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B - Magnetic flux density in gap, in Tesla-meters ™ |
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Back-up Battery - A separate battery added to the security system as an alternate power supply to serve as a backup in case the vehicle's main battery should be disabled by a thief. |
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Baffle - A surface used to mount a loudspeaker that separates the front wave of the loudspeaker from the rear wave of the loudspeaker. |
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Balance - The relative volume level between two channels, usually the left and right channels. May also refer to the relative volume between front and rear channels of an audio system. To make the same or equal. |
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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 are less apt to pick up external noise. This is usually not a factor in home audio, but is a factor in professional audio requiring hundreds or even thousands of feet of cabling. Many higher quality home audio cables terminated with RCA jacks are balanced designs using two conductors and a shield instead of one conductor plus shield. |
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Balls - The strength or power to perform it's task extremely well without loss of performance even when pushed to it's limits. |
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Bandpass - A two-part filter that cuts both high and low frequencies allowing the band of frequencies between these two points to pass. |
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Bandwidth - The range of frequency response between lower and upper frequencies points which audio signals pass through an electrical device or conductor where the signal has rolled off by three decibels. |
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Barium Ferrite - A speaker magnet material made from an alloy with iron and barium for improved magnetic strength |
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Basket - The rigid frame of a speaker that supports all of it's components. |
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Bass - The low audio frequency range typically below 500 Hz (hertz). |
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Bass Blockers - Commercial name for auto-sound first order high pass crossovers (non-polarized capacitors), generally used on smaller speakers to attenuate low mid/low frequencies. |
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Bass Reflex - A vented enclosure that allows control of rear radiated sound waves. |
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Battery - An electrically connected group of cells, wired in series, that stores an electrical charge and supplies a direct current (DC). |
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BBE Processing - A signal processing circuit that provides improvements in imaging and spatial realism by altering the frequency and phase characteristics of portions of the input signal. |
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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 near-perfect step response with no overshoot or ringing. The downside of the Bessel is a slow roll-off rate. The same circuit complexity in a Butterworth response rolls off much faster (steeper). |
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Bi-Amplification - The use of two amplifiers, one for the amplification of lower (bass) frequencies , and the other for higher (midrange and treble) frequencies. The audio signal from the head unit or pre-amplifier is passed through an electronic crossover and divided into two separated signals. These signals are sent to the respective amplifiers
and their outputs are sent to the respective speakers.(bass to woofers, midrange and treble
to mids and tweeters through the use of passive crossovers) Tri-Amp is the use of three
amplifiers in the same manner with the audio signal divided into three separate bands of
frequency by the electronic crossover and so on. |
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Bias - A necessary high frequency current applied to the record head along with the audio signal to prevent distortion and increase sensitivity during recording. |
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Binary Digit (BIT) - The smallest unit of data in a digital signal represented by either a one or zero. |
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BL - The magnetic strength of the motor structure. "Expressed in Tesla meters, this is a measurement of the motor strength of a speaker. Think of this as how good a weightlifter the transducer is. A measured mass is applied to the cone forcing it back while the current required for the motor to force the mass back is measured. The formula is mass in grams divided by the current in amperes. A high BL figure indicates a very strong transducer that moves the cone with authority!" |
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BNC - A type of connection often used in instrumentation and sometimes in digital audio. |
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Boom, Boomy - Excessive bass response or peak in bass response of a recording, playback, or sound system. Dominant in the low frequency range. Without complimentary levels of frequencies other than bass. |
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Boost - To Increase. |
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Bottom End - Bass response; referring to the sound qualities of the lowest frequency ranges of a speaker or audio system. |
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Bridging - Combining two outputs of an amplifier to use as one, usually to a woofer. The provides an increase in power output (wattage) necessary to reproduce lower frequencies at higher volume levels. |
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Brown and Sharp Gauge(B & S Gauge) - A standard of the dimensional characteristics of wire used to conduct electrical current or signals. B & S Gauge is identical to the American Wire Gauge (AWG). |
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BTL - Bridged, Transformer Less. A circuit design wherein two small Integrated Circuit (IC) amplifier channels are bridged together to provide a single, larger output circuit. These circuits are limited by their current capabilities and the amount of heat they generate. |
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BTM - Best Tuning Memory. A feature in which the tuner selects radio stations by signal strength, and assigns them to presets in numerical order, according to their frequency value. |
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Buffer - Commonly found in Mini Disc (MD) and Compact Disc (CD) players, this device protects against vibrations by storing the audio data for uninterrupted playback. Data is available from the buffer when it can not be read from the disc so long as the interruption of reading the disc does not exceed the playback time of the data stored in the buffer. |
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Butterworth Crossover - A type of crossover circuit design having a maximally flat magnitude response (no amplitude ripple in the passband). This circuit is based upon Butterworth functions, also know as Butterworth polynomials. |
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Byte - Eight bits. It takes one byte to represent one letter of the alphabet. |
