Modifying/upgrading portable speakers

[fresh14u]

Hey, I have a little project in mind to modify or upgrade the components in a cheap portable speaker to make it sound more clear, louder, or more bassy.. the portable speaker I'm looking to edit is the mini hamburger portable. what I would like to know is, is this kind of project possible/worth it? and what will i need to know to get started? what kind of parts would at replacing or modifying. link to the product below. Thanks.

Mini Hamburger Portable 3.5MM Speaker for iPod iPhone | eBay UK

[Cal Weldon]

I've moved this over to the full range speaker forum. My not so humble opinion is that you will spend money but not get what you are looking for. They are a gimmick type item and probably not worth the effort to try and improve. Sorry to be blunt.

[Scottmoose]

+1. This is not a product designed with sound quality in mind, & it would be very difficult to do much to improve it. Nothing is impossible, but you are likely to end up spending far more than the original product cost to obtain minor improvements.

[sreten]

Hi,

Its a very cheap copy of what might be a half decent portable speaker.
How long and how many recharges do you think the battery will take ?
Rest assured though that it will be nowhere near as good quality.
Simply spend more on better quality in the first place, and something
similar but substantially larger to stand a chance of working well.

rgds, sreten.

[fresh14u]

hey everyone, thanks for the all the feed back. i guess ill have to look for another portable speaker to work on. any suggestions?
I've also been looking at the xmini its the same kind of speaker but its better quality. ill put the link below.
if you guys have any good suggestions on a portable speaker to improve let me know. I'm new to the the diy audio stuff and want to learn bits and peaces to understand and progress.
thanks for all the help.

X-mini II Capsule Speaker (Black)

[mashaffer]

My rule of thumb is that any speaker that will fit in my mouth (or my coffee mug for that matter) is not worth wasting time on.

[zman01]

fresh14u, IMHO what X-Mini have done within that size and price range is pretty impressive (I have one) and it works for its intended purposes well (high quality music is not one of them) - never say never, but one will be hard pressed to really improve with DIY on what those guys have done. One of my friends has an Altec-Lansing speaker larger in size vs the X-Mini , but doesn't play any better. I second Sreten's advice, bigger will be better for you, but probably it will have to be much bigger.

[sreten]

Originally Posted by fresh14u

hey everyone, thanks for the all the feed back. i guess ill have to
look for another portable speaker to work on. any suggestions?

Hi,

Forget about "improving" a decent commercial product, you simply cannot
do better than an initially well chosen product for the total outlay, especially
at the budget end of the market, the bits cost far exceeds the product cost.

That is, buy decent kit rather than try to "upgrade" garbage, its far better.

modify or upgrade the components in a cheap portable speaker to make it sound more clear, louder, or more bassy..

No. Simply buy something clearer, louder or more bassy in the first place.
(All the above are essentially related to the actual size, most of the time.)

I'm all for experimenting and improving things when its possible, but here
IMHO it isn't a viable approach, you need something more flexible to play
with, and that might be building something good but different from scratch.

rgds, sreten.

Also FWIW proper stereo for these things makes a huge difference, go dual.