What is it inside a computer that gets the electrons in the wire leading to a speaker wiggling back and forth?
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Inside the computer the part that turns data into an electrical signal that looks like a sound wave is called a digital to analog converter(DAC), there are a few ways these can work, but two common techniques are:
having many pins driven on or off, which are then weighted differently and added together. (R2R)
having a single pin turn on and off rapidly with the proportion of on to off determining voltage level, then having the signal smoothed out. (PWM, Delta Sigma)
Once you have this analog signal, it is amplified to be strong enough to drive a speaker. Class D amplifiers are common these days, but you’ll likely find class AB in older or higher end equipment. Class D works like the second kind of DAC I mentioned, it’s more efficient because the transistors are either all the way on or all the way off. Class AB has transistors that are partially on providing the amplification, which wastes more output power as heat.
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