For the July 2017 issue of Premier Guitar magazine I was asked to write an article explaining the basics of speaker design (All About Speakers.)
Guitar amplifier speakers are quite different from those for audio amplifiers. Speakers intended for listening to recorded music are designed to produce an even response across a wide frequency spectrum. Their goal is to accurately reproduce the sound the artists and engineers intended you to hear, without coloring it in any way. Clearly and without distortion.
In contrast guitar speakers are designed to add character. An ability to smoothly break up into distortion, for instance, can be desirable. Each speaker component—the cone, the surround (which attaches the cone to the frame), the spider (which holds the voice coil in place), the voice coil, and the magnet—affects the speaker’s tonal character in some unique way
For audio or guitar, the article discusses their history and explains the function of each component. And their effect on tonal characteristics.
