Best Speakers

[Price001]

Hi,
I'm a uni student making my own bluetooth portable speakers from scratch, I plan to design my own casing for the speaker. However I'm unsure of the best speaker to buy then strip and put in my casing.

This questions been racking my brains for a while any help will be brilliant. I have tried the mini speaker as the size is limited and the sound quality isnt good. I do have a audio amplified speaker system but im unsure if i could use that as it has a power source.

Thanks Ryan

[texy]

Hi Ryan,
welcome to the forum.
It's a bit like asking what is the best car? You will get a million answers, but almost certainly one thrown back at you - what is your budget ?

Texy

[Ravenous]

Bear in mind the physical design of the case will massively influence the sound of the speaker. It won't sound the same as it did originally.

If you want a simple thing to start with, I'd suggest looking for used hi-fi speakers or something. You might even keep the original cabinet and squeeze an amp in there...

[redhawk]

If you want cheap speakers the MPS-60 doesn't come any cheaper at 2 quid + free postage - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Ericsson-M ... 000FIBMPE/
These speakers are designed to run off Sony Ericsson phones, however they're easy to mod to use USB power and an external headphone jack.
Despite their small size they can pack some decent bass and while not not exactly earth shattering loud they work well with the Pi's analogue output.
There are plenty of online tutorials for modifying the MPS-60 but you're going to need some soldering skills the amplifier board is quite small and fiddly.
Fortunately there are test pads exposed on the reverse side which you can (ab)use to solder on additional wires.
The pinout for the test pads are as follows:


As for technical specifications the amplifier has 2 x TS4994 ICs they provide up to 1 watt RMS per channel at 8 ohms in BTL mode, power supply 2.5 - 5.5v
It should be possible to drive the amp using the Pi's USB port, or GPIO +5v supply rail but you must hook this up before the Pi is switched on and not after.

Richard S.

[Douglas6]

What makes a speaker good is largely the box, so buying a good pair and then taking them apart is wasteful. And you just won't get decent volume or sound without powering them I'm afraid; the Pi's audio out will drive headphones, but not speakers.

[RaTTuS]

and for good sound quality you'll need to use either HDMI audio or the P5 header and suitable audio adapter [or usb audio]

[redhawk]

If that's the case why bother with the Pi anyway you might as well use Bluetooth headset / speakers instead.

Richard S.

[Price001]

Hi thanks for all your replies. The budget isn't too low saying this is my final major project of the degree. I understand that the speaker housing affects sound but surely some speakers perform better on their own ?

I will be connecting the speakers into the audio jack of the rpi

Thanks Ryan

[Ravenous]

I think you will need an amplified system of some sort, as you mentioned in your first post. Generally most people seem to agree the raspi's audio output can't even drive headphones particularly loudly. So you might want to look at some sort of small amp circuit.

As for speaker design, it's a massively complex subject far beyond what I think a normal course would require! (Unless someone here actually has a degree in speaker design - possible with this lot - and can correct me.) So I'd suggest get some existing speakers that sound adequate, are cheap enough AND of around the right size. Then gut them, mount in your own design of box of the same overall size (volume is the most important parameter I think), and hope for the best.

Preferably base it on completely sealed enclosures - no bass ports/tubes etc so there is less variation in the design.

It's probably not this complex or critical, but getting it wrong can lead to either no bass at all or tons of poorly defined rumble! That's why I suggest you base it on something of an already known size.

For proper hi-fi there are some DIY speaker designs out there and could be copied, some suitable for a small desktop system, but they tend to require a specific speaker cone. The DIY audio forum springs to mind (but you have to register to see members' pics, etc.)

[Burngate]

... but surely some speakers perform better on their own ?

Apart from politicians you mean?

A speaker has to move air, like a piston, and the more it can move the louder it will be.
The bigger the diameter the smaller the distance it has to move to shift the same amount of air, so for the same loudness.

But without a box or a baffle of some sort, air will leak around the edge from front to back, so instead of acting like a piston it just "short-circuits" itself.
This is going to be worse for lower frequencies for which the air has a longer time to find its way round the edge, and worse for smaller speakers where the edge is closer to all the moving surface.

An infinite baffle - an infinitely large wall - would be ideal since the air has to go infinitely far to reach the other side, but most people don't have room for one.
Next best is a large box - the air can't find its way from outside to inside, but unfortunately the air inside can act like a spring, giving a boxy sound. If you fill it with old socks, they absorb the sound radiated from the back before it can come back out.
Most speakers today use a small box, not because they sound better but because people like small things. But the only speakers I've heard that can convince me someone was speaking in the room with me were a pair of B&W DM70s - coffin-sized with an electrostatic tweater on each.

[El Breaker]

can someone tell me if i can connect 5v input somewhere else instead of the extra pin and the main? (like in one end of a resistor)