What are the pair of diodes doing across this speakers' terminals?

[wsemajb]

I have a telephone headset that I looked into with the idea of replacing the speaker since it is wanting for volume a bit at it's highest setting. I opened the ear cup to measure the impedance and I was just going to replace it with one from another headset with different impedance (lower impedance will give more volume with a little more tax on the circuitry. do i have this right?)

When I got into the earcup I found two diodes across the little speaker terminals. One pointing neg, the other pointing pos like some cancellation circuit. I'm guessing that these are for reducing 'pops' and 'clicks' and such in the ear, but maybe I'm wrong. Could they affect the sound level? Can I just ditch them with impunity?

Thanks so much.

 

[Leftyretro]

I believe they are there mostly to protect one's ear from possible noise spikes, they will clamp the max voltage to the earpiece at +/- .6 volts or so. That would also protect the speaker element but I thinks it's mostly to keep unpleasant clicks and spikes from sounding too loud. I would not ditch them.

I think changing to a lower impedance ear piece will actually lower the volume output, but a lot depends on the specific SPL efficiency ratings of the two different earpieces.