Dissecting a Speaker

Built in a variety of shapes and sizes, and for a variety of specific purposes, most speakers share the following traits.

Cabinet
This is the box that holds it all together. The cabinet can be sealed or vented.

Vented cabinets, also called bass-reflex, enhance low-frequency response by using holes to allow bass to enter the room. This design is more common that the sealed closed-box design, which is also called acoustic suspension.

The cabinet can add to the cost of high-end speakers. Sleek lines, luxurious finishes and finely grained wood are nice to look at, but if your budget dictates, paying attention to a few key specs can deliver high-end sound, even if you have to pass on making a fashion statement.

Driver
Contained within the cabinet is any number of drivers (woofers, tweeters and midranges). The designations "2-," "3-" and "4-way" refer to how many drivers are housed in that speaker's cabinet.

The speaker's crossover splits the frequency band into separate ranges. Two-way speakers split the signal into low (bass) and high (treble) frequencies. In a 3-way speaker, the crossover also splits out the middle frequencies. Speakers that use a fourth driver may either split the middle frequencies further, or split out ultra-high frequencies.

The woofer handles the low bass frequencies. Its size can be a good indicator of overall quality. Look for a woofer at least 5 inches in diameter; an 8-inch is optimum for delivering deep, resonant bass.

The tweeter handles the high, treble frequencies. In some 4-way speakers, those high frequencies are split further, with the highest frequencies going to a super-tweeter.

The midrange, as its name implies, plays the middle frequencies. As noted, the middle frequencies are sometime split and played by two, separate midranges.

Two Key Specs

Frequency Response
This spec appears as a range. Expressed in hertz (Hz), it tells you how much of the audio range the speaker can reproduce

Most speakers rate up to 20 kHz on the high end - anything higher, and all you'll do is annoy your dog. It's the low end you want to focus on. While 30 Hz or lower will deliver thorax-thumping bass, you can experience a respectable low end with a rating of 50 Hz. More expensive speakers deliver low ends down to 20 Hz, which is at the absolute outskirts of what you can hear.

Sensitivity
Here's a number that's, thankfully, as easy to understand as it is informative; as a rule, the higher the sensitivity rating, the better.

Sensitivity refers to the speaker's ability to play louder volumes without needing more power from the receiver. It can make all the difference when it comes to preventing distortion at high volumes, and is especially critical when connecting to lower-powered amps.

While you can find speakers with ratings of 90 dB, you can probably go as low as 85 dB before worrying too much about having a sufficiently-powered amp. While the range between 90 and 85 may seem trivial, increasing the sensitivity these few decibels can reduce the power demand by 75 percent.

The only potentially confusing thing about sensitivity is that it is sometimes interchanged with the term "efficiency."

Quick Index Magnetic Attractions As Easy as 1,2...3...6...7 Narrowing the Choices Dissecting a Speaker Two Key Specs More Specs Starting the Party