What is the main reason for loudspeaker boxes?

[chickenfingers]

Hi

I have another lecture like question.
What is the main reason for the wood boxes holding the loudspeakers? Is it just to support the drivers? or does it play a role in amplifying or improving the output signal´s quality?

Cheers!

Bye

 

[mike c]

two word search on yahoo: "loudspeaker enclosure" you sure typed a long question for what you could have gotten with just two words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudspeaker_enclosure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudspeaker

A loudspeaker enclosure is a cabinet designed to transmit sound to the listener via mounted loudspeaker drive units. The major role of the enclosure is to prevent the out of phase sound waves from the rear of the speaker from combining with the 'in phase' sound waves from the front of the speaker. This results in interference patterns and cancellation, causing the efficiency of the speaker to be reduced, particularly in the low frequencies where the wavelengths are large enough that interference will affect the entire listening area.

 

[jonnythan]

A free-air loudspeaker will create sound waves out the back that help cancel out the soundwaves out of the front. Sounds bad.

The enclosure also provides certain backpressure and mechanical resistance to movement. This affects the frequency response and is figured into the design of the loudspeaker.

 

[avaserfi]

The cabinet itself plays a vital role in sound quality. Each driver when designed has a specific set of parameters called Thiele and Small Parameters these dictate how the driver will act in a given situation as they are electromechanical descriptors of the driver itself. These parameters also happen to describe how each driver will act in a given volume. In the end the driver is just part of the system called a loudspeaker the cabinet is another huge portion of this system as is the crossover and power supplied. If one is not properly accounted for utmost sound quality will never be achieved.

A free-air loudspeaker will create sound waves out the back that help cancel out the soundwaves out of the front. Sounds bad.

This is not necessarily true. Open baffle speakers can sound good with proper design and driver choice, but as with all given designs there are certain limitations that must be accounted for.

 

[Twexcom]

I always wondered what the answer to that question was, now I don't have to post a new topic asking.

Thank you.