When you turn down or up the volume on devices with either a wheel or button, what actually happens that allows it to sound quieter or louder?
In: Technology
a capacitor with controlled resistance makes the sound louder or quieter. if the volume is low the resistance is high causing the sound to be quieter
A long time ago I took a radio volume knob off and I saw that it was a cylinder with copper wire wrapped around it in a tight coil all the way down. As you turned the knob, the cylinder slid further into or out of the hole, changing the place along the length of the wire where it made contact with the rest of the circuit. The longer the amount of wire the electricity had to travel through, the more resistance, and the lower the volume. I’m sure modern ones are a lot more sophisticated, but the principle is the same.
It’s a wheel that literally changes the resistance of the circuit. There are rheostats and potentiometers. Pots generally control voltage, rheostats control current. There is a distinction, and it mostly matters when you’re using AC or DC. Basically, you’re increasing, or decreasing resistance.
So what it is, is inside the switch is a device that amplifies a signal, or a signal inverse of that signal, and so the more power you give to that amplifier, the higher the peak of that signal (which is going to be volume)
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