Turning any surface into a loudspeaker

• Main Author: Astrid Amelia.
• Other Authors: Gan Woon Seng
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/46111
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The needs of surface speakers arose in lieu with the development in media technology where entertainment is widely available, ready to be distributed and enjoyed. People are increasingly aware of the possibilities of distributing media and have the desire and funds to do it. Just about every form of media has sound attached, so integral to any system, in any space, is the need to reproduce audio. Along with the limited spaces, people are searching for an easy way of home entertainment without big boxes of speakers and cluttered wires. What we need are incredibly discrete or completely concealed audio reproduction devices. Unlike a conventional speaker, which is in essence a highly-controlled piston-like structure, the flat panel speaker goes back to first principles in sound reproduction. The loudness of the sound will depend on how stiff and heavy the surface is. These surfaces are creating sound by vibrations that are occurring across the entire surface. Through the project, the author wishes to analyze the response of various surfaces when the surface speaker is mounted on them using frequency response and total harmonic distortion parameters.