How cheap can you get? ~$60 assembled pair w/ bamboo enclosures - offer advice.

chicks · 2008-10-01 4:53 pm

loninappleton said:
The Psyclone looks just about the right size and shape and price.
But it looks like it needs to be docked to get power.

If it's anything like my Sonic Impact T24 (which I belive it is), it comes with a 24V power brick. It also has an Aux jack in the back, so would work as a PC speaker as is.

loninappleton · 2008-10-01 5:38 pm

http://reviews.cnet.com/speakers-sp...-psp/4507-6467_7-32136322.html?tag=mncol;psum

This is a specification page for the Psyclone Nodus whatevs.

Down below they show similar devices which may also be worth a look. I have no knowledge of gaming consoles and such so this is all new to me.

The functionality of a Sonic Impact T amp at $15 sounds like a good deal.

They mention thin bass with the Psyclone and no tone controls.

I prefer very little bass in an amp which the speaker builds would
take care of adequately.

chicks · 2008-10-20 5:29 am

squib · 2008-10-20 1:26 pm

Psyclone "signal processing"

Do you know if the Psyclone is implementing some kind of EQ? I just noticed the "features list" contains this:

"Signal processing to maximize sound."

It sounds like it might be some sort of bass boost, but I'm just guessing. If it does use EQ, it might be important to consider in your targeted FR for speakers.

chicks · 2008-10-21 9:24 pm

Re: Psyclone "signal processing"

squib said:
Do you know if the Psyclone is implementing some kind of EQ?

Possibly, but it can probably be bypassed, by eliminating the pre-amp/control board. Looking at the last pic above, the input connector at the bottom of the pic has Left, Right and signal gnd on the right side, and three control leads (yellow, green, blue). The green is the mute (0V normally, some voltage when muted). I haven't tested the others, but one is no doubt for the sleep mode, not sure about the other. Tying them to gnd or vcc through resistors should make the power amp standalone.

cafecombate · 2008-10-26 7:56 am

Have you noticed much of a difference sound-wise between the Sureelectronics board and the Psyclone?
I've been eyeing the tripath boards but don't really want to get into replacing capacitors just yet, and that price on Stootsi is so tempting. Although, I could potentially power the Sure board off my computer's PSU...

chicks · 2008-10-26 4:50 pm

cafecombate said:
Have you noticed much of a difference sound-wise between the Sureelectronics board and the Psyclone?
I've been eyeing the tripath boards but don't really want to get into replacing capacitors just yet, and that price on Stootsi is so tempting. Although, I could potentially power the Sure board off my computer's PSU...

I'm still working on bypassing the preamp/control board, and inputting directly to the power amp. The circuitry and speakers are exactly the same as the Sonic Impact T24 reviewed here:

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/sonic-impact-t24-digital-audio-system

There is the same slight hiss as the T24 with no input (quickly masked with input of any level), not sure if it's in the preamp or the TriPath chip.

I have been able to get the power amp to work when disconnected from the preamp, need to connect the green wire (mute) to signal ground, the yellow wire to V+ through a 330K resistor, and signal ground to power ground. The blue wire seems to be OK just floating. Still haven't put a signal through it, just finger hum so far.

The Sure Electronics board is very easy to use, since it has multiple connection options built in. OTOH, the Psyclone is extremely cheap, considering that you get the 14V @3.21A regulated power supply, a 5V regulator (on the preamp board), the preamp with remote control, the TriPath power amp, and two fullrange 3" speakers. It's also smaller than the Sure board.

BTW, I slapped a couple of DelSol cabinets together yesterday (using some 5/8" subflooring that I had lying around) for those 3" fullrange speakers. Haven't tuned for bass just yet, but sound is OK, comparable to the original cabinet. Problem with these speakers is the same as mentioned in the T24 review:

Audio skews very warm, even by SoundDock standards, lacking the treble response of Bose and better all-in-one systems, and the bass/treble controls that might modulate the effect.

Since I listen mostly to vocalists ( www.thepenthouse.fm ), these are hardly the ideal speakers for me.

Ironically, there's a chip on the preamp that has complete audio control circuitry, including tone control, but only the volume control portion is being used. FWIW, the build quality of the Psyclone is first rate.

chicks · 2008-11-03 5:15 am

Was able to bypass the preamp, and built some bamboo cabinets for the 3" fullrange speakers. Picture attached.

The amp is now housed in a bamboo "letter box" (Tuesday Morning, $10), which also serves as a stand for my Freecom MusicPal streamer and hides the cables between the MusicPal and the amp.

The speakers are built from two large carmelized bamboo cutting boards (T J Maxx, $10), and four small "bar boards" (Tuesday Morning, $1.99 ea).

So, total cost for Tripath stereo amp and two speakers with pretty high WAF, about $60. Not bad, sound is about the same as the Sonic Impact T24 (see above), with the bonus of higher WAF and stereo separation.

Just need to add grilles - bought a yard of speaker cloth from Joanne Fabrics today with the 40% off coupon in the paper, came to $6.00. Way more than needed for this project, but who knows, I have caught the bug, so maybe more to come.

The speaker cabinets are sized based on my JVC FS-7000 system. Nice looking solid cherry speakers. I figured these speakers would probably work OK in a cabinet of the same design, and they sound almost identical to the JVC's. I used a 1" X 4" Port Tube from Parts Express to match the port in the JVC speakers. Now just need to match the nice curved grille...

-=Germania=- · 2008-11-03 7:17 am

Nice Work!

Can we form Team Cheapo?

chicks · 2008-11-03 3:29 pm

-=Germania=- said:
Nice Work!

Thanks

-=Germania=- said:
...under $100 (a price that if they get knocked over or drinks spilled on them that I could live with).

Those bar boards would be perfect for your dorm room application

chicks · 2008-11-04 4:22 am

Grilles

Turns out the grilles were hiding in plain sight. The metal grille from the Psyclone proved easy to cut with tin snips, and fairy easy to shape, even with primitive tools (a hammer and bench edge). Doesn't look half bad:

quadtech · 2008-11-07 7:52 am

This inspired me to order 2 of those psyclones from stootsi.
Can you post the details of the mods you made to bypass the
preamp?

gychang · 2008-11-07 1:45 pm

Re: Grilles

chicks said:
Turns out the grilles were hiding in plain sight. The metal grille from the Psyclone proved easy to cut with tin snips, and fairy easy to shape, even with primitive tools (a hammer and bench edge). Doesn't look half bad:

have to check to see if Lowes has any, looks good, any acoustic effect before and after?

gychang

chicks · 2008-11-07 3:58 pm

Re: Re: Grilles

quadtech said:
This inspired me to order 2 of those psyclones from stootsi.
Can you post the details of the mods you made to bypass the
preamp?

Connect the green wire (mute) to signal ground, the yellow wire to V+ through a 330K resistor, and signal ground to power ground. The blue wire can be left floating.

gychang said:
have to check to see if Lowes has any, looks good, any acoustic effect before and after?

gychang

The grille appears to be acoustically transparent. Here's a pic of the tinsnips I used. Don't remember where I bought them; years ago.

http://www.chicksolutions.com/dms1/100_1105.JPG

chicks · 2008-11-07 4:17 pm

BTW, the bass is lacking in the small JVC-clone cabinets. Probably would be better in the DelSol cabinets, or maybe a BIB, but this system is for a specific location in the house, so small and good looks (for WAF) were priorities over sound.

It wouldn't be too difficult to measure the volume of the Psyclone enclosure (seal holes and fill with water to measure), and build cabinets to its size and its reflex port dimensions.

I'm no expert (far from it), but would guess that EACH cabinet would need to match the full volume of the Psyclone's cabinet, not half its volume, since there's no interior divider in the cabinet. Not sure, though.

chicks · 2008-11-10 5:50 am

Final touches

I found that a 1X4 piece of wood worked pretty well as a form to bend the grilles around. It was exactly the right width, and just cut it to length. Takes a bit of hammering to get them perfectly flat, but it works eventually.

Also flirted with using fabric over a thin plywood frame (spruce plywood from my model airplane building days). Didn't look nearly as good, the wife says that these grills have a more "modern" look.

Here's the pair after a coat of lemon oil:

http://www.chicksolutions.com/dms1/100_1111.JPG

chicks · 2008-11-26 2:50 am

One last note - I did a direct A/B comparison today between the Sure Electronics T-amp and the Psyclone T-amp, using exactly the same source (OmniFi DMS-1 streamer playing Dinner Jazz Excursion dot com), into a pair of Minimus-7's and a PhaseTech PC-50 subwoofer.

The Sure amp sounded excellent at full volume, even as my ears started to bleed from the SPL. The Psyclone amp started to distort badly at ~80% volume. Both used the same 14V switching power block.

Something's odd, these should be exactly the same Tripath chip - I'll need to take the heat sink off and scrape off the thermal compound on the Psyclone amp to check its part number, something I won't be doing soon, but need to figure this out...

chicks · 2008-11-26 3:59 am

Well, there's a MZ-01E chip on the back side of the power amp board:

http://www.prema.com/pdf/audio_e.pdf

MZ-01 is an Integrated Circuit of Speaten filter, which enhances liveliness of sound quality. Any musical instruments have really rich sound. And you can hear the rich sound touching your ear to the instrument’s body. MZ-01 can pull out this hidden rich sound.

It's supposed to have the MaxxBass chip, I thought Maxx made their own chips???

Hmmm, time to find the inputs to the Tripath chip and cut and reroute some traces...

chicks · 2008-11-26 4:51 am

OK, four traces cut, two wires installed, and now bleeding eardrums without distortion, just nice, clear Tripath-driven sound!

quadtech · 2008-11-28 4:56 am

pics of this mod plzz...

How cheap can you get? ~$60 assembled pair w/ bamboo enclosures - offer advice.

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