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
Your small speakers are probably not making the deepest sounds you hear, your brain is creating them.
The [overtone series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_series_(music) (or harmonics, or partials) is a bunch or resonating notes that happen when any note is played, it’s a fact of physical acoustics in our air. You hit an A on a piano then by nature you also hear an A an octave above (double the frequency) and then a note a 5th above that (E) then a 4th above that (A, again, but higher). Etc.
(There is a lot of math and variables here, saxophones and oboes only play the odd harmonics due to conical bore, other instruments have their own unique harmonic characteristics. This is why organs are able to sound like different instruments, too, choosing different groups of pipes allows the organ to emulate the overtone series of different instruments. Anyway.)
But! If you play only an overtone series without that first, Fundamental, note, your brain will fill it in. Can’t be stopped. Owl brains have been shown to do the same thing, it’s a part of our biology.
So, the people who make little speakers know this and they take advantage of it! Those little speakers, like in your phone, are not playing the lowest tone. They play the overtone series above it and your brain generates the lowest tone from there. This allows deeper tones than should be physically possible from that driver. Goddamn witchcraft.
(edited for clarity, I hope)
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