The Sound of Premium Materials

From Gas Meters to Speaker Surrounds

“Our obvious focus in Blackburn is on gas meter diaphragms, but it wasn’t much of a leap to go from gas meter technology to speaker surrounds,” said Javier Garduno, Segment Manager, Sales General Industry for Freudenberg Sealing Technologies. “They both require very thin, flexible rubber and benefit from the properties DFT adds to the material formula.”

“Distortion and thermal exposure can put immense strain on a speaker,” he continued. “Think about a loudspeaker made of a standard nitrile rubber at an outdoor concert venue. The strains on that speaker, in terms of sound frequency and speaker distortion, are immense. Add in material degradation over an extended period due to wind, rain, and sun, and it is easy to see how you can quickly arrive at a blown speaker and a logistical challenge."

Speaker surrounds molded using Freudenberg Sealing Technologies’ DFT, on the other hand, offer inherent benefits. The speakers resist environmental elements and aging, they reduce strain on the material, they have less perceived noise distortion in the base and mid-ranges. The speaker surrounds are uniquely tailored for the customer, from drawings to full production, by the company. The result is a high-quality speaker that harmonizes sound across an entire application frequency range.

The Nature of Speaker Sound

Speaker systems function by transforming electrical energy into mechanical energy, which compresses air and converts the motion into sound energy or pressure, that people can detect. Most speakers are comprised of permanent magnets; voice coils and bobbins; suspensions (also called spiders); cones/ diaphragms; dust caps; speaker baskets; surrounds; speaker terminals; and braided wires that all work together to produce sound. Although there have been significant improvements in speaker designs during the past 100 years, the fundamental mechanics have not changed.

A speaker driver or single speaker system acts as a transducer when music is played, amplifying electrical waves from a playback source, and turning them into sound waves that humans can detect. It does this through a series of components that work together to create the sound. The magnet in a speaker driver produces an electric field around the voice coil that allows electromagnetic movement in the system. The voice coil assembly, a long bundle of tightly woven wires and a bobbin, attaches to the speaker cone and creates a magnetic field as electricity runs through it. As a result of this magnetic field, the speaker cone vibrates and the electrical energy is turned into mechanical energy that produces sounds as the cone moves. Other elements, including a speaker suspension, a basket, and speaker terminals all play a role in stabilizing the system and holding the speaker components in place inside the cabinet.