Physics Affects Home Theater, No Matter What You Read on the Internet – Speakers

People read stuff on the Internet that makes them think that physics don’t affect their home theater gear. Especially their speakers. More than any other piece of home theater equipment, speakers have the most misinformation circling them. Let’s discuss!

Small Speaker

Question: Which small speakers sound the best?

Answer: They are all different levels of suck.

Speakers require volume. That’s just a fact of physics. Manufacturers can do a lot of things to try to force a small speaker to sound decent, but it never truly works. Before you start talking about your Dad’s “cube” system that sounded amazing…no it didn’t. It sounded like crap. You didn’t notice because you had nothing to compare it to and you didn’t really do any critical listening. It is near impossible to get a small speaker to put out very much bass. Even if you figure out a way to get bass from a small speaker, you can’t get much output (volume). Small speakers all suck in some way. You may find a pair that suck in a way you don’t care about (you are sitting close to a small speaker so you don’t care about its output), but it still, objectively, sucks.

Most importantly, to get a small speaker to sound half-decent requires a ton of technology and tricks (Bang & Olufsen is a perfect example). They often require their own very specialized amplifiers, EQs, and restrictions. They may sound pretty good, but you’ll pay for them (another limitation in our minds). But put them up against another speaker and you’ll find that they are still lacking in linearity and extension. The only good thing about small speakers is that they are small. In all other ways they suck.

Atmos Speakers/Soundbars

Question: Which Atmos-enables speakers are the best?

Answer: None. None are the best.

Companies often take advantage of people’s ignorance to sell them products that either don’t work or don’t work as advertised. Atmos-enabled speakers and soundbars are a perfect example. They add a bunch of additional drivers to their existing speakers and soundbars with graphics like the one above. This shows the sound beaming up to the ceiling and (presumably) back down to your ears.

That’s not how sound works.

No matter what you’ve read on the Internet, physics affects how sound propagates in your home theater. We’ve addressed how upfiring Atmos modules can work and it is far more nuanced than just having angled drivers in your speaker. Companies know that people don’t really understand how sound (much less reflected sound) works. If they add a couple of cheap drivers to their speakers and some fancy graphics, they can double or triple the price of their speakers. Any overhead effects you experience with one of these speakers is by pure luck of placement, DSP processing, or expectancy bias.

Which speakers should I buy?

Question: Which speakers are the best?

Answer: The problem usually isn’t your speakers, it’s everything else.

Most people start their home theater journey trying to fix the sound in their room. They aren’t necessarily looking for the best home theater experience, they just want to understand what people are saying on TV. They buy some speakers or a soundbar and…well…they still can’t understand what people are saying. They didn’t spend much on these speakers so clearly they should have spent more (or so they think). Which speakers will actually fix their problem?

Their problem was never the speakers. TV speakers might suck, but they should be good enough to understand the dialogue. They won’t have a ton of volume or be able to reproduce a lot of bass, but vocals should be easy. The problem with understanding what is said on TV is the room. You can buy the world’s best speakers and still have problems understanding dialogue if you don’t address your room acoustics.

While room acoustics are important, there are so many other issues people have that they think can be solved by spending more on speakers. Improper placement of speakers (and subwoofers) can cause all sorts of problems in home theaters. People place far too many speakers in their rooms thinking it will help (it doesn’t). While it is easy to think that any audio problems are the fault of the speakers, most of the time it is nearly everything else in your room that is making it impossible for your speakers to sound good.

Our Other Articles in This Series:

Physics Affects Home Theater, No Matter What You Read on the Internet – TVs and Screens

Physics Affects Home Theater, No Matter What You Read on the Internet – Room Acoustics