| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Baffle | A surface used to mount a loudspeaker. |
| Balanced | Referring to wiring: Audio signals require two wires. In an unbalanced line, the shield is one of those wires. In a balanced line, there are two wires plus the shield. For the system to be balanced requires balanced electronics and usually employs XLR connectors. Balanced lines... Read More |
| Balanced Armature | Usually used only in in-ear monitors such as Etymotic, Shure, Sensaphonics, and Ultimate Ears. They generally are limited at the extremes of the hearing spectrum (<16 kilohertz, >50 hertz) and require a seal more than other types of drivers to deliver their full... Read More |
| Band-pass Enclosure | A multi-chambered ported system. |
| Band-pass filter | An electric circuit designed to pass only middle frequencies. |
| Bandwidth | The total frequency range of any system. Usually specified as something like: 20-20,000Hz plus or minus three db. |
| Bass Blockers | Commercial name for auto-sound first order high pass crossovers (non-polarized capacitors), generally used on midbass or dash speakers to keep them from trying to reproduce deep bass. |
| Bass Reflex | A type of loudspeaker that uses a port or duct to augment the low-frequency response. Opinions vary widely over the "best" type of bass cabinet, but much has to do with how well a given design, such as a bass reflex is implemented. |
| Beaming | A tendency of a loudspeaker to concentrate the sound in a narrow path instead of spreading it. |
| Bessel crossover | A type of crossover design characterized by having a linear or maximally flat phase response. Linear phase response results in constant time-delay (all frequencies within the passband are delayed the same amount). Consequently, the value of linear phase is it reproduces a... Read More |
| Bi-amplify | The use of two amplifiers, one for the lows, one for the highs in a speaker system. Could be built into the speaker design or accomplished with the use of external amplifiers and electronic crossovers. |
| Bi-wiring | The use of two pairs of speaker wire from the same amplifier to separate bass and treble inputs on the speaker. |
| BNC | A type of connection often used in instrumentation and sometimes in digital audio. BNC connectors sometimes are used for digital connections such as from a CD Transport to the input of a DAC. |
| Boomy | Listening term refering to an excessive bass response that has a peak(s) in it. |
| Bridging | Bridging: Combining both left and right stereo channels on an automotive amplifier into one higher-powered mono channel. When an amplifier is bridged, the impedance that the amplifier actually "sees" is calculated based upon the output of both stereo channels. Here is a simple... Read More |
| Bright | Listening term. Usually refers to too much upper frequency energy |
| Butterworth crossover | A type of crossover circuit design having a maximally flat magnitude response, i.e., no amplitude ripple in the passband. This circuit is based upon Butterworth functions, also know as Butterworth polynomials. |
