posted
how is it a speaker can play multiple frequencies at the same time? like to make a 20hz tone it would have to move 20 times a second and a 40hz tone 40 times a second.....but how does it do both of that at the same time? and have it still sound good?
-------------------- Kenwood eXcelon KDC-X459 Coustic 481QE Alpine Type R (sealed) A/D/S 320i/s components Posts: 94 | From: Mantioba Canada | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
The speaker is just following the input signal. This signal can be any shape. It does not have to be a tone (or pure sinusoid). Any wave shape can be represented as an integral of an infinite number of tones (Fourier theory). All of the tones superimposed on each other form the shape of the wave. The speaker just follows the waveform produced by the source. To take your example, if a speaker is playing a 20Hz tone and a 40Hz tone at the same time the motion of the cone follows a waveform that is the sum of the two in time. We talk about music as frequencies but the speaker works in the time domain. In short, it doesn't know anything about frequency, just how much voltage is applied to it at any point in time.
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