I was stumbling through HeadWize‘s project archive the other day when I came across Steve Connor’s Poor Man’s Surround Headphones. He used a pair of Sony MDR-CD60 for the base and added three pairs of ear buds. One pair is used for the front channel and two for the rears. The rears have their own amp with the bass turned up to increase the separation. He used a Sound Blaster Live! card for the source. If you are interested in amplifiers and other sound projects, you should definitely have a look at HeadWize.

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Ugh, I didn’t expect this “sonic nuisance” meme to last past yesterday, but here we are with a different project from [jay]. ThinkGeek sells a device called the Mind Molester that emits a chirp every three minutes making it hard to find but frequent enough to drive you insane. Jay figures ThinkGeek’s markup was somewhere around 1250% and decided to build his own. The device uses a Picaxe microcontroller and emits four different sounds a random intervals.

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[Chris Rybitski] didn’t really have any money to spend when the headunit in his car died. He did have a broken JVC CD player from a friend and decided to convert that into something hideous he could use in the car. The amplifier portion still worked, but the CD section didn’t. Unplugging the CD board kept the amp from functioning, so he cut off the bulky motors instead. The internal power for the player was already 12V so he powered it directly from the car. He added an old CDROM drive, made a wired remote for the controls and stuffed everything in an old Mac case. Once completed, he set it under the rear glass for everyone to admire.

Continue reading “Cheap Car Stereo” →

I had been meaning to post K9spud’s VWCDPIC audio interface adapter ever since our first auxiliary input hack… and today I finally remembered to. It really is one of the best out there. Normally the the Volkswagen OEM head unit has the CD changer channels muted unless you’ve got a factory changer. The VWCDPIC interfaces with the already present CD changer plug and fools the head unit to connect any audio device you want. It also provides remote control of your audio device using the head units buttons. It’s very clever and can work with any audio device.

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I think the first time I saw the “Rundfunker” I had ignored it because I though it was a commercial product. In reality, it’s a scratch built WiFi streaming radio that has the finish quality of a commercial product. The radio connects to your wireless network and scans for available MP3s. You can select the MP3s using the front mounted rotary encoder and LCD. The main board is a VIA EPIA MS10000E LVDS. It was chosen because most of the features are pin headers instead of ports. It’s also passively cooled and boots a custom Knoppix build from the compact flash. The controls are connected using an ATMega 168. The software is written in Java and features a web interface and remote control identical to the front panel. There’s a great write-up about the project on mini-itx.com, full source on the project wiki, and extensive photo gallery.

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Most headphones and speakers use electromagnetic force to drive speaker coils. Electrostatic speakers use electrostatic force to modulate a diaphragm. Mylar is used as the diaphragm in these headphones. Two insulating rings sandwich the mylar and a perforated stator is placed on either side. Ideally these stators would be acoustically transparent, but sheets of metal with 2mm (or smaller) holes that make up at least 25% of the area work. Construction problems can arise from glue not sticking to the mylar and the mylar having not enough or too much tension. A special amp has to be built for the headphones to generate a 450V difference between the stators.

[thanks mrdelayer]

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[Chris] had made a sturdy mount in his car for his iPAQ. He uses the iPAQ for directions and playing mp3s. After nearly ripping apart his line-in cable every time he took the iPAQ out of its cradle he decided to create a wireless solution. He chopped up a pair of HP FA303A Bluetooth headphones to extract the receiver portion. The headphone’s band is prone to breaking so it might be possible to find a damaged pair for cheap. The receiver was placed into an old mouse. Once the buttons were hooked up to the mouse buttons and a voltage regulator added the unit was ready to start streaming audio directly to the stereo.

Continue reading “Bluetooth Stereo Bridge” →