Johann Philipp Reis memasang pembesar suara eletrik pada telefonnya pada 1861; ia tidak mampu membunyikan suara, tetapi mampu menghasilkan nada sempurna. Alexander Graham Bell mempatenkan pembesar suara eletrik pertamanya (yang mampu mengeluarkan pertuturan boleh difahami) sebagai sebahagian dari rekaan telefonnya pada 1876, yang dikuti pada 1877 dengan versi lebih baik dari Ernst Siemens. Nikola Tesla dilaporkan menghasilkan peranti serupa pada 1881, namun tidak diberikan paten.[1] Semasa masanya, Thomas Edison diberikan paten British bagi sistem yang menggunakan udara mampat sebagai mekanisma penguat bagi phonograf silinder awalnya, tetapi dia akhirnya menggunakan tetuang logam yang biasa dipancu oleh selaput yang disambung kepada stylus.

Pada 1898, Horace Short patented a design for a loudspeaker driven by compressed air and then sold the rights to Charles Parsons, who was issued several additional British patents before 1910. A few companies, including Victor Talking Machine Company and Pathe, produced record players using compressed-air loudspeakers. However, these designs were significantly limited by their poor sound quality and their inability to reproduce sound at low volume. Variants of the system were used for public address applications, and more recently other variations have been used to test space equipment resistance to the very loud sound and vibration levels that launching rockets produce.

The modern design of moving-gelungan drivers was established by Oliver Lodge in (1898).[2] The first practical application of moving gelungan loudspeakers was established by Peter L. Jensen and Edwin Pridham, at Napa, California.[3] Jensen was denied patents. Being unsuccessful in selling their product to the phone companies, 1915, they changed strategy to public address, and named their product Magnavox. Jensen was for years after the invention of the loudspeaker a part owner of "The Magnavox Company.".[4]

The moving gelungan principle as commonly used today in direct radiators was patented in 1924 by Chester W. Rice and Edward W. Kellogg. The key difference between previous attempts and the patent by Rice and Kellogg was the adjustment of mechanical parameters so that the fundamental resonance of the moving system took place at a lower frequency than that at which the cone's radiation impedance had become uniform. See the original patent for details.[perlu rujukan]