Loudspeaker enclosure

A loudspeaker enclosure or loudspeaker cabinet is an enclosure (often rectangular box-shaped) in which speaker drivers (e.g., woofers and tweeters) and associated electronic hardware, such as crossover circuits and, in some cases, power amplifiers, are mounted. Enclosures may range in design from simple, homemade DIY rectangular particleboard boxes to very complex, expensive computer-designed hi-fi cabinets that incorporate composite materials, internal baffles, horns, bass reflex ports and acoustic insulation. Loudspeaker enclosures range in size from small "bookshelf" speaker cabinets with 4-inch (10 cm) woofers and small tweeters designed for listening to music with a hi-fi system in a private home to huge, heavy subwoofer enclosures with multiple 18-inch (46 cm) or even 21-inch (53 cm) speakers in huge enclosures which are designed for use in stadium concert sound reinforcement systems for rock music concerts.

The primary role of an enclosure is to prevent sound waves generated by the rearward-facing surface of the diaphragm of an open speaker driver interacting with sound waves generated at the front of the speaker driver. Because the forward- and rearward-generated sounds are out of phase with each other, any interaction between the two in the listening space creates a distortion of the original signal as it was intended to be reproduced. As such, a loudspeaker cannot be used without installing it in a baffle of some type, such as a closed box, vented box, open baffle, or a wall or ceiling (infinite baffle).

An enclosure also plays a role in managing vibration induced by the driver frame and moving airmass within the enclosure, as well as heat generated by driver voice coils and amplifiers (especially where woofers and subwoofers are concerned). Sometimes considered part of the enclosure, the base, may include specially designed feet to decouple the speaker from the floor. Enclosures designed for use in PA systems, sound reinforcement systems and for use by electric musical instrument players (e.g., bass amp cabinets) have a number of features to make them easier to transport, such as carrying handles on the top or sides, metal or plastic corner protectors, and metal grilles to protect the speakers. Speaker enclosures designed for use in a home or recording studio typically do not have handles or corner protectors, although they do still usually have a cloth or mesh cover to protect the woofer and tweeter. These speaker grilles are a metallic or cloth mesh that are used to protect the speaker by forming a protective cover over the speaker's cone while allowing sound to pass through undistorted.

Speaker enclosures are used in homes in stereo systems, home cinema systems, televisions, boom boxes and many other audio appliances. Small speaker enclosures are used in car stereo systems. Speaker cabinets are key components of a number of commercial applications, including sound reinforcement systems, movie theatre sound systems and recording studios. Electric musical instruments invented in the 20th century, such as the electric guitar, electric bass and synthesizer, among others, are amplified using instrument amplifiers and speaker cabinets (e.g., guitar amplifier speaker cabinets).

Early on, radio loudspeakers consisted of horns, often sold separately from the radio itself (typically a small wooden box containing the radio's electronic circuits, so they were not usually housed in an enclosure. When paper cone loudspeaker drivers were introduced in the mid 1920s, radio cabinets began to be made larger to enclose both the electronics and the loudspeaker. These cabinets were made largely for the sake of appearance, with the loudspeaker simply mounted behind a round hole in the cabinet. It was observed that the enclosure had a strong effect on the bass response of the speaker. Since the rear of the loudspeaker radiates sound out of phase from the front, there can be constructive and destructive interference for loudspeakers without enclosures, and below frequencies related to the baffle dimensions in open-baffled loudspeakers . This results in a loss of bass and in comb filtering, i.e., peaks and dips in the response power regardless of the signal that is meant to be reproduced. The resulting response is akin to two loudspeakers playing the same signal but at different distances from the listener, which is like adding a delayed version of the signal to itself, whereby both constructive and destructive interference occurs.

Before the 1950s many manufacturers did not fully enclose their loudspeaker cabinets; the back of the cabinet was typically left open. This was done for several reasons, not least because electronics (at that time tube equipment) could be placed inside and cooled by convection in the open enclosure.

Most of the enclosure types discussed in this article were invented either to wall off the out of phase sound from one side of the driver, or to modify it so that it could be used to enhance the sound produced from the other side.

In some respects, the ideal mounting for a low-frequency loudspeaker driver would be a rigid flat panel of infinite size with infinite space behind it. This would entirely prevent the rear sound waves from interfering (i.e., comb filter cancellations) with the sound waves from the front. An open baffle loudspeaker is an approximation of this, since the driver is mounted on a panel, with dimensions comparable to the longest wavelength to be reproduced. In either case, the driver would need a relatively stiff suspension to provide the restoring force which might have been provided at low frequencies by a smaller sealed or ported enclosure, so few drivers are suitable for this kind of mounting.