Will Sound-Producing Semiconductors Ever be Feasible?

Light-emitting diodes, or LED's, have recently become a popular alternative to other lighting technologies, because of their numerous advantages. Therefore, I wonder if the same may happen with sound-producing semiconductors; if they shall ever be as feasible as are light-producing semiconductors.

Currently, sound-producing semiconductors do exist, and the most notable type are piezoelectric buzzers, but the quality of their sound, from my experience, is nowhere near the quality of the sound of traditional electronic loudspeakers, so I now ask: will sound-producing semiconductors ever be a viable alternative to traditional speakers, as they become more efficient and advanced, as semiconductors usually do, or will traditional loudspeakers always be superior? What does everyone else say about that?

I think that the purpose will sort of dictate the design, and the only way to get big sound, is from a big surface. Yes, small buzzers and speakers can be loud, but not at LOW frequencies.

Perhaps an electrostatic speaker is a good example of this? Essentially a piezo buzzer on a larger scale? Electrostats tend to be very high in quality for audio output, but they are complex, expensive, and potentially dangerous with the voltages involved.

The joy of LED's is their simplicity... much as typical loudspeakers are simply a sound producing diaphram attached to a moveable magnetic coil.

Considering I find myself constantly looking for vintage audio gear I don't rate the chances of audio progressing anywhere meaningful for ages haha.

Also sincerely hope we don't ever move to sound producing semiconductors, maybe in a phone or something but never for any other purpose ever.

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Originally Posted by Stonerboy779

Also sincerely hope we don't ever move to sound producing semiconductors, maybe in a phone or something but never for any other purpose ever.

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So if some breakthrough led to extremely precise audio of better quality than conventional speaker technology, you'd rather it just didn't happen? What if we had just decided the steam engine, sewage in gutters or the adding machine were good enough?

there will always be die hard fans.... look at steam punk.... we will never make it to space with a steam engine and yet ppl still fantasize about copper, brass, rivets and stunning women in sexy clothes with 50 function goggles...

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Originally Posted by LiTHiUM0XiD3

there will always be die hard fans.... look at steam punk.... we will never make it to space with a steam engine and yet ppl still fantasize about copper, brass, rivets and stunning women in sexy clothes with 50 function goggles...

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So people have trouble separating fantasy from reality? Sure, I'd love to live in a few different fantasy worlds, but I don't. Instead of trying in vain to make this world into an impossible fantasy, I'll just wait for real technology to develop virtual reality...then probably wait for the price to come down for a year or two.:whistler:

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Originally Posted by mDust

So if some breakthrough led to extremely precise audio of better quality than conventional speaker technology, you'd rather it just didn't happen? What if we had just decided the steam engine, sewage in gutters or the adding machine were good enough?

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I work on the priniciple of being realistic and knowing some of the physics behind sound reproduction.

Now we have piezo electric buzzer and tweeters. They are often looked on poorly even compared to relitively cheap soft dome tweeters. The range also means they're not feasible as fullrange nor even mid speakers.

Even if they end up producing fullrange piezoelectric or similar semi contuctor speaker. I cannot see a way in which they would possibly match the frequencies or spl that conventional cone, horn, ribbon dome and electrostatic speakers can currently produce very accurately especially in properly designed cabs.

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Originally Posted by Stonerboy779

I work on the priniciple of being realistic and knowing some of the physics behind sound reproduction.

Now we have piezo electric buzzer and tweeters. They are often looked on poorly even compared to relitively cheap soft dome tweeters. The range also means they're not feasible as fullrange nor even mid speakers.

Even if they end up producing fullrange piezoelectric or similar semi contuctor speaker. I cannot see a way in which they would possibly match the frequencies or spl that conventional cone, horn, ribbon dome and electrostatic speakers can currently produce very accurately especially in properly designed cabs.

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So, you believe that sound-producing semiconductors shall never able to compare to traditional loudspeakers, unlike the fact that LED's are completely superior to incandescent or CFL lighting?

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Originally Posted by DemonDragonJ

So, you believe that sound-producing semiconductors shall never able to compare to traditional loudspeakers, unlike the fact that LED's are completely superior to incandescent or CFL lighting?

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That's exactly what I feel. I cannot envision a future where semiconductors wholly replace traditional speakers. Nor do I want to envision one. It may enter the consumer market in some form other than buzzers but I don't hold any hope for it ever going anywhere.

LEDs on the other hand I am very happy with and want to see them continue to develop.

My understanding is that digital processing technology is able to optimize things in clever and magical ways which can make superior sound from inferior surfaces. Moore's Law constantly improves All Things Digital ... while semiconductor material tech kinda plods forward at a glacial yet unstoppable rate. I suppose that engineering and real life will impose tradeoffs and limitations, but I think you no longer require a larger speaker surface to obtain audio fidelity; the little stuff can reproduce similar amplitude across wide frequency ranges.

Having said all that, I agree that - now and for the next few decades - you need nice big fat speakers to get nice big fat sound.

Thar's no replacement, For displacement.

Although I do agree ... I note that clever digital magic can miniaturize other transducers beyond what the laws of physics would consider realistic. An example would be radio antennae, the physics (and for a long while, all radio technology) suggest that an antenna needs to be no smaller than 1/4-wavelength, any smaller and it just cannot transcieve enough of the electromagnetic wavefront to function - yet it turns out that many modern cellphones and Bluetooth and WiFi devices use antenna elements so utterly puny they're often printed right into the IC package adjacent to (or actually within) the intelligent digital signal processing circuits which reconstruct full signals from attenuated fragments of distorted noise. This was impossible just a decade past, everybody who understood radio would tell you there's a minimum size requirement for your antenna array, smaller is just sci-fi, but now these antennae become smaller and thinner and more power efficient with every new iPhone generation which hits the market.

Audio transducers may not have been revolutionized yet, they may never be miniaturized much beyond what they are now, but I'm unwilling to exclude the possibility. It may turn out that our audio thinking is all wrong, that some kind of computer brain smarter than a human ear plugged into a distributed-ambient-resonance-array or whatnot can drown out a jet engine without taking up much more physical space than a thick layer of paint.

To revive this thread after a long time of inactivity, what if manufacturers made a sound-producing semiconductor in the shape of a speaker? Such a device would have the shape of a traditional speaker, and even have the appearance of such a device, but would actually be a series of diodes and semiconductors arranged in the shape of a speaker, rather than being merely a paper or polymer cone. Would a device such as that be feasible?

Even electrostatic panels have limitations in regards to output at certain frequencies, and almost all of them use a supplemental cone based woofer for the lower frequencies.

I dont think it's the appearance that bothers people, it's simply the functional limitation of any type of output device; size matters. Sure, 100+db is possible in high frequencies, but the smaller the surface area of the output device, the longer the xmax needs to be to move sufficient air to replicate lower frequencies.

I think the only real significant advancement in low frequency transducers in the last 25 years was the cyclone subwoofer, produced by... was it Phoenix Gold? I cant even remember off the top of my head. They were big, heavy, expensive, and unpopular. Which is a shame, because the larger variants have the capability of recreated extremely low frequencies; I think I've read about one in a home theatre implementation was that was capable of under 15hz.. you dont hear that so much as FEEL it.