Airport Express speaker mashup

posted Aug 27th 2010 11:00am by
filed under: digital audio hacks

[Wei] salvaged the internals from an Airport Express that had a blown power supply. From there he built this streaming music box. The case is from an IKEA clock with the face removed. He added some decorative fabric around a grill to make an acoustically transparent front panel. Inside you’ll find the Airport guts connected to a USB charger (replaces the dead PSU) and a set of powered stereo speakers. This simple mashup looks good and frees up space in your junk-parts box.



12 Responses to Airport Express speaker mashup

  • Abbott says:
    August 27, 2010 at 11:56 am

    Awesome build. Just the kind of hacking together that I love to see.

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  • Richard says:
    August 27, 2010 at 12:14 pm

    Looks like an Airport Extreme, not an Airport Express.

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  • slab says:
    August 27, 2010 at 12:36 pm

    @Richard: The case is from an IKEA clock, not from the Airport. But I do agree, the final result does look much like an Extreme.

    The Airport Express is the only model that can do streaming music (through AirTunes).

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  • willyshop says:
    August 27, 2010 at 1:59 pm

    That’s funny, the ikea clock looks kind of similar to an airport extreme or a mac mini.

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  • Jimbo says:
    August 27, 2010 at 3:49 pm

    Nice to see the same fabric we bought at Ikea to make a wall hanging appearing on Hack-a-day!

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  • McSquid says:
    August 27, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    @abbott

    +1

    Please god help me clean out my parts drawer

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  • cde says:
    August 27, 2010 at 5:32 pm

    It’s a Piro clock, not a Pico clock. 9.99.

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  • dext0rb says:
    August 27, 2010 at 6:45 pm

    great hack. great idea of re-using that ikea clock – really quite the perfect form factor to match apple aesthetics.

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  • strider_mt2k says:
    August 28, 2010 at 1:25 am

    I wonder how it sounds?

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  • echodelta says:
    August 28, 2010 at 1:56 am

    Fun and quick. Just a stocking stuffer, though. Only 1 tweeter and 1 mid with no baffle. Only to make bad sounding mpee’s sound $@&%*! yech. Now if only you put 2 of these units in two bookshelf or larger speakers or vintage or period radios. With only one channel wired out of each, L or R. Or any sort of statue with a clock. Like the Venus ‘d Milo with a clock where her tummy ought to be. One big speaker as big as the clock. No tweeters or wizzers. There is no “stereo” in such small spacing, but much lost in the lower HALF of your hearing.

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  • nevermind says:
    August 28, 2010 at 5:20 am

    Nice idea !

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  • kristian says:
    August 28, 2010 at 10:01 am

    @echodelta: thank you! i kept looking at that picture and cringing, but i didn’t want to be the first to say that it can’t sound much better than a cell phone… but hey, some people like it quick and dirty.

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