Why do most laptop speakers aim downwards?

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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.

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8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

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.

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