, in front and behind them.

It doesn't really work with two tiny speakers 6 inches apart on a portable stereo and in situations where you're not "in the sweet spot", so for small portable stuff and in situations where you're not sat still and listening properly, one good speaker is probably better than two lesser quality speakers.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=home+ ... +placement

 

[legrandefromage]

There's all sorts of fun to be had. What are you powering it with?

Different drive units are more efficient than others. Some can deliver 90db from 1 watt. Mylar cones are very efficient but don't sound very good. The rest is basic physics. Cabinet resonances can add to the overall volume. Whereas the wrong driver will sound dead in the wrong cabinet materials.

And so on and so forth....

 

[legrandefromage]

If you want any help, I used to build prototype speakers for wharfedale

 

[zetecmk2]

just having a chat with a collegue about creating a small portable speaker - this sort of size/shape:

having little knowledge of sound production, we were wondering if there is any advantage of using 2 x 2W speakers to produce steroe sound compared to 1 x 5W speaker with mono sound?

at this size, i'm not sure what difference it would make?

jesus...that phone is massive!!!!