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Homemade iPod Hi-Fi mini
Simon Clement writes "Decided to add to the Apple product line with the iPod Hi-Fi mini. Here's the web page detailing its features, and there's also a link to a Flickr set showing how to build your own."
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Until Apple pulls that page?
...or was the article lacking any significant text? It gave me no clue of what he have done, expcet for hollowing out a old MAC, adding an amplifier and such. What amplifier? How did he interface to the iPod? Does the thing control the iPod, or just output the sound?
I guess the latter, that it is just a fancy set of speakers with a 3.5mm jack to connect it to any portable equipment with a headset output. It's not really innovative even. What would have been innovative was if he'd made a interface to control the iPod. As far as I know, that is not so straight forward, and you'll need a bit of electronics skills, and you'll probably have to write a program for a microcontroller to do the communication...
But as he have done it? Worthless. And TFA gives little or no information on it.
Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
I disagree. The article summary made absolutely no sense, so the GP was correct to complain as the error went beyond minor quibbles over abstruse grammatical niceties.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A novel idea, but probably not the best-sounding things in the world. You will notice the tweeter is behind solid plastic of the faceplate. If I recall there are ventilation slots under the rim on the front, but not significant in an audio application. You could improve it by incorporating a fixed equalizer circuit to compensate for the loss of high frequency blocked by the case.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
Speakers tend to sound better the more emotional attachment we have to them. The more reviews read finding out from somebody else how we shoudl think, our brain tells us that these speakers sound great. Well, that and pumped up bass. One of the many aspects of the psychoacoustic effect. And stereo equipment reviews know it. /offtopic
:)
These homemade jobbies look cool as heck. More than functional for background music. Which is all the iPod is for anyway. Def: background music. Music that is listened to while paying attention to another task, eg exercising, talking, or cleaning the house. These are obviously not suitable for critical listening, but then nearly all stereo equipement made these days are not suitable for this task. Although my brain tends to enjoy Martin Logans.
-FlynnMP3
Um, since the setup in question is a speaker, I'd say anyone who builds it will probably listen to it.
I'm not 'in the know' on the quality of his speakers, but the Sonic Impact amp alone makes this a hi-fi rig. If you haven't tried one yet, you're really missing out. I have one attached to a pair of Ascend Acoustics HTM 200s. Others in the audio world have used that $20 amp to drive speakers in the $10,000 range with surperior results.
TPJ - Founder, The Amazon Basin
This is a damn neat hack. Yes, it's probably not as high-quality audio as a set of pro-grade speakers costing hundreds of dollars, but you're listening to an iPod full of compressed, lossy songs, so stop whining. This is a fun way to recycle old hardware cases (unless you have some other pressing need for a Macplus case, perhaps?) into a piece of high geek-factor functional art. It's right up there with the people fitting miniITX boxes into old NES cases and so on.
In other words, quit hating. This took imagination and engineering, and that deserves a bit of respect in my book.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Sigh... Frankly, I couldn't care fewer.
I have been setting up a new site reviewing all of the different iPod Speaker Systems. We have been looking at iPod Alarm clocks, iPod Boom boxes, and portable iPod Speaker systems. All reviews and input are welcome!
It is possible that this comment will get moded down but I am only letting people know about the site so that we can increase awareness and reach that critical mass so that the site becomes a useful resource for people. All useful and big sites started out as small sites. All comments are welcome and if you have used any of the speaker system please post your experiences and thoughts.
http://ipodspeakerreviews.com/
Dr. Retarded Check out what they have done now.
You want a real speaker system for your iPod?
Build this portable ipod speaker
Not including MDF for the enclosure and some of the misc electronics(who doesn't have a pile of spare LEDs), it cost about $200 to build.
It's only a bit heavier than a boombox, lasts ~4 hours on full volume(deafening) with the specced battery, over 8 hours at a normal volume, and can charge your ipod(or anything else with a cigarette lighter charger). Unsuprisingly, it also uses a Sonic Impact t-amp, they kick ass for their size/cost.
...in understanding how to turn a NES controller into an mp3 player like some guy did earlier this year. While it was cool, it too was lacking a serious walkthough in how he did it. I only mention it because here I sit with a NES controller and a screen less iPod nano.
Jonathanjk.com
What a great use for old Macs!
Very creative.
I would love to do this but can't bring myself to destroy my Mac Color Classics.
I would also have put an ipod dock on top of the unit.
All of you whiners tell me if you went to your friends place and he had one of these you wouldn't drool over it, even if it didn't sound like a Bose.
I'm not sure about the dimensions, or if it would fit, but if the speaker jack was set up such that you put your iPod in the disk slot it hooked it up... man, thats like pr0n.
It's a better iPod boom-box. I built mine in an old guitar amp cabinet. podzuma plans
'Nature's got a way, brothers, of scraping the bowl'
On The Register's hardware page there is a review of a valve amplifier for the iPod. I checked out the valve number and apparently, to those of us who grew up with Mullard (later Philips) numbers, it's an ECC88. That makes it a double triode.
..... I suppose they could be inverting the phase to one channel using a transformer, re-inverting it at the speaker by reversing the connections and bridging the subwoofer between the two channels to give a "sum" signal. AMI stereo juke boxes used that sort of wiring scheme {except they didn't need a transformer at the input, since the left and right coils of the pickup are electrically separate: four wires, not three}. AMI and Rockola were using valves long after Wurlitzer and Seeburg had switched to transistors.
So how are they running three speakers from it? Assuming the valve is not just for show
I personally think digital sources and valves don't play well together anyway: they make the digital artefacts sound worse. Tried it, didn't like it, back to trannies -- at least they disguise the "digitalness".
And the ready-made amplifier module this guy used is just completely cheating! At least he could have done something like bridge together a pair of TDA2030s for each channel {they're just op-amps, except these ones will source or sink an ampere or so without batting an eyelid} and used yet another 2030 to make a self-resonant switch-mode supply for the iPod.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Something tells me he'd be more confused by computer sitting in front of him then the text on it's screen.
Collector's Edition
A link to a rather small scale hardware hack... When did digg start looking like slashdot?
It just ran out of bandwidth. For those of you who don't know everything about .Mac, they recently put bandwidth restrictions in place. That account's monthly data limit was exceeded by all the Slashdot traffic.
I think I saw one of these at the Bi Mon Sci Fi Con.
I can't not tell from the images what drivers are used, but I wonder what quality they are. I've seen very few neo tweeters that test well, and this does not appear to be one of them, however, I could be in error in terms of the driver quality.
What is most suspect is that this tweeter probably crosses over at 3khz or so, and there is a good deal of space between the woofer and tweeter which introduces comb filtering at these frequencies.
I also wonder what kind of crossover is used. I think special care would need to be taken to keep the woofer out of breakup nodes and the tweeter away from low end distortion with the drivers used.
MP3s are not high fidelity by any measure of the word! If it can't convince me that it's a live performance, it's NOT "hi fi".
"iPod" + "HiFi" = oxymoron Unless you're playing songs at an incredibly high (preferably lossless) bit rate, it's not worth using an iPod for a "HiFi" listening - this is especially blasphemous to audiophiles (which I am not, but I DO appreciate high-quality sound). For the gym, work, car, etc., it is acceptable. For a home system, it's just not worth the trouble to set it up when uncompressed CDs sound 10x better anyway. - Seth
Looks like the page is removed?
I got the following message.
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You have requested a page that is not currently available due to data transfer restrictions. If the page you requested is yours, click here for more information.
Next time remember to make it funny and I'll detect it just fine.
Shoudl be labelled, "Homade speaker enclosure made from ancient Mac..." From the picture I don't see that he made any mods to the ipod, so, literally, this has nuthing to do with "Homemade iPod Hi-Fi mini"
GET A CLUE!!!
I am assuming by this precedent I can attach an ipod to a pair of wall speakers via an amp i bought and call it the same thing...
Get me some real news!!!
Really, the only thing "tech" about this project is that the enclosures are recycled macs. DIY projects for self-powered speakers that can be plugged into an MP3 player, Diskman, Gameboy, ect, are a dime a dozen. I did enjoy looking at the pictures.
How long until my speakers make it onto the front page? Perhaps I should do a write-up on my pair of subwoofers that are as a large as washing machines?
No, I will not work for your startup
I'm selling this DIY kit for $99; my version has all white cables though. Contact me if interested.
But what's the sense of having a HI-FI mp3 player? .wavs on their Ipod .flac or .shn either.
compressed msuic is far from audiophile quality.
I don't know many people who are leaving
I don't own one but I didn't think they supported
So really it's rather laughable...
Oh I suppose you could use apples proprietary lossless encoder..
IN that case yes it may almost be a HI-FI player, does anyone know what the weighted rateing is of the Ipod?
You sure you didn't fail to put the irony in there in the first place?
Now mirrored at http://www.arawak.com.au/hifiplus/index.html
Absolutely no sense? you looked at it and saw only letters? Are you sure?
Both I an another poster spotted this wry humor in TFA at the same time and posted it... I wouldn't have posted this as a dupe if it had been present on the page I was reading. Since I am a slow reader (and poster), my post came in a full 5 minutes after the "original".
And now I am paying the price for my lighthearted attempt at humor. I got modded down TWICE as redundant while the guy who beat me to the post gets modded up +4 Funny!
There is no justice and my karma will suffer irreparable harm.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Have you heard one of these?
The sound is beautiful.
Jag pratar lite svenska.