Lectures on Physics has been derived from Benjamin Crowell's Light and Matter series of free introductory textbooks on physics. See the editorial for more information....

Q of a stereo speaker

Stereo speakers are not supposed to reverberate or "ring" after an electrical signal that stops suddenly. After all, the recorded music was made by musicians who knew how to shape the decays of their notes correctly. Adding a longer "tail" on every note would make it sound wrong. We therefore expect that stereo speaker will have a very low Q, and indeed, most speakers are designed with a Q of about 1. (Low-quality speakers with larger Q values are referred to as "boomy.")




Last Update: 2009-06-21