MiniDSP chassis done, at last

Not strictly related to the speakers themselves, but as the miniDSP is a core component in driving the speakers I’ve noted this in the “beyond-econowave” posts:
For a long time the miniDSP was sitting bolted to a lump of wood, the “temporary” test chassis, with a cardboard box sitting on top of it to cover it. But this test chassis was quite noisy.

I’ve made a simple pine enclosure that makes up in solidity what it lacks in sophistication. It still containes the miniDSP and 2 simple OPA2134 based pre-amps to give me a bit of gain over the quiet miniDSP output, but I’ve got a 4 channel stepped attenuator (actually two stereo stepped attenuators ganged together) as a master volume, plus the software volume control as a fine volume pot.

There’s also a switch to switch over to the analogue input for “guest devices” .e.g. mates dropping over with DJ mixers or synths – so the sockets are on the front for easy access.
Made with bits of pine from the local hardware warehouse, and painted with leftover stain/varnish from my big speakers so it matches.
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ZOG low budget battery powered party blaster system

This system was started off cobbling together assorted spare parts that were in the garage gathering dust, to create a small battery powered (and partially solar) system that can fit in the boot of the car and be moved on a small trolley. But of course then I added some extra bits as well to get it how I liked it, so it’s not really assembled from “junk” any more, but it is all inexpensive low power use.

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A Catalogue of Woe – T.K. Bollinger and That Sinking Feeling

Been very much enjoying this gloomy Melbourne doom/blues/alterna outing from T.K. Bollinger and That Sinking Feeling – I ordered a prerelease copy via the bands Facebook page, and went for the deluxe version with the lovely hardback book.

Reminiscent of Nick Cave (without the deep register vocals) and Wreckery, the jagged, sparse instrumentation really hits the spot, with some genuinely catchy (albeit gloomy) songs that really stick in the brain like a gloomladen ear worm.
Great stuff.

web link: http://tkbollinger.com/product/catalogue-woe-album/

addition of wooden compression driver stands that hide the protection circuit.

With the woofer enclosures now looking pretty good it was time to tidy up how the compression driver is supported, and tidy away the LPAD and protection circuitry.
I got some small pine boxes of the right size (from ETSY seller HIPROGRESS. I stained this the same colour as the speaker boxes, and got some self adhesive 4.5mm neoprene sheet from Clark Rubber to act as vibration damping, and protect the finish. This acts as a nice firm bed for the compression driver.

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