Looking back on some of the first boomboxes that made their way onto the market, it’s hard to believe that they were ever considered a ‘portable’ solution to music listening.
The Lasonic TRC-931 - released in the 1980s and considered by many to be the ‘Godfather of ghetto blasters’ - weighed a hefty 30 pounds and required 10 size ‘D’ batteries just to turn on; hardly the most efficient way to get your on-the-go music fix.
However, there was one upside to their size and weight: the huge sound that they could deliver. Companies were fitting their boomboxes with huge, bass-heavy woofers up to 12-inches in diameter, making them perfect for breakdancing with your crew on a street corner.
As time went on, the miniaturisation of technology began to take hold. Boomboxes were getting smaller in an attempt to make them more practical, but sound was sacrificed as a result. Without the large speakers, it was impossible to enjoy the same audio quality that we had grown to love.
Nowadays, things are different. Portable speakers continue to get smaller and smaller, yet they’re still capable of delivering the sonic output of something much bigger.
The reason? Passive radiators.
A passive radiator is essentially a speaker that has had its ‘guts’ removed, leaving just the frame, suspension and speaker cone. This is then mounted just behind the actual speaker as opposed to alongside it, thus saving lots of space.
When music is played, the speaker in-front vibrates back and forth - the louder the music, the stronger the vibrations. This creates internal air movement, which in turn causes the passive radiator to vibrate and create sound frequencies, essentially acting as a secondary speaker. This trick allows a small speaker to deliver twice the power, with a significant boost in the bass frequencies.
Thanks to passive radiators, a speaker’s volume is no longer dictated by its size. You needn’t look any further for proof than our own SRS-X11, a speaker no bigger than a building block that weighs just 215g. Yet, thanks to the dual passive radiators, it packs an impressive 10 watts of pure audio power.
The power of the old-school boombox has been compressed into something you can easily fit in your bag, and so now there’s no excuse for you not to head outside and play your favourite music at full-blast this summer.
