US audio firm Knowles has introduced a phone loudspeaker modification claimed to have better bass response.
Loudspeakers in phones can be built like conventional sealed loudspeakers - a drive unit backed by a sealed volume of air.
The bigger the air volume, the more the driver can overcome the sealed air 'spring' effect.
Knowles' solution to making the rear volume bigger virtually, with out increasing it actually, is to fill the sealed cavity or cavities with beads of a specially-developed material dubbed N’Bass.
"A custom-developed material similar to a sponge, the N’Bass adsorbs the air in the loudspeaker box. In this way, it virtually increases the available back volume for the loudspeaker. In addition, the material is non-conductive and has no negative influence on antenna performance," said the firm. "It provides either better bass performance, or smaller loudspeaker box designs while keeping the same performance. N‘Bass also facilitates the usage of bigger loudspeakers, thus providing superior sound performance within the same gross application volume." - see diagram below.
According to the firm, the first phones to incorporate the material have recently been launched by tier-1 handset OEMs and are currently in mass production.
