Yes! It works perfectly for me though, it's still small enough to throw in the back of my car for parties, and can reach very very high volumes without losing its composure or distorting, but I can still set it in front of my couch at home and listen to music at normal volumes and be satisfied. Can't really say the same about my weak water bottle sized portable speaker though.
but different purposes, build something that suits your needs best.
My desktop PC's hooked up to an Altec ATP3 system.
Two stalks and a sub on the floor under the desk.
It was the best sounding system to me at Best Buy at the time, way better than those Creative and Bose systems.
Cranked up, it sounds great, like a decent home system.
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Reminds me a bit of my parent's Klipsch Promedia 2.1 desktop system. I just replaced the subwoofer's foam surround for them, surprised it held up for 13 years. Never been a fan of 2.1 systems but for the $100 they paid for it I think it sounds alright. Lots of power for a desktop, that's for sure.
that's extremely good frequency response for such a tight vertical window. I wonder if large boomboxes (sealed and vented) can be made with well-braced 6mm Baltic birch plywood ? - 9mm should do - things could get heavy fast.
here's a carrier and two boxes for a cheap 5" fullrange built for me by a good cabinet maker - far too heavy. I think maybe a mono boom box with neo magnet woofer would work. Even a fullrange 12" as a 3rd order sealed box with series capacitor. But would be too heavy to carry for an old (70) decrepit guy like myself
https://i.imgur.com/lVsW9CG.jpg
What speakers and amp did you use? How did you make the cabinet? Is it fed by a phone? media player? how about battery ?
If would be fun to have some real kick and somehow keep things under say 10lb
here's a carrier and two boxes for a cheap 5" fullrange built for me by a good cabinet maker - far too heavy. I think maybe a mono boom box with neo magnet woofer would work. Even a fullrange 12" as a 3rd order sealed box with series capacitor. But would be too heavy to carry for an old (70) decrepit guy like myself
https://i.imgur.com/lVsW9CG.jpg
What speakers and amp did you use? How did you make the cabinet? Is it fed by a phone? media player? how about battery ?
If would be fun to have some real kick and somehow keep things under say 10lb
Some of the Panasonic and Pioneer "ghetto blasters" had almost the same sound quality as home systems, bass that went right down into the basement and surprisingly good midrange... although, being used mainly outdoors, they really didn't have great highs.
Since you are a teenager, you've also missed seeing the whole audio scene go for a crap somewhere in the 1990s... If you ever get to hear a Marantz receiver hooked up to some Klipsch Heresy speakers, on good classic rock and roll you will understand in a matter of a couple of minutes. Things were just so much better and so much simpler back then.
My Panasonic boombox - RX-5600 actually has "real" tweeters in it, not those crappy piezo things found in other boxs.
And it spits out plenty of highs.
Has bass, treble and even a loudness contour switch!
I did some "mods" to it a few years ago - namely a string of white LED's hidden, and reflected down onto the tuning dial and the VU/signal meters.
Without having a photo to add, it sure looks "sexy" at night.
Oh how I miss those ... But they just up and disappeared about 15 years ago.
The ones now available are precious, and going for BIG bucks now.
I got mine for nothing - customer abandoned it in my shop, just needed a new amp IC.
It's pristine otherwise, but I threw in new cassette belts and some light mods besides the LEDs. - and brought the thing home.
Originally sold in 1981 for about $479 - I've seen them NOW for upwards of 1-2 grand.
I know the old blasters bring big bucks... But I was thinking tone controls and loudness settings, specifically. There's so many features that have vanished...
Indeed!
To all those "youngsters" out there, they never knew what a ganged bass or treble control was......or what a contour control was...... or in the case of Marantz, a multiplex control was, or even what it means.
Fm "capture ratio"? - what's that!
I'm not against simplicity mind you, in fact I believe it's got its merits, if implimented intelligently in the right places.
For instance, in audio, the signal chain....from "input" to "output", the less components that the signal has to pass through, the less its disturbed, or distorted.
This was the basis for "direct coupling" of amplifiers, by eliminating those pesky capacitors between stages, be it tube or solid state.
And every transistor junction, in its own way, adds a tiny bit of its own "personality" as the signal passes through it...
Yet, the masses adore the use of IC chips today... with the signal passing through dozens of junctions before getting to your ears.
And I don't give two snots how much they've evolved.
A simple 2 or 3 low noise transistors, compared to a 5532 or TL072 chip, can perform the needed RIAA amplification with less problems.
I'm on a tangent here, heh.
But going back to the lack of features, I shake my head whenever I see some expensive "integrated" amplifier with a lousy single knob..... for volume.
Maybe a tiny LED to tell that its on...
On the other hand, those vintage receivers with a plethora of knobs and buttons also bug me - much too "busy".
Think Marantz. Quadraphonic.... it's no wonder the wives didn't get near them.
Or Crown's Panarama control...
I'm on a tangent here, heh.
Just a bit...
The silly thing is that all that control was once a selling point then suddenly it was being abandoned and simplicity became the new selling point... The factories were saving a ton of money, hauling in record profits and we ate it all up... Go figure.
Before it got wiped out in a house fire, my home brew preamp used to have two rows of 9 knobs for the EQ, plus Balance and Volume. It had switching for inputs and a clever switching trick for patching in two tape loops, one before and one after the EQ so we could make "corrected" mix tapes. My Ex used to spend hours sitting on a pillow on the floor working the knobs to get the sound exactly as she wanted it and then making some of the most incredible mix tapes on cassette for the car. So, in my case the WAF was never a problem.
My neighbour, different story ... His wife had a table radio sitting on the stereo stand, he used the big set, she used the radio.
But yeah, half of the features they tore out were actually useful. I see some of the tpa3116 mini-amps coming from China now have tone controls... so I bought a couple of them... very nice!
Thanks! Sad to say, although I haven't weighed it, I don't think it's anywhere near 10 lbs.
I didn't use bracing but I did use 3/4" thick birch plywood for my enclosures. The reason I used such thick wood though is because I'm using two 8 inch dayton audio reference woofers and my enclosure is ported. I tuned it to ~40 hertz and stuffed the box with polyfill. For the highs I used the dayton audio rst28f tweeters, I needed something that I could crossover low enough so I could prevent the woofers from breaking up at higher frequencies. I used two chip amplifiers, one 100w+100w for the woofers and another 50w+50w for the tweeters, and I have both of them running through a minidsp for my crossover and eq needs. For the source, I took apart a bluetooth receiver and hooked up the board inside to the boombox's power supply, so I'm using my smartphone for music. I had to use a step down so I could power it without frying it though. For the battery pack, I built a 5s2p 18650 pack so I'm thinking I'm getting something like ten hours of battery life at higher volumes. The nominal output is something like 18-19v I believe. Wasn't an easy project for me but was worth it.
Douglas, a few years back I also made a versatile switching "box".
It incorporated two seperate devices that I had, but combined into one chassis.
Eight knobs altogether - 4 for the switching, 4 for the SRS controls.
I needed to make it compact, short on space ya know.
First was a 3 way input/output line level selector, the other was a New Reality SRS sound enhancer.
It came out quite nice, and is handy for tape-to-tape dubbing or source-to-tape copying.
In addition, I can switch in the SRS enhancement if I listen to radio, CD, or records.
The SRS feature can be switched in and varied in depth and "space"(widening).
Here it is, the grey colored contraption among my technics stuff in the shelf rack.
It incorporated two seperate devices that I had, but combined into one chassis.
Eight knobs altogether - 4 for the switching, 4 for the SRS controls.
I needed to make it compact, short on space ya know.
First was a 3 way input/output line level selector, the other was a New Reality SRS sound enhancer.
It came out quite nice, and is handy for tape-to-tape dubbing or source-to-tape copying.
In addition, I can switch in the SRS enhancement if I listen to radio, CD, or records.
The SRS feature can be switched in and varied in depth and "space"(widening).
Here it is, the grey colored contraption among my technics stuff in the shelf rack.
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Nicely done.
I would put up pictures of my home brew but none of them survived the house fire, back in 1981... My neighbour decided to dump frozen french fries into boiling oil... took out both our houses.
This is my current system... Not much to see, all the magic happens in the HTPC on the bottom shelf.
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Thanks, I did actually, using the minidsp I was able to get rid of the treble hump and it sounds a little better now, it's a +-1.8 db response now.
Thanks, I did actually, using the minidsp I was able to get rid of the treble hump and it sounds a little better now, it's a +-1.8 db response now.
Nice.
Well, it is all black... did you try clicking on the thumbnails to enlarge them? On my monitor that looks a lot better.
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