My wife and I have 2 gaming laptops (MSI and ASUS) and two regular laptops for work (Lenovo and ASUS). All of their speakers fire directly downward to the point where actually using it on our laps makes them nearly inaudible unless cranked up until they sound like crap. Last time I was at a store I checked all of the display models and EVERY ONE OF THEM had downward-facing speakers. This seems so counterproductive to me, but I’m not an engineer so who knows.
In: Technology
The idea is that the sound will reverberate off of the surface you’re on top of, causing better bass sound. Some pull this off better than others. You can test this with your phone speaker and a wooden table
A lot of laptops aren’t really designed to be used on laps. They don’t just have speakers that face downwards, they have cooling ports that blankets and legs and other things laps usually have can block.
There’s a kind of speaker that is designed to be pointed at a hard surface and reflect sound. I’m not sure exactly why but this makes it able to have decent quality for a lower level of energy use than you’d expect. Those laptops envision that they will often be used on desks, so they chose speakers that work best if they’re pointed at a hard surface. I imagine they believe a lot of people who want quality sound will wear headphones.
Tiny speakers make tiny sound. That’s fine if the speakers are literally inside your ear already so all of the sound goes immediately into your ears, but for something sitting away from you, small speakers are going to sound tiny. They are particularly bad at making bass sounds, which need to move a lot of air slowly, as opposed to high sounds which move a little bit of air quickly.
To fit even modestly sized speakers into a laptop that is meant to be flat, the speakers need to sit flat. That means they’re either pointed straight up or straight down.
The top of the laptop has more important components that need to be there, like the keyboard and track pad. Space immediatly around the edges needs to have connectors like USB slots and HDMI and card readers. So space is getting pretty cramped. That ends up limiting where the speakers can go, especially if you want balanced left and right sound.
To get the best sound, speakers need empty space around them to resonate with the sound. If the speakers are pointed straight up and out, there’s zero resonance and it’ll sound thin and tinny, and loud in a bad way. The best solution would be to have enclosed channels or tubes that direct sound from the speakers, which “empty” directed towards you, or at least not down…. but that would take up space, and space is limited. Laptops advertise themselves as being thinner and lighter than the competition.
So, the last option is to have the smallest possible chambers that direct sound down and reflect the sound off of the *hopefully* hard desktop or table surface that the laptop is sitting on. It will reverberate in the empty space under the laptop which is necessary for cooling anyway. It’s a compromise between better sound and a smaller package.
Which is fine for 99% of people because if they want good quality sound, they were never expecting to get it from laptop speakers anyway and they can just plug in their favorite headphones.
>Why do most laptop speakers aim downwards?
Assumption that most people will put laptops on hard surfaces (which will reflect most relevant frequencies from the downward-fired speakers towards general direction of user’s ears) + less chance of dirt/food leftovers getting inside and depositing on the surface of the speakers (compared to top-firing placement of speakers) + the cost considerations (it would cost more money to do things like widen the top keyboard area to accommodate top-firing speakers placed at each side of the keyboard).
There are some manufacturers that still put top-firing speakers on their laptops or a combination of top-firing and bottom- or side-firing speakers, like Razer, MSI (their Raider series), Asus (their ROG Zephyrus series) and some others.
I would add:
The increasing popularity of docks is an incentive to not put speakers where they’d be muffled by a closed lid
Many laptops I’ve opened have the speakers at the bottom, flanking the trackpad. The motherboard usually sits under the keyboard to be close to the screen and the ports up top. So you can have speakers that get muffled by your arms as you type, or you can tell people to use a desk. Which they should anyways for heat.
No laptop is actually intended to be used on a soft surface like your lap. They are supposed to be on a table so the speakers can work and the fans can intake fresh air to keep the guts cooled down.
Tldr: you’re using it wrong
Play something on your phone while it’s in your hand mid air and away from everything. Now play that same thing with the phone speaker right up against the wall.
That’s why.
and it stops crap (tiny crumbs and any other passing detritus) falling through the lickle holes and then sitting on the speaker making buzzing sounds all the time. I just use a bluetooth speaker now and ignore the laptop ones most of the time
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