Another repost blast from the past project (10/2021)
A blue tooth compatible "speaker" system for the wife. Based on a BT amplifier board, old lap top power supply, several speakers, and some wood (of course)
The back story When the spousal unit is doing something in the dining room or kitchen, she likes to have music. Unfortunately for me, this music primarily consists of wuss rock (yes, fingernails on a chalkboard 8^)
She has a set of $5 computer speakers that can plug into her phone and play her "tunes", but the combination of the play list and gawd awful distortion is just too much for my poor ears!
We have an excellent sound system in the house, but she claims it's "too complicated" to use (power-on, input select, viola!).
I had hopes that this device would sound better and fit into her technology comfort zone. She has no problem setting up the blue tooth connection on her phone, go figure! 🙂
Being lazy, I used several on line design programs to get the box volume and other parameters. I wanted as compact as possible and this was about the smallest volume that would work well with the speaker. I also wanted a port for venting since the internal amplifier and power supply produce heat. The port was sized to work well with the speaker so the sound actually was improved as well.
Built with 1/2" BB plywood, mahogany veneer, and walnut trim. I am a hoarder of electronics since I was a kid so I had plenty of parts to complete the build.
Being me, copper was needed so I cobbled up and acid etched a control panel bezel and attached it to the box with copper round head rivets.
Some left over speaker cloth and poplar for a simple grille frame completed the unit.
The high distortion computer speakers are history and now the sound is 1000% cleaner. Problem is she now plays the wuss rock louder 😱
The amplifier has no trouble receiving from 30 ft and can go further, but that's the max range she uses. It also has a direct input for the standard 3.5mm plug. I'm an analog guy (love tubes and vinyl), and this is a class "D" amp which is about as digital as one can get. Efficient though and she'll never be able to tell the difference 😃
