What Are Neodymium Speakers?
Start shopping for speakers and you will likely encounter various unfamiliar terms, including the word "neodymium", when describing the features or materials of the speakers. Sometimes you'll even see speakers described as "neodymium speakers." To make a well-considered purchase choice, it's important to understand what neodymium is, and how it affects speaker performance.
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Definition
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The term "neodymium speaker" refers to speakers that are made using neodymium magnets. Conventional speakers have typically been built with iron-ferrite magnets that offer good performance, but iron-ferrite magnets are heavier than neodymium magnets. Neodymium itself is a rare-earth metal, found naturally in various compounds, from which it is refined. Magnets made from neodymium are light and very powerful, making them perfect for a wide variety of industrial and consumer applications.
Technology
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At the heart of a speaker is an electric motor, whose task is to move a cone of paper or some other material forward and back, producing sound waves by moving air. The motor is an electromagnetic structure that consists of two parts -- an electrical coil of varying electric charges, dependent on the signal sent to it, and a fixed magnet. This fixed magnet, made of neodymium, is the magnet in a neodymium speaker.
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Types
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Since virtually all speakers employ the electromagnetic motor design described in Section 2, virtually any speaker can be built with a neodymium magnet. Most neodymium speakers do fall into three main classes, however. The first is headphones: the advantage of a lightweight magnet in the speaker is important in very small headphone speakers, like earbuds. The second category is tweeters -- these small speakers, built to reproduce high frequencies only, can be made smaller and more compact when built with neodymium magnets. Finally, car speakers and subwoofers often use neodymium speakers; building a high-performance speaker for the car with conventional magnets can result in a very heavy speaker, which is not ideal in performance cars.
Performance & Weight Advantages
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The primary advantage of neodymium magnet use in speakers is their light weight and strength. High-performance speakers designed to operate at high power must have powerful magnets built in, and if bulky, heavy ferrite magnets can be substituted with neodymium magnets, the resulting speaker design can be smaller and lighter.
Speaker design incorporates many elements that relate to the overall performance and sound of the speakers, but it should be noted that there are no disadvantages in sound reproduction that can be systemically related to the use of neodymium magnets. In fact, many extremely high-quality speakers are built with neodymium magnets, in particular many by the French car audio company Focal.
Cost
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As we've noted, speakers with neodymium magnets come in a variety of types, so the pricing can vary greatly. Inexpensive headphones priced below $5 may employ the technology, and you may also see neodymium magnets employed in home speaker systems that cost thousands of dollars.
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