Multimedia speakers or Computer speakers are the external speakers of a computer, that make inefficient the build-in speaker's fidelity. Usually, they possess a low-power internal amplifier. The normal audio connection is a 3.5mm (1/8 inch) stereo jack spark plug usually coded with a lime green color (according to the PC 99 criteria) for PC sound cards. A socket and plug for a coaxial cable with two wires - ground and signal - that is commonly used to make a connection between video components and analog audio. Also known as a "phono connector," paths of RCA sockets are reachable on plenty A/V products and the stereo amplifier's backs.

The preeminence is 5/16" long by 1/8" thick. Less computer speakers use an RCA connector for input. We can also find USB speakers powered from 5 volts at 200 milliamps offered by the USB port, permitting output power equal to almost half a watt.

At the beginning of the computer era, there were speakers onboard that gave a series of various beeps and tones. Higher quality PC speakers started to be created when games and multimedia became popular. Their improvement consisted in higher quality music and sound effects. The sound is very important for a gaming system, because the gamers like to play hearing the noises from the game. That is why having a surround sound system is kind of a must to them, for example.

Nowadays, computer sound cards are not strong enough to power a neat set of speakers. Good quality audio speakers are pretty small sizeable so they can fit on the side of monitors or on desks, self-powered and have magnetic shielding.

Multimedia speakers penetrate largely in price and in quality. These speakers wrapped with PC systems are little plastic boxes with low sound quality. Few of the slender better PC speakers own equalization features like treble and bass controls, their sound quality slightly improving.

The internal amplifiers need an external power source. Some call it a 'wall-wart'. More highly developed PC speakers might possess a 'subwoofer' unit, to amplify the output of the bass, and these parts generally got the power amplifiers both for the small 'satellite' speakers and the bass speaker.

As a standard multimedia speaker setup, all the connections are made at the right speaker. Usually, all the other speaker will have is only one cord that will be physically connected to it. The other end of the cord will be connected to the right speaker. The right speaker is the one that will generate the power and is connected to the sound card of the computer. The power button can be positioned next to the connections.

A part of PC displays possess speakers that are rather basically built-in. Laptops have integrated speakers. However, the poor limitation on space that can not be avoided in laptops means these speakers inevitably offer sound of low-quality.

For certain consumers, a lead making a connection between a PC sound output and an existing stereo system is more efficient. This usually produces better results than small multimedia speakers at an economic price. PC speakers may also be used as a low-cost amplifier for MP3 player for those who want to leave other experiment headphones technology, even though some multimedia speakers items have their own headphone jacks.

Their common features are different from manufacturer to manufacturer, but can have the following: controls for volume, not always for treble and bass, A 3.5-mm (1/8-inch) headphone jack, A remote volume control and an LED power indicator.

For reducing the price of multimedia speakers (except it is created for premium sound performance), audio speakers made for PCs usually do not have an AM/FM tuner and other sources of audio built-in. Even so, instead of male 8th-inch fusible plug can be hooked up with "female 8th-inch to female stereo RCA" adapters to match the stereo system parts such as turntables, Audio cassette players, DVD /CD SACD /audio players (even if PCs have got their own CD-ROM drives that has audio CD support), etc.

Multimedia speakers are electrically compatible with the stereo components mentioned before, although they are designed for PCs. There even are types of PC speakers that have stereo RCA in jacks.

The major computer speaker companies are: Logitech, General Electric, Cyber Acoustics, Bose Corporation, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, JBL, Edifier, Altec Lansing, Harman Kardon, Klipsch and Creative Labs.