Hello everyone,
Today I finished building my own speakers. I plugged them in and the sound was very quiet even tho the sound bar was full.
I am new to electronics like this, but I dont know what I did wrong. I would realy apriciate any help I can get.
I have sent a picture with the tread. Remember I dont know any fancy terms or anything about doing this kind of stuff.
Thank you for reading,
Pandasty
Today I finished building my own speakers. I plugged them in and the sound was very quiet even tho the sound bar was full.
I am new to electronics like this, but I dont know what I did wrong. I would realy apriciate any help I can get.
I have sent a picture with the tread. Remember I dont know any fancy terms or anything about doing this kind of stuff.
Thank you for reading,
Pandasty
Attachments
You are holding a 3.5mm jack plug. What are you trying to drive these speakers from ?
You need to be running these from a proper power amplifier that has an output of at least a couple of watts.
I was thinking I just plug the 3.5mm into my desktop pc
I'm afraid that wont work. The PC output has no real 'drive ability' and is really a line level/headphone output.
You need a separate small amplifier for this to work.
Thank you a lot for your quick awnsers. Do you have any recommendations for an amp?
Hmmm...
It depends what you after and whether you want to build your own or not.
You can get small Class D amplifiers (efficient and cool running) that even have Bluetooth capability:
Bluetooth 4.0 2*50W+100W Mini TPA3116 Class D Digital Power Amplifier Board AMP | eBay
Or you could build your own small 'Chip Amp'. I'm also guessing you have two speakers (stereo) and so need a stereo amplifier.
Have a browse through the Class D forums and also the Chip amp forums. That should get you some ideas.
It depends what you after and whether you want to build your own or not.
You can get small Class D amplifiers (efficient and cool running) that even have Bluetooth capability:
Bluetooth 4.0 2*50W+100W Mini TPA3116 Class D Digital Power Amplifier Board AMP | eBay
Or you could build your own small 'Chip Amp'. I'm also guessing you have two speakers (stereo) and so need a stereo amplifier.
Have a browse through the Class D forums and also the Chip amp forums. That should get you some ideas.
a picture is worth a thousand words sometimes... it looks like you have the tip and ring of the 3.5 mm wired to the + and - of the crossover input and the ground is not connected, so your summing left right into one speaker try either insulated lead and the ground that should work better.
Hmmm...
It depends what you after and whether you want to build your own or not.
You can get small Class D amplifiers (efficient and cool running) that even have Bluetooth capability:
Bluetooth 4.0 2*50W+100W Mini TPA3116 Class D Digital Power Amplifier Board AMP | eBay
Or you could build your own small 'Chip Amp'. I'm also guessing you have two speakers (stereo) and so need a stereo amplifier.
Have a browse through the Class D forums and also the Chip amp forums. That should get you some ideas.
Is this also a good one. This one is on a Dutch website meaning it will get to me quicker.
bol.com | Skytronic Stereo Versterker met 2 Microfooningangen - 400W
Well, we don´t know where you are.Is this also a good one. This one is on a Dutch website meaning it will get to me quicker.
Always fill Country/City info on your user profile, often answers depend a lot on where you are.
I indeed have 2 speakers. Does a stereo amplifier give directional sound?
A stereo amplifier drives both speakers independently giving normal stereo reproduction. Just like a normal hifi system.
I wouldn't like to say how good or otherwise that amplifier is.
ok i'll shut up now.
You're right - not sure the OP understands what your advice means though.
Turk 182, whilst some soundcards will drive a speaker, it will be at very low levels (I drive speakers direct of the sound card output for T/S params with my audigy II ZS) and yes if he has connected as you said, it will be even worse than if properly earthed.
The reality is he is going to need an amp of some description to get any decent levels, even if he does wire it up with tip to one chanel, ring to the other, and earth to both
The one exception may be the original soundblaster 16 which actually had an amp on board, but most modern soundcards will struggle to get any useful output with a real speaker, and I would hazard a guess that some may not be very happy at all
Tony.
The reality is he is going to need an amp of some description to get any decent levels, even if he does wire it up with tip to one chanel, ring to the other, and earth to both
The one exception may be the original soundblaster 16 which actually had an amp on board, but most modern soundcards will struggle to get any useful output with a real speaker, and I would hazard a guess that some may not be very happy at all
Tony.
although one connection is obscured in the picture you can clearly see the ground is not connected so i don't know how his laptop output is going to react to the two hots being connected across a speaker.
How do I connect the earth then? Do I put that one onto both?
You have three wires in that lead. The braid is a common ground and the other two are left and right channels.
So connecting the braid and one wire to the speaker will give one channel, and swapping just the wire for the other one will give the other channel.
Connecting the speaker across the two wires (braid floating and not connected) will give a weird signal that is the difference between the left and right channel content.
If the audio was in mono then there would be no difference between channels and so no audio would be heard in the speaker.
So connecting the braid and one wire to the speaker will give one channel, and swapping just the wire for the other one will give the other channel.
Connecting the speaker across the two wires (braid floating and not connected) will give a weird signal that is the difference between the left and right channel content.
If the audio was in mono then there would be no difference between channels and so no audio would be heard in the speaker.
You have to leave the other wire floating which would give you just one channel. It still will not be loud enough.
You also can't connect them together directly to sum the channels... it doesn't work like that for what are termed 'low impedance' outputs.
You need the amplifier.
You also can't connect them together directly to sum the channels... it doesn't work like that for what are termed 'low impedance' outputs.
You need the amplifier.
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