Is is possible to create an expansion card that is a down and side firing speaker? Is there enough room to house a better driver and the required glue logic? Would it be possible to achieve mono if one speaker is inserted, and stereo if two are inserted.
If so, I would be very happy give up one or two slots when I needed better audio quality, which would not be all the time.
Design considerations might include using rubberized slide rails to eliminate vibration, if needed.
Any takers?
but why? you can literally swap up existing speakers inside.
Those are bigger than expansion slot where after placing DAC from usb-c to speakers, there would be almost no space, and even if it would be just for speakers alone, they would be quite small, that not firing straight into your ears would be just waste of space 
I haven’t received my laptop yet so I wasn’t able to compare the existing speakers with the expansion card to see if this was a potential upgrade path. It would be nice to get larger drivers in some way or another.
Regarding swapping the existing speakers, I assume you are talking theoretical. I haven’t seen this as an option anywhere. Has anyone done this?
It is possible to swap the speakers, but you might want to be sure that they are the same size and use the same connectors. For now there is only one kit for the laptop but you could DIY if you wanted, while not using any expansion card.