A diaphragm-based piezoelectric microspeaker is fabricated on a heavily compressive silicon–nitride film, and is compared to commercial speakers. The largest sound pressure level (SPL) produced by the fabricated microspeaker is 92 dB (when measured 2 mm away from the microspeaker in open field) at around 3 kHz for 6 Vpeak-to-peak input. The microspeaker produces a comparable sound output as a commercial piezo-ceramic and electro-dynamic speaker used in current cellular phones. The keys to this success are as follows: (1) the usage of a diaphragm that has a very high compressive residual stress, high enough to cause the diaphragm to be wrinkled and (2) the usage of high quality ZnO film deposited by two-step deposition technique.