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Frequency Response

Range over which an audio component can effectively produce a useable and fairly uniform, undistorted output signal. Frequency response is most critical and most used in relation to speakers. Most all amplifiers and other audio components can easily reproduce the entire audible spectrum. However, speakers that can reproduce the entire audile spectrum are more difficult to find and create. ubwoofers should have frequency responses from between 20 Hz and 30 Hz to 80 Hz or so. The lower limit of human hearing is 20 Hz, so speakers and subwoofers capable of reaching down to and below 20 Hz are capable of plumbing the lowest frequencies heard by humans. All other speakers should have frequency responses reaching or exceeding 20 kHz (20,000 Hz – the upper limit of human hearing). s frequencies get lower the size of the signals increases making the use of large drivers and/or drivers with long excursions (the distance a speaker travels in and out) necessary to reproduce them. High frequencies, on the other hand, are very small requiring small drivers that can move very rapidly. requency response should theoretically be flat when tested with a test signal, however, most speakers and other audio components (but speakers in particular) exhibit dips and peaks in the signal varying to some degree from a perfect, flat response. In order to achieve a flat frequency response, equalizers may be used. The room in which a speaker is located also affects its frequency response making proper placement an important task. iven that frequency response does vary from a flat line, it is normally quoted as within some range described in decibels (normally 3 dB). Thus a speaker may be said to have a flat frequency response from 20 Hz to 23 kHz within plus or minus 3 dB. This simply means that the speaker’s frequency response remains within 3 decibels positive or negative of a flat 0 decibel line (a perfectly flat frequency response). Speakers that exhibit wide variations in their frequency response (say 5 or 6 dB or more) should not be considered. any smaller speakers do not have a frequency response extending very low in the frequency spectrum (often times bottoming out at around 60 or so Hz). Such speakers should in most cases be augmented by a subwoofer to extend the total system’s response to the bottom limit of audibility. All speakers designed to operate above the low frequency ranges should extend to or very near 20 kHz.

Permanent link Frequency Response - Creation date 2021-01-07


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