Selection Guide for Home Speakers

As an audio-visual enthusiast, a staff member who has been working in the front line of R&D and production for more than 20 years, he often buys audio advice from others. I like to find new things in the audio-visual industry and spend my free time studying audio technology. Here, after I like to improve the product development and manufacturing, and then understand what the product can bring to our consumers, I think anyone who has a need and love for music and audiovisual should have a set of high-quality audiovisual equipment. Speaker is one of the most common sound reproduction equipment in my daily life, and it is used in many fields. For different fields, speakers have different design and performance requirements. Since there are too many types of speakers, I only give consumers a brief introduction to the speakers used in the home environment, and briefly summarize the basic design features and usage requirements of common home speakers. Buying home speakers is a guide and reference function.

1. Classification and characteristics of home speakers
1. Divided by the driving method of the speaker
Passive Speaker and Active Speaker
Passive speakers need to be driven by an external power amplifier. Inside the active speaker is an electronic crossover and power amplifier. You only need to connect the player to listen to music. At present, some active speakers have diversified functions, and have their own decoders. They can also be connected to computers and smart phones, making them more convenient to use.

2. Divided by placement/installation design
Bookshelf Speaker and Floor Stand Speaker
Bookshelf speakers are compact speakers, suitable for use in small spaces. Bookshelf speakers are generally small in size. They can be placed directly on the desktop or on a dedicated tripod. Some products are even equipped with wall-mounted accessories for users to use the speakers on the wall. In contrast, floor-standing speakers are relatively large, and can usually play a larger sound pressure level and frequency response, and do not require special tripods in use.

Built-in speakers (In-Wall/In-Celling Speaker)

There are two types of embedded speakers: In-Wall Speaker and In-Celling Speaker. The installation of embedded speakers needs to design the installation location before the room decoration, so the audio-visual design company needs to provide customers with installation and debugging services. In addition, there are hidden speakers, which have better concealment effect and can be completely integrated with the wall without any traces.

3. Classified by box structure
Sealed Speaker and Bass Reflex Speaker

The enclosure of the enclosed sound box is sealed, the efficiency is relatively low, and the requirements for the thrust of the power amplifier are relatively high. The box of the bass reflex speaker has openings. The openings are usually round or rectangular in shape, and they are set in the front, rear or bottom of the box. In contrast, the inverted speaker is more efficient and the power amplifier is easy to drive.

two. Classification and characteristics of common speaker units in household speakers
1. Dome speaker
Dome speaker is a kind of moving coil speaker. It is named after its diaphragm is a hemispherical convex shape. It is commonly used for the playback of high and intermediate frequency sounds. The biggest feature of dome speakers is sound. The directivity is relatively broad.

2. Cone speaker

Cone speakers are also dynamic speakers, which are often used for mid-frequency and low-frequency sound playback, and a few are used for high-frequency sound playback. The common shape of the cone is round or oval, which is mainly used for sound reproduction in TV sets. Common materials for the cone are paper, polypropylene, or metal.

3. Horn speaker
The horn loudspeaker is composed of a compression driver and a horn diffuser. After the diaphragm in the compression driver drives the air, the air will pass through a cross-sectional area from large to small and finally reach the throat. This process will form a large air pressure, and finally diffuse out through the horn diffuser, so the efficiency of the horn speaker Very high, suitable for use in a large space environment.

4. Coaxial speaker
The characteristic of the coaxial loudspeaker is that the tweeter and the midrange loudspeaker (or woofer) are on the same axis, so as to realize the sound reproduction of the point source. Like KEF and Tannoy are the representative brands of coaxial speakers. In addition to the application of coaxial speakers in the home field, car audio and many ceiling speakers use coaxial speakers.

HIFI system and home theater system requirements for speaker configuration
Hi-Fi system


The 2.1-channel configuration (left) adds a subwoofer to the 2-channel base to make up for the main speaker, and the 2.2-channel configuration (right) is configured with 1 subwoofer for the left and right channels, which are responsible for playing the left and right channels. Bass signal

Home theater speakers
The 5.1 channel configuration (left) is composed of a front left channel, a front right channel, a center channel, a left/right surround channel, and a subwoofer channel. The 7.1 channel configuration (right) adds two left/right surround speakers on the basis of 5.1, which greatly enhances the surround sound of the surround sound and the smoothness of forward and backward movement

The 5.1.2 channel configuration (left) is composed of two sky channel speakers added to the 5.1 configuration, which is used to replay Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and other three-dimensional immersive sound effects. 7.1.4 The channel configuration (right) is composed of 4 sky channel speakers added from the 7.1 configuration, and the sound is more enveloping and coherent.
Regarding the design and characteristics of speakers and speaker units, as well as the basic configuration of a two-channel HIFI audio system and home theater system, I believe that consumers should have a basic understanding. In fact, if you continue to introduce each link here, it will produce richer and more professional content. However, considering the acceptance of consumers, I will not continue to expand the topic for the time being. If everyone is interested If you do, you can collect feedback and questions from all aspects, and I will organize a targeted and in-depth introduction for you.
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