Hanging Glass Speakers Look Super Cool

February 14, 2014 by James Hobson 21 Comments

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Looking for a modern way to spice up your apartment? Well if you’re not too much of an audiophile, these hanging glass speakers look awesome!

First off, we know the question you’re already asking — how do they sound? Well, to be honest, not that bad! You could describe it as being glassy (ha ha), but you would be surprised how nice the bass comes through. The speakers suffer when it comes to treble though as it comes out a bit muffled. This could be corrected with a few strategically placed hidden tweeters though!

So how do they work? Well, like any speaker, the sound comes from vibration — in this case, the glass is vibrated to produce the sound. To achieve this, [Evan] is using a pair of HiWave HIAX32C20-8 tactile transducers, which are actually designed to turn most surfaces into speakers. The tricky part of this build is how to hang them.

Having limited space in his room, [Evan] opted to hang the speakers from the ceiling with wire — the only problem is drilling glass isn’t that easy. He shares a few tips, and eventually succeeded using a Dremel tool. From there it was just a matter of installing some hooks in the ceiling, and stringing it all together.

Check out the following video to hear them in action!

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Fully Integrated HiFi Studio Monitor

February 13, 2014 by Nick Conn 25 Comments

Studio Monitor and PCB

Have you ever wanted to build a high quality audio crossover and amplifier? [Rouslan] has put a lot of thought into making his dual amplifier studio monitor both high quality and simple to build.

With a concise schematic, a meaningful block diagram, and simulation results to boot, his well-written post has everything you need to build self-powered bi-amped speakers based on the LM4766 from Texas Instruments. It is great to see simulations which verify the functionality of the circuit, this can go a long way when working with complicated analog filters and audio circuitry. For those of you who do not have access to PSPICE (an expensive professional simulation tool), [Rouslan] uses LTspice from Linear Technology. TINA-TI from Texas Instruments is another great free alternative.

Additionally, [Rouslan] goes over the typical issues one has with a bi-amplifier studio monitor, such as phase misalignment and turn-on pop, and then provides a solution. Note that his project is powered by 20VAC, which requires an external transformer to convert the 120VAC in the wall to 20VAC. Be careful with high voltages! In the future, adding a high quality voltage regulator will most likely increase the performance.

His post finishes up with a very clean circuit board, which he ordered from OSH Park. With such a complete design, there is nothing keeping you from building your own. Go out and put that old speaker sitting in your basement to good use!

If you don’t have an old speaker sitting around, check out these very cool DIY speakers.

Thumbs-Down Songs On Pandora With Your Mind

February 7, 2014 by Kristina Panos 12 Comments

[Steven] likes music. Like many of us, he uses Pandora to enjoy the familiar and to discover new music. Now, Pandora means well, but she gets it wrong sometimes. [Steven] has had a Mindwave Mobile EEG headset lying around for a while and decided to put it to good use. With the aid of a Raspberry Pi and a bluetooth module, he built a brainwave-controlled Pandora track advancing system.

The idea is to recognize that you dislike a song based on your brainwaves. The Mindwave gives data for many different brainwaves as well as approximating your attention and meditation levels. Since [Steven] isn’t well-versed in brainwavery, he used Bayesian estimation to generate two multivariate Gaussian models. One represents good music, and the other represents bad music. The resulting algorithm is about 70% accurate, so [Steven]’s Python script waits for four “bad music” estimations in a row before advancing the track.

[Steven] streams Pandora through pianobar and has a modified version of the control-pianobar script in his GitHub repo. His script will also alert you if the headset isn’t getting good skin contact, a variable that the Mindwave reports on a scale of 0 to 200.

Stick around for a demo of [Steven] controlling Pandora with his mind. If you don’t have an EEG headset, you can still control Pandora with a Pi, pianobar, and some nice clicky buttons.

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Build A Simple Audio Amp

January 4, 2014 by Adam Fabio 17 Comments

[Ynze] has built an audio amplifier that looks and sounds great. His amplifier uses a National Instruments (now TI) LM3886 Overture series 68 Watt power amp. The LM3886 places [Ynze’s] amp squarely in the “Gainclone” catagory. Gainclone or Chipamp are terms long used by the DIY community to describe audio amps based upon highly integrated semiconductor amplifiers. The Gainclone name stems from the original Gaincard audio amplifier sold by 47 labs. The Gaincard used less than $100 USD of parts when it was introduced in 1999. It sounded good enough to command a $3300 USD price tag on the audiophile market. The low parts count and simple construction spawned the audio DIY community to build their own versions of the Gaincard. Hundreds of variants exist now, and wading through the different versions can be a bit of a daunting task. [Ynze] found a basic design that works, and built from there.

One of the interesting things about [Ynze’s] amp, as well as many of the Gainclones, is the fact that they use no circuit board. All wiring is done point to point. resistors are soldered directly to the pins of the amplifier chip. This can be some tricky soldering for beginners, but several PCB kits are available. [Ynze] built his amp in two cases. One case holds the power supply, and the other contains the amplifier itself. [Ynze] is using a large toroid transformer to drop his local 230V mains down to +25V and -25V. The amplifier circuit itself is simple – a few discrete components surround the LM3886 and it’s heat sink. [Ynze] also did some very nice carpentry work on his wood chassis. The resulting amp looks like it’s right out of the 1960’s – but hides 1990’s electronics inside.

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Un-crapifying A Car Stereo

January 2, 2014 by James Hobson 49 Comments

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[Noah Farrington] has just accomplished a major milestone in his life, purchasing his first car! A glorious 2001 Ford Focus wagon. While it may be a fully loaded luxury vehicle, it is missing one thing poor [Noah] can’t live without. An aux-in port.

He had a few options for rectifying the situation. Live with it as is, hack the strange Ford media protocol out of the back, or fool the CD player into playing his input. Naturally he chose the third option.

His first challenge was removing the deck from the car. People told him he’d have to buy fancy stereo removal tools — he made do with tent pegs and coat hangers. Using the same method as described in a past aux-in hack, he identified the audio in leads on the CD player’s ribbon cable. By carefully soldering in his own aux-in plug, he’s almost ready for business! Unfortunately, the CD player also needs to think that it is on for it to properly output the audio. [Noah] chose the simple solution — record a silent CD to always leave in the deck.

Stick around after the break to see it in action.

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Sonar With Python And Conference Call Hardware

December 23, 2013 by Mathieu Stephan 11 Comments

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[Jason] just tipped us off about his recent experiment, in which he creates a sonar system using standard audio equipment and a custom Python program. In case some of our readers don’t already know it, Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to detect objects on or under the surface of the water. It is commonly used in submarines and boats for navigation. [Jason]’s project uses active sonar, which consists in sending short audio bursts (chirps) and listening for echoes. The longer it takes for the echo to return, the further the object is. Though his proof of concept is not used underwater, that may change if he continues the project.

The audio editing software Audacity was used to make a fast frequency changing chirp, along with PyAudio libraries for the main Python program. Exact time of arrival is detected by correlating the microphone output with the transmitted signal. Given that [Jason] uses audible frequencies, we think that the final result shown in the video embedded below is quite nice.
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DIY Hearing Aid

December 15, 2013 by Eric Evenchick 14 Comments

Hearing aids are expensive little devices, typically costing a few thousand dollars each. They need to be highly integrated to fit in the ear, while still providing signal processing to ensure good audio quality.

This DIY hearing aid does some intelligent signal processing. It uses an electret to capture audio, then uses a pre-amplifier to increase the gain 100 times. The next stage consists of four filters, dividing the input signal by frequency into four parts. These are passed into four LTC6910 programmable gain amplifiers, which allow an Arduino to control the gain of each channel. The LTC6910 takes 3 digital inputs that are used to set the gain value.

To determine which gain to use for each frequency band, the Arduino needs to know how much power is in each band. This could be done using a Fast Fourier Transform, but that would require quite a bit of processing power. Instead, an envelope detector averages the signal, which can be read by an analog input on the Arduino. Using this information, the hearing aid can boost specific frequencies when it detects conversation.

This hearing aid won’t quite fit in your ear, but there is a lot of interesting signal processing going on. The schematic, Arduino source code, and a MATLAB simulation are provided.