Usually when you have a smaller speaker, you sacrifice the low end, but earbuds seem to manage to deliver substantial bass nonetheless. I assume the proximity to the eardrum helps, but I don’t fully understand how.
In: 2000
When it comes to waves and how they propigate trough air, the inverse-square law applies
You need a big speaker to have the same effect having your ear multiple meters away versus having the speaker 1cm away from your eardrum.
If you would put your head at the speaker at the same volume you would probably hurt yourself.
—
Keep in mind that your ear drum doesn’t move that much even with low frequencies, we are talking about under a millimeter.
For that, if you plugin your ear with a tight seal, you would only need about the same movement from a in ear speaker to have the same effect.
We could even have even smaller speakers if we could directly put one on your eardrum.
—
Also there are “bone conducting earphones” out there where the “speaker” is even smaller because conducting sound trough solid things is better than with air.
Latest Answers