system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is it that laptop and phone speakers are too small to reproduce lower frequencies but tiny earbud drivers have no problem with them?
gpt
It's not exactly that smaller speakers can't be vibrated at lower frequencies (though it's entirely possible to try to drive a speaker too fast or too slow for it to make any noise at all) but more the amplitudes at which the speakers can be driven. In a small speaker, the distance the cone can travel is relatively short, which severely limits the power it can output. Couple that with your point that smaller speakers usually have higher center frequencies, and you get an idea of why laptop and phone speakers can't do lower frequencies - the speaker is being driven far from its center frequency, and doesn't have the power output to make up for the difference. In your ear, however, loud volumes are not required (and not recommended) - since the earbud is usually fairly airtight when in your auditory canal, the coupling between the speaker diaphragm and the eardrum is pretty good. You might notice that while a phone speaker is roughly the same size as an earbud, you can't usually hear an earbud unless it's right in your ear, whereas you can hear a phone speaker from several feet away. Using lower amplitudes allows the earbuds to have truer sound reproduction at the expense of loudness.