Why are handheld speakers so quiet?

[Anayo]

I find it odd that new handhelds are coming out with enormous screens, but the speakers are still as quiet as ever.

I noticed right around the time the Gameboy Color came out that handheld speakers just got super quiet all of a sudden. The original brick Gameboy was a loud beast. It could actually compete with my mom's radio in the car. The Game Gear could distract people from their conversations in a crowded room.

I miss that. There was something endearingly obnoxious about it.

[ninjainspandex]

probably because most people use headphones on their handhelds as playing games blaring loud on a bus or plane would just be rude

[rlrunyon]

Not only that, but they are probably trying to save battery life. The louder the speaker, the more electricity used.

[Zing]

I know what you mean. The GBC speaker is barely audible with ambient noise and the Micro may as well not even have a speaker.

[Ziggy]

Even if they were louder, they'd still have the same sound quality. You're gonna get superior sound with headphones. So if you're actually concerned about hearing the audio, you're better off using headphones. Any halfway decent set of headphones, ear buds or whatever, are gonna have much better sound quality than the speaker(s) on a handheld. It didn't use to matter as much with the original GB and probably even the GBA, but now the music in the games have so much more depth. The PSP and NDS speakers have exactly NO low end. There's some parts in music that you simply just cannot hear without headphones.

[Zing]

The problem is that the GBC has a lot of noise on the headphone output. The Micro is even worse.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I had that problem with the GBA, too. Hopefully it's better on GBASP, but I can't find a headphone adapter anywhere.

Funny thing, the only loud handheld speakers are on the consoles you don't need to hear if you want to enjoy the game.

On the PSP, the limitations are actually done in software. I think this is to prolong battery life and avoid bothering people with the noise. With a homebrew modification, you can increase the volume quite a bit. I can't find this mod anywhere, but I remember someone with an unbelievably loud PSP-1000 walking down the hallway. Linkin Park stuck in my head all day thanks to that guy.

[Ziggy]

The problem is that the GBC has a lot of noise on the headphone output. The Micro is even worse.

My reply was to handhelds in general and not specifically the GBC.

However, I was unaware the GBC had that problem. Is that a known problem with the GBC? I never had one back when. And the funny thing is, I recently acquired one but both the speaker and headphones jack doesn't work. So I wouldn't know anything about the hiss problem.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

Man, it's terrible on both GBC and GBA. I had to miss out on Sword of Mana's music because the hiss was unbearable on my over-ear headphones. Maybe it won't be as bad on low quality earbuds - I don't have any of those

[ZenErik]

Hiss is dependent on headphones, amplification within the device, external amplification, and grounding issues, etc.

Impedance and sensitivity of the headphones come into play as well. Then again, I am sure the DACs and amps inside these devices are also rather poor and noisy.

I wonder how a Gameboy will sound if I hook it up to my $1900 headphone amplifier and some nice headphones.