PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Speaker and Headphone Characteristics

Here are the important characteristics of speakers:

Number

Computer speakers are sold in sets. Two-piece sets include two small speakers intended to sit on your desk or attach to your monitor. Three-piece sets add a subwoofer, which resides under the desk and provides enhanced bass response. Four-piece sets include four small speakers, and are useful primarily to gamers who have a 3D-capable sound card installed. Five-piece sets add a subwoofer to that arrangement. Six-piece sets include a subwoofer, a center-channel speaker, and four satellites, and are intended for PC-based home-theater applications. Most headphones use only two speakers, one per ear, but some use two horizontally offset speakers per ear to provide true four-channel support.

Frequency response

Frequency response is the range of sound frequencies that the speaker can reproduce. The values provided for most speakers are meaningless because they do not specify how flat that response is. For example, professional studio-monitor speakers may provide 20 Hz to 20 kHz response at 1 dB. Expensive home-audio speakers may provide 20 Hz to 20 kHz response at 3 dB, and 40 Hz to 18 kHz response at 1 dB. Computer speakers may claim 20 Hz to 20 kHz response, but may rate that response at 10 dB or more, which makes the specification effectively meaningless. A reduction of about 3 dB halves volume, which means sounds lower than 100 Hz or higher than 10 kHz are nearly inaudible with many ...