Arduinerd
Offline
Berkeley, CA

I made a powered speaker from an old toolbox, along with my DMG is the cheapest music setup ever (or is it?...)

Details of the project are at the flickr link (below), but at the heart of it is a $8 amplifier from Adafruit which works great for these super cheap powered speaker setups. You can get the speakers for like $20 at Target or Amazon. Not super loud but has better base than most mp3 amp/speakers I've had/tried and with a little soldering you can make the thing yourself. I use a rechargable battery but I tested it using 3 AA batteries and it works fine. The amplifier is a class D amp but sounds great and is very efficient.

-Arduinerd

Flicker Link

katsumbhong
Offline
Taichung, Taiwan

Dayum!

SurfaceDragon
Offline
USA

Thats a pretty rad setup!

I know I gonna sound like a total dick saying this but I think you might have misnamed your thread. Shouldn't it be - PROBABLY THE CHEAPEST POTRABLE CHIPMUSIC SETUP EVER because the truly cheapest "music" setup is your voice and/or something made out of 100% free/found materials.

Another totally free thing that you can add to your setup to make it even more rad would be an LSDJ+ .ips graphics patch for LSDJ4_7_3 - http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/4916/ … atch-more/

But seriously that is an awesome setup you got there.

Play it Loud!

Last edited by SurfaceDragon (Apr 13, 2014 4:42 am)

tempsoundsolutions
Offline
TSSBAY01

you coulda stripped some speakers outta something for $0 wink but this is definitely a neat setup! you should do another with the goal in mind of making it as cheap as possible, but sound _great_...then if you enjoy the hunt and the prep, start making some for sale. hey, its a niche that if you put some flavor into it, you could make some neat setups to pass onto others and make a little money along the way. and hey, who knows, maybe people would turn to you with these setups if you can make em small and loud enough...making em sound loud but good/durable might be a challenge, but you should go for it.

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA

I'm surprised there isn't more of this sort of experimentation with different driver and amp circuits. I recommend making your own amp circuit from transistors instead of using an op-amp IC.

sleepytimejesse
Offline
Youngstown, OH

The craziest thing is this actually looks nice, too.

SuperBustySamuraiMonkey
Offline
Madriz, Supain

Im astonished by the existence of 8$ amplifiers. Should I build something for busking?

DeerPresident
Offline
South Korea

You want CHEAP? You want OG?
Step 1: Go find a boombox with a tape deck, possibly free anywhere in the world.
Step 2: Open it up and desolder the tapehead, and also the headphone jack.
Step 3: Connect the wires that used to be connected to the tapehead to the headphone jack.
Step 4: Close that shit up.

Plug your GB into the headphone jack, crank it up, and busk while some guy breakdances, forever!

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA
DeerPresident wrote:

You want CHEAP? You want OG?
Step 1: Go find a boombox with a tape deck, possibly free anywhere in the world.
Step 2: Open it up and desolder the tapehead, and also the headphone jack.
Step 3: Connect the wires that used to be connected to the tapehead to the headphone jack.
Step 4: Close that shit up.

Plug your GB into the headphone jack, crank it up, and busk while some guy breakdances, forever!

Suddenly that fake old-timey stereo in the living room might have a purpose if my wife will let me crack it open...

DeerPresident
Offline
South Korea

You might need to disconnect the motor that drives the tapedeck and press down play to get it to work (sorry, forgot a step, i guess).
Basically it's a free STEREO practice amp, totally worth it!

Another Castle
Offline
Pittsburgh

I feel like this is a challenge to make the cheapest setups possible...

Whether or not it is, I accept.

8BIT KIDD
Offline
New Zealand

yeas let the challenge begin!!!

Sesska
Offline
France (au milieu)

Suddenly that fake old-timey stereo in the living room might have a purpose if my wife will let me crack it open...

looks like quite a lot of them will get tortured around the world in the next future smile

great tip!!!

rot
Offline
UK / FR

Yes! Nice setup!

I went through a kindof obsessive phase of building super cheap 12v soundsystems, sooo im gonna hijack this thread to show them off.

first one i made, £3 30W car amp and speakers from a bin, 12v recycled alarm battery

another one, £20 sure electronics amp 200W and some £5 car speakers from a car boot sale. in an old furniture drawer.

i found two really heavy 12 inch drivers and just had to build cabinets for them. got all the wood from a bin. i run them off a 300w car amp and old car batteries from a recycling centre. this is such a big & heavy setup, but i can just about fit in all in a bike trailer and cycle it about

one day ill get round to going busking with them & lsdj. chip street party ftw

Sesska
Offline
France (au milieu)

cool, i've ever wanted to give a try to the car amp concept to make some punky DIY double-bass amp for our street busking with the band...

but i'm just a lazy thing, so I keep on ruining my fingers playing loud acoustic...

SuperBustySamuraiMonkey
Offline
Madriz, Supain
DeerPresident wrote:

You want CHEAP? You want OG?
Step 1: Go find a boombox with a tape deck, possibly free anywhere in the world.
Step 2: Open it up and desolder the tapehead, and also the headphone jack.
Step 3: Connect the wires that used to be connected to the tapehead to the headphone jack.
Step 4: Close that shit up.

Plug your GB into the headphone jack, crank it up, and busk while some guy breakdances, forever!

I always thought you need an amp for that to work? I never did a chipboombox because of that