Sound is one of the most common and substantial forms of energy that envelops our everyday life. Sound is a product of mechanical waves that initiates the natural frequency of an object. This natural frequency sends out vibrating waves that we hear as sound. In order to better understand mechanical waves and electrical impulses you must first be able to understand the properties of waves, speakers and electrical signals.
A key component that is crucial in understanding sound is waves. There are two types of mechanical waves, longitudinal and transverse. In both waves the particles must move with the medium. A medium is the type of object or material that carries the energy through a field. In longitudinal waves the particles move in a parallel direction. An example of a longitudinal wave would be a slinky or an ultra sound machine. However a transverse wave is a wave that moves horizontally. An example of this wave would be any type of electromagnetic wave. Such as radio or light waves.
There are three major properties you must know when understanding waves. The first major property is wavelength. Wavelength is the distance between two points on a wave. The next major property is amplitude. Amplitude is measured by the height of the wave. The higher the wave, the stronger the signal of the wave is. The final property you must know is frequency. Frequency is the amount of times a wavelength transpires in a second. Frequency is measured in kilohertz but it is commonly interpreted as pitch. A high pitch requires a high frequency as does a low pitch require a low frequency.
However what you really need to know about how sound waves work is pressure. Without pressure sound would not exist. Pressure is essentially made up of two t...
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...o generate an alternating magnetic field. This alternating field is the driving force that causes the cone to repel. The coil receives many different ranges of impulses which can cause the cone to move very violently or not at all.
The next major component to a speaker is the suspension. The suspension is what forces the cone to come back after it is pushed out by the pressure. The suspension also plays a major role by keeping the coil from becoming mangled. If the coil were to become mangled then the cone would not be able to function.
The final component of a speaker is the cone. The cone essentially regulates how much air can be pushed out of the speaker. The more air, the greater the mass and output the speaker will have.
Speakers are equip with a fixing that is able to take the power of the signal and make it stronger. This part is known as the amplifier.
For this assignment, I chose to interview JL Audio cofounder Lucio Proni. JL Audio is a consumer/professional audio manufacturer located in Miramar, Florida that produces speakers for boats, cars, and home sound systems. Lucio Proni is an engineer and cofounder of the company with his high school buddy Jim Birch. During the mid-1970’s when they were on their summer break from the University of Florida, Lucio and Jim decided to mess around with component speakers and wound up building home loudspeakers for fun. They worked out of a garage in Lucios home and showed some of their speakers to their friends and some. Later on, a few of them even bought some, so they built a couple more to sell on the flea market. Lucio’s early success inspired
Lucio Proni is an engineer and cofounded of the company with his high school buddy Jim Birch. During the mid-1970’s when they were on their summer break from the University of Florida, Lucio and Jim decided to mess around with component speakers and wound up building home loudspeakers for fun. They worked out of a garage in Lucios home and showed some of their speakers to their friends and some. Later on, a few of them even bought some, so they built a couple more to sell on the flea market. Lucio’s early success inspired him to start a speaker business so he could make a living from his work. In 1975, he joined fellow business partner and friend, Jim Birch and founded JL Audio; their company name being an amalgamation of the first letters of their names. They didn’t really start out their business with a solid business plan, their early days were instead marked by a lot of trial and error. At first they tried to sell JL Audio products to local audio shops. They found some success doing this since a couple of the loca shops were interested in selling their home speaker systems and kits. In 1977, business became scarce and they encountered financial difficulties as a result. In troubling times like this, it was Jims’s business skills, Lucio’s quality workmanship, and their combined tenacity that got them through it all. As a child, Lucio was given some valuable advice from his father; he said that “if you’re not willing to put your heart into something, then don’t bother doing it”. This work philos...
It was proposed that if the length of the PVC pipes were to increase, then the sound produced will have a lower amplitude each time because the sound will lose energy as it continues in the pipe for a certain amount of time. However, the data actually showed that with every increase in pipe length, the amplitude got louder as well, thus refuting the hypothesis. These results made sense because what was created inside the PVC pipes was a standing still sound wave, or a resonance wave. These kinds of waves have certain locations on its wavelength in order for the change in sound to be heard, which it usually half a wavelength. With this, the tuning fork is 83.3Hz and a usual wavelength is about 300Hz, 300/83.3 = 3.6 meters, which is about 4 meters (half = 2 meters). So for the change in sound to be heard, the pipes had to be about 2 meters in change according to the frequency of the tuning
Leo Fender discussed this dilemma with his technical officer Freddy T. who went to witness one of Dick Dale’s concerts at the Rendezvous Ball room, California. Leo Fender went back to the drawing board to revise the design of his amplifier. A special 85 watt output transformer was created that could handle the wattage Dale desired to play at. This Transformer was able to create the sheer volume and grit that Dale desired. The next problem was that they now needed a speaker that could handle the wattage and not begin to burn from the sheer overload in electrical
Unless you travel into the vacuum of space, sound is all around you every day.. You hear sounds; you don't touch them. But as the vibrations that sound creates in other objects. The idea that something so intangible can lift objects can seem unbelievable, but it's a real phenomenon.
Briefly stated, the outer ear (or pinna) 'catches' and amplifies sound by funneling it into the ear canal. Interestingly, the outer ear serves only to boost high frequency sound components (1). The resonance provided by the outer ear also serves in amplifying a higher range of frequencies corresponding to the top octave of the piano key board. The air pressure wave travels through the ear canal to ultimately reach and vibrate the timpanic membrane (i.e.-- the eardrum). At this particular juncture, the pressure wave energy of sound is translated into mechanical energy via the middle ear.
A transducer is a mechanism that changes one form of energy to another form. A toaster is a transducer that turns electricity into heat; a loudspeaker is a transducer that changes electricity into sound. Likewise, an ultrasound transducer changes electricity voltage into ultrasound waves, and vice versa. This is possible because of the principle of piezoelectricity, which states that some materials (ceramics, quartz, and others) produce a voltage when deformed by an applied pressure. Conversely, piezoelectricity also results in production of a pressure whe...
Sounds are produced by the vibrations of material objects, and travel as a result of
... Physics." .::. The Pysics of Electric Guitars :: Physics. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 May 2014. .
Musical Instruments - Resonance. The Physics Classroom. Retrieved November 25, 2011, from www.physicsclassroom.com/class/sound/U11L5a.cfm. Hollis, B. (2011) How Brass Instruments Work. The Method Behind the Music?
Acoustics is a science that deals with the study of sound. It is known to be one of the branches of physics; studying oscillations and sound waves from the lowest to high frequencies. Acoustics is known to be one of the oldest sciences, and dates back to ancient times as people had the need to understand the nature of speech and hearing. The main reason acoustics was discovered and is one of the oldest sciences is because of the need for the knowledge of the sounds of music and musical instruments. Pythagoras, an ancient mathematician, was the first person to ever find out that tone height corresponds to the length of the sting or tube. While Aristotle, Pythagoras apprentice at the time, helped more to explain that an echo is created as the sound reflection from obstacles.
The ear is looked upon as a miniature receiver, amplifier and signal-processing system. The structure of the outer ear catching sound waves as they move into the external auditory canal. The sound waves then hit the eardrum and the pressure of the air causes the drum to vibrate back and forth. When the eardrum vibrates its neighbour the malleus then vibrates too. The vibrations are then transmitted from the malleus to the incus and then to the stapes. Together the three bones increase the pressure which in turn pushes the membrane of the oval window in and out. This movement sets up fluid pressure waves in the perilymph of the cochlea. The bulging of the oval window then pushes on the perilymph of the scala vestibuli. From here the pressure waves are transmitted from the scala vestibuli to the scala tympani and then eventually finds its way to the round window. This causes the round window to bulge outward into the middle ear. The scala vestibuli and scala tympani walls are now deformed with the pressure waves and the vestibular membrane is also pushed back and forth creating pressure waves in the endolymph inside the cochlear duct. These waves then causes the membrane to vibrate, which in turn cause the hairs cells of the spiral organ to move against the tectorial membrane. The bending of the stereo cilia produces receptor potentials that in the end lead to the generation of nerve impulses.
waves are further divided into two groups or bands such as very low frequency (
The Physics Classroom. "Frequency and Period of a Wave." Physic Classroom. The Physics Classroom, 1996. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. .