How Speakers Work
	Insides of the Noise Makers...

From an electronic standpoint speakers are very simple. When you hit play on your CD/Mini-Disk/Mp3/etc. player, an amplifier inside produces alternating positive and negative patterns that correspond with the sound waves.   This electrical pattern then travels through the wire to your speakers Terminal Strip.  Attached to this is a very finely braided wire (very flexible), that carries the signal to the conductor on the Cone that leads to the Voice Coil Assembly, which is mounted on a rigid cylinder at the base of the Cone.  All these moving parts are then supported by the Membrane/Surround at the outer edges and by a wavy support called the Spider at the rear.

When the speaker is not moving,  the Voice Coil Assembly is centered in-between a small magnetic Field Gap (positive and negative field).  The gap is a result of the Magnet Structure, which gets it's energy from a powerful permanent Magnet, that is crammed between the two pole pieces.  So when the electric pattern from your amp gets to the speaker, it causes it to move back and forth like a piston by attraction or repulsion.  This movement cause the Cone to evacuate or compress the air in front of it, therefore causing a sound wave. This is why you can feel air come out of the port on your sub-woofer.  The speaker is pushing the air in and out. 

Speakers essentially haven't changed from the ones used many years ago.  The only major difference is the replacement of the older electric field coil with the permanent magnet.  These permanent magnets have what's called a Gauss Density, which is a measurement of how strong a magnets is.  Think of it just like a rating on a CPU, the higher the MHz/GHz, the more powerful right?  Well the same goes for Gauss Density, the higher the density the greater the magnetic field.  So a speaker with a greater Gauss Density will be able to handle more power, therefore producing a much better and louder sound with out distortion, versus one with a lower rating.

Some important things to remember when you looking for speakers, is to consider the Gauss Density and weight of the magnet itself.  The weight is typically a good evaluator of the amount of energy it can produce, the heavier, the more power.  Just be careful to read closely, some manufactures weight the speakers one of two ways, the weight of just the magnet (the thing you want) or the weight of the whole magnet structure.  Lastly look at the type of magnet.  Usually newer/higher quality speakers are made of neodymium, strontium, barium and other metal composites, while older/cheaper ones are made of less dense alloys, that have a far lower magnetic field potential.

	Digital Systems
	Decoders, Trade Marks and Things that Make Audiophiles Drool

This section is more indirectly related to speakers.  These systems don't actually make the speakers work. However they do make the music and movies we watch sound a lot better.  Currently on the market there are two main encoding types "Dolby and DTS", and one main certification system "THX".  All three systems have influenced the design of speakers and how we configure them. 

Dolby Laboratories' designed the Dolby encoding technology that is used in both analog and digital signal processing.  This process enhances and improves the basic sound quality while at the same time enables multi-channel surround.  Currently this technology is being used in products like; videotapes, movie soundtracks, DVD's, computers, TV's,  and Satellite/Cable broadcasts.

DTS (Digital Theater System) is very similar to Dolby, the only main difference is that it uses less compression.  This lower compression allows the sound to have a higher bit rate or a "truer sound."  Just for comparison, Dolby Digital uses a 5.1 channel track that is encoded between 384 kbps to 448 kbps for DVD's, while a track encoded in DTS has a bit rate of about 1.5 Mbps.  The only draw back from this higher bit rate is that you will most likely loose out on some of the "extras" on a DVD... but hey, who needs to watch 12 hours of how movie is made anyhow?

THX is a set of standards that has been developed by a group of engineers at Lucasfilm Ltd.  This program is the first "workable" performance standard since the birth of the hi-fi industry.  Before any audio component is stamped with their seal of approval, it first must pass a series of rigorous quality and performance tests.  If the component passes, it is the allowed to feather the THX logo on it. 

Well, that is enough technical jargon/info for you to take in for one sitting.  So, without further ado, let's learn how to set up those speakers of yours... 

Introduction and How Sound Works	Components and How To Set Up Your Speakers