10 ms·

Homebrew Bluetooth Headphones

218 points by cunidev 4y ago

bullen 4y ago
I stocked up on Urbanears Plattan 2 during the last sale, they are both bluetooth and cable headphones but you need to buy the cable yourself, I bought kramer cables. For $25 a pair they are easily the best headphones I have ever had, my last pair was a Plattan 1 that lasted 8 years!!! (cable broke once)
- public_defender 4y ago
  Oh wow, the price has gone down a lot. These are great headphones, but they're a relatively small on-ear profile. They would have me as a customer forever if they had an over-ear model. The best thing about them in my opinion is that they are very easy to take apart and clean.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  I used to have a Plattan myself in 2010, but had to sell it because the pads felt painful when wearing them longer than 30 minutes… A lot of people posted reviews with the same issue. Quite a shame, because I really like the design.
  - bullen 4y ago
    My trick is to 1) bend them outwards to lessen the pressure and 2) reuse the pads that soften over time.
nyanpasu64 4y ago
How practical is homebrew open codec support, like building Bluetooth headphones or receivers with software/hardware Opus decoding support (as opposed to conflict-of-interest proprietary codecs that the Bluetooth standards authors add to the standards, then profit from license fees)?
- rollcat 4y ago
  Is Opus optimized for latency, battery usage, and widely supported in common hardware? I don't mind paying a royalty fee if it affords me a better experience when actually using the product.
  - themerone 4y ago
    Opus is low latency and higher quality than the other music formats. It was designed to be suitable as a low delay voip codec. I've never seen comparisons to the proprietary Bluetooth codecs, but those are always implemented in hardware so it is impossible to do. I don't know about battery usage, but Opus is simple enough to be implemented on micro controllers, so it should't be too bad.
  - nyanpasu64 4y ago
    Opus is one of the lowest-latency frequency-domain codecs out there (not including ADPCM-style codecs), as well as being the best-sounding voice and music codec at a given bitrate, beating MP3 and AAC (excluding ultra-low-bitrate voice, and recent neural codecs). In listening tests, LC3 is only better than Opus when Opus is deliberately misconfigured to compress audio badly. Looking around for battery usage, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21982964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21982964 claims LC3 is no simpler to decode in specialized low-powered hardware than Opus, while https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=118692.msg979046#msg979046 https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=118692.msg979046#msg9... claims LC3 is "basically Opus with a few marginal gadgets thrown in". In that case, I think the only reason Opus couldn't be as widely supported as LC3 is that there isn't money to be extracted from the system.
    - rollcat 4y ago
      Thanks for the explanation. So it's a different situation from e.g. hardware H264 decoders, where the extra silicon makes a dramatic difference. Then the main concern remains interoperability. I'd still pay a bit more to make sure my friend's random device has a better chance of working at all. Bluetooth is already a tire fire so I wouldn't like to add another layer of interop issues.
rob_c 4y ago
Very cool, would be curious to know battery life Vs audio quality but very impressive non the less
- happyopossum 4y ago
  Battery life is listed at 5 hours, which to be frank, is horrible. 25-40 hours is pretty common with big over-ear headphones these days, even ones with ANC…
  - rob_c 4y ago
    > 25-40 hours is pretty common with big over-ear headphones these days... well yes... But frankly given low power btle with audio chips exist it's related more to chip/software than say the battery type...
melkael 4y ago
The instructions recommend to print with ABS. Any reason for not going for PETG or PLA ?
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  Higher glass transition temp so can be left in the car, and less prone to break when dropped?
- Saris 4y ago
  PLA and PETG start to soften at lower temps, 60C and 80C respectively. But ABS is up at 105C, so it won't have any chance of deforming in a hot car or something. I still think 80C on PETG should be high enough, and it's a much nicer material to print.
pxx 4y ago
> They sound awesome – on par with pairs that cost around $200 I don't know. The problem is that $20 pairs often sound on par with ones that cost around $200. But the ones that cost around $200 have much better ANC than the $20 ones. You can definitely tell on an airplane. And these don't have noise cancelling at all.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Bluetooth audio isn't fantastic in my experience. I prefer wired if I'm looking for sound quality. Still you'll enjoy something you made yourself more than the $200 version you just bought.
  - marcinzm 4y ago
    >Still you'll enjoy something you made yourself more than the $200 version you just bought. That's not the case for me. I enjoy the process of making something but in terms of day to day usage I enjoy the better version more.
    - iasay 4y ago
      Similar. I enjoy the effort someone else has put in to work all the bugs out.
  - codethief 4y ago
    > Bluetooth audio isn't fantastic in my experience. I had been thinking the same but then I still gave it a shot and bought some new headphones with Bluetooth (and aptX support), in my case the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2 (in-ear), and the Sennheiser Momentum 3 (over-ear). Turns out they can easily compete with (or are even better than) the cable-bound ~$250 in-ears I used to have.
    - bosie 4y ago
      Does the momentum 3 sound better when you use the cable for it?
skeyo 4y ago
The homebrewer in me was like "what do headphones have to do with brewing"
- zdw 4y ago
  Or with installing open source software on a Mac.
- quercusa 4y ago
  Or Hebrew...
dijonman2 4y ago
I really want long range bluetooth, from one side of my house to the other. I like to walk around while on calls and range sucks. I looked into bodypack solutions but it’s receive or transmit, can’t find transceivers.
- infofarmer 4y ago
  If you're looking into bodypack, why not just carry the phone around? Spotty Wi-Fi / 4G coverage?
  - dijonman2 4y ago
    This is for calls where dial in is not permitted.
    - vladvasiliu 4y ago
      Are you not allowed to use Teams / Zoom / whatever on the phone? I used to do this before I had wireless headphones.
    - mikestew 4y ago
      And to support what sibling said, I open the Teams app on my phone, not dial in, join the meeting and go walk the dog around the neighborhood. Unless you simply don’t have a smartphone (or an app for your meeting software), I can’t see how one would more simply solve your problem.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  If it's just for calls, look at DECT headphones. I have a Jabra model, don't know if they still make them. Coverage is great, I can walk around my parents' house, and even out in the garden, without loss of signal. They live in a hundred-year-old stone house. Sound quality is great for calls. Music is ok-ish. They don't have any kind of ANC. Another drawback is the big-ass base that for some reason requires a dedicated power cord.
  - 4y ago
DarthNebo 4y ago
I just wanted to be able to use 18650 cells in my headphones & never worry about battery life.
- xchaotic 4y ago
  These are overkill and way too heavy for headphones
  - DarthNebo 4y ago
    I don't mind them as long as the weight is balanced out with clamping force or higher up the band. There's even smaller sized cells which go into electric toothbrushes as well. The point is to have cells that can be sourced easily & replaced without much fuss which these LiPo packs do not enable.
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
  At a quick glance the hardware for this is compatible with Lithium Ion chemistry so go for it. Just need to make some minor mods to put a battery holder on. More specifically, just about any headphone with a LiPo (flat square) battery could be modified to accept an 18650. The charging voltages are the same, so you would just have to snip the old battery out and wire in an 18650.
  - DarthNebo 4y ago
    Yeah, I've seen a few TP4056 charging boards with Type-C as well. Will try retro-fitting them into my Crusher Wireless.
- joshspankit 4y ago
  I like the idea of a vertical mount in the earcups: If the battery dies you click it open, slide out the dead one, slide in a fresh one, click it closed, and listen for a bunch more hours
  - DarthNebo 4y ago
harha 4y ago
Small side note on Bluetooth: I regularly use four devices (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop) and I have two pairs of headphones (in ear and over ear). Since it’s 2022 and we have so much amazing technology all around us, these are the two things I’m missing: I’d like to be able to use any combination of these without pairing again and I’d also really like to stay connected while I’m listening to something or having a conversation. Is this really too much to ask for? Now the funny thing is that it doesn’t matter if I spend $20 or $200. I’ve heard AirPods may be better as long as you stay in the apple ecosystem, but that’s one constraint too much.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  It would be more interesting if we started threads about TFA instead of rehashing the same generic complaints about X just because X appears in the title.
  - harha 4y ago
    Ok let me rephrase that: can anyone explain why this common scenario doesn’t work and if there’s any way to solve this? Would a homebrew device running my own software help?
    - scarface74 4y ago
      I can’t imagine dealing with the shit show of BT outside of the Apple ecosystem in 2022. You’re not going to like the obvious answer - get into the Apple ecosystem and buy Apple headphones. They seamlessly switch between my iPhone, iPad and Mac. If I am watching something on my iPad and my iPhone rings, they automatically switch. If I start watching a video on my iPad and then start playing a video on my iPhone, they automatically switch. Not to mention if I’m using my AirPods with my AppleTV at night and my wife starts talking to me, I just take one side out and the TV pauses. Of course they work in just the opposite manner. If I put them in, audio switches to them. I’m not sure if auto switching from my watch. But since I can take phone calls on it anyway. It doesn’t matter as much. Also if I pair to any device connected to my Apple ID, all of my other devices automatically show them as an option - iPad, iPhone, AppleTV, Watch, Mac.
intsunny 4y ago
The whole bluetooth headhones situation is a little ironic. Us Linux types remember how long it took until the MP3 patents expired for us to stop having to add non-free repos everywhere and being treated as the ugly cousin because we couldn't support such a universal codec out of the box. Fast forward today, and we're back at square one because everyone and their mother wants some new codec to make bluetooth audio quality suck not so bad. (Bluetooth couldn't do better than SBC out of the box? really?) The only difference between yesterday and today is that, we Linux folks are much better at quickly enabling support for proprietary codecs out of the box.
terramex 4y ago
I have converted my old Beyer Dynamic DT 770 to Bluetooth [1] and used them daily for past 6 months and I recommend this BT module over what is listed on that website: https://www.gotronik.pl/odbiornik-bluetooth-50-audio-aptxll-qcc3008-przetwornica-5v-p-8185.html https://www.gotronik.pl/odbiornik-bluetooth-50-audio-aptxll-... It has 5V stepdown converter and Li-Po charger as well as amplifier integrated on board. Cheap USB-C Li-Po chargers lack neccessary 5.1kOhm pull-downs and therefore work only with USB-A->USB-C cables. Soldering them onto charger PCB is borderline impossible, while adding them to most USB-C sockets is fairly easy (usually there are free pads to solder 5.1k SMD resistor). You then connect 5V and GND from USB-C socket to BT module and it handles charging the battery that is connected to separate pads. I don't really understand why article recommends board without amplifier, I tried using CSR8675 board without one and it was waaay too quiet. With 500mAh battery salvaged from old BT speaker I get over 20h of loud playback, which is fine for me. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/r32ru2/yet_another_dt770_internal_bluetooth_conversion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/r32ru2/yet_anot...
- thatcat 4y ago
  Thinking of doing a similar mod to my shp9500. Have you tried pairing this with an android phone yet? I'm also curious how it sounds on aptx instead of aac.
- leobg 4y ago
  I like that the Bluetooth part on the board is blue.
  - vladcodes 4y ago
    I don’t like that it doesn’t contain any Viking runes tho
    - iampivot 4y ago
      TIL!
- userbinator 4y ago
thatcat 4y ago
Found a wired version https://www.instructables.com/DIY-3D-Printed-Headphones/ https://www.instructables.com/DIY-3D-Printed-Headphones/
- flas9sd 4y ago
  fyi, those are from the same person, see https://homebrewheadphones.com/build/ https://homebrewheadphones.com/build/
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
These look nice! I have also been making my own headphones. I recently posted a twitter thread with build instructions if anyone wants to make them. [1] Notable difference is that mine are simpler to build, though less integrated. I use an off the shelf bluetooth to 3.5mm adapter rather than one of those integrated boards (I did recently buy an integrated board to test out). The off the shelf bluetooth adapter just plugs in to the short 3.5mm cable I build in to the headphones, which has the advantage that you can make them wired headphones with a simple extension, which sometimes has its use. Anyway take a look! [1] https://twitter.com/TLAlexander/status/1550903550930067456 https://twitter.com/TLAlexander/status/1550903550930067456
- lostgame 4y ago
  I very much appreciate that your design incorporates the ability to use them wired as well. While I’m out/in transit, of course there’s nothing particularly terrible about Bluetooth. When I’m at home, however - I produce music a lot more than I consume it. I also mainly consume music at home on my record players anyway, which obviously I don’t use Bluetooth for. As any audio producer will tell you; the latency introduced be even the newest Bluetooth standards makes producing music in a DAW a frustrating experience at best. I love the ‘best of both worlds’ headphones with optional latency-free wired support. I can take them on the go and use Bluetooth on the bus, I can connect a wire at home; and produce in bliss. I would absolutely love to create my own headphones from the ground up sometime, choosing my drivers and cushioning carefully, and ideally modelling/3D printing my custom design, based on taking measurements of the shape of my head and size of my ears. (I prefer over the head headphones as even the most comfortable buds tend to hurt my ears after a short while.) Sounds like a fun summer project sometime. :)
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    Aww I’m glad you like the design! Feel free to use mine as a jumping off point, it’s all open source and I just want people to benefit however. Onshape is free and I’ve got like six different headphone designs in the Onshape design files linked in the thread. But yeah I use the wired mode a lot. On one of the headphones I got a TRRS splitter and added a microphone and I can plug the TRRS cable into my Xbox controller and use it as a gaming headset. It’s a very flexible system!
userbinator 4y ago
I believe the CSR chipsets have some programming tools available as well, so you can change things like the voice prompts to your liking (many of the cheap modules seem to come with the infamous "the Bluetooth device is ready to pair" meme sound) and adjust the device name.
tehwebguy 4y ago
This rules! I have one of this bluetooth chip but mine didn’t come with the breakout pre-soldered & I’m struggling to solder them myself, thinking I should try paste + heat gun. I believe you can also can change the name that the BT module broadcasts if you have an FTDI to USB cable (or something with UART pins like an Arduino). (You can also just change the “display name” on your iOS device bluetooth settings but it is just the name your device shows. I’m guessing this is doable on Android and everything else too.)
squarefoot 4y ago
Apologies for hijacking the thread. If anyone is interested in building high quality digital uncompressed and very low latency phones, speakers and other audio devices, I've found a while ago this doc about a pair of modules promising some impressive performance. http://www.vastera.com.tw/1/PDF/DIO-S003B.pdf http://www.vastera.com.tw/1/PDF/DIO-S003B.pdf Unfortunately so far I haven't been able to find any seller.
- djkoolaide 4y ago
  This would be a game changer as a DJ.

218 points by cunidev 4y ago

I stocked up on Urbanears Plattan 2 during the last sale, they are both bluetooth and cable headphones but you need to buy the cable yourself, I bought kramer cables. For $25 a pair they are easily the best headphones I have ever had, my last pair was a Plattan 1 that lasted 8 years!!! (cable broke once)

public_defender 4y ago
Oh wow, the price has gone down a lot. These are great headphones, but they're a relatively small on-ear profile. They would have me as a customer forever if they had an over-ear model. The best thing about them in my opinion is that they are very easy to take apart and clean.
aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
I used to have a Plattan myself in 2010, but had to sell it because the pads felt painful when wearing them longer than 30 minutes… A lot of people posted reviews with the same issue. Quite a shame, because I really like the design.
- bullen 4y ago
  My trick is to 1) bend them outwards to lessen the pressure and 2) reuse the pads that soften over time.

nyanpasu64 4y ago

How practical is homebrew open codec support, like building Bluetooth headphones or receivers with software/hardware Opus decoding support (as opposed to conflict-of-interest proprietary codecs that the Bluetooth standards authors add to the standards, then profit from license fees)?

rollcat 4y ago
Is Opus optimized for latency, battery usage, and widely supported in common hardware? I don't mind paying a royalty fee if it affords me a better experience when actually using the product.
- themerone 4y ago
  Opus is low latency and higher quality than the other music formats. It was designed to be suitable as a low delay voip codec. I've never seen comparisons to the proprietary Bluetooth codecs, but those are always implemented in hardware so it is impossible to do. I don't know about battery usage, but Opus is simple enough to be implemented on micro controllers, so it should't be too bad.
- nyanpasu64 4y ago
  Opus is one of the lowest-latency frequency-domain codecs out there (not including ADPCM-style codecs), as well as being the best-sounding voice and music codec at a given bitrate, beating MP3 and AAC (excluding ultra-low-bitrate voice, and recent neural codecs). In listening tests, LC3 is only better than Opus when Opus is deliberately misconfigured to compress audio badly. Looking around for battery usage, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21982964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21982964 claims LC3 is no simpler to decode in specialized low-powered hardware than Opus, while https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=118692.msg979046#msg979046 https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php?topic=118692.msg979046#msg9... claims LC3 is "basically Opus with a few marginal gadgets thrown in". In that case, I think the only reason Opus couldn't be as widely supported as LC3 is that there isn't money to be extracted from the system.
  - rollcat 4y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. So it's a different situation from e.g. hardware H264 decoders, where the extra silicon makes a dramatic difference. Then the main concern remains interoperability. I'd still pay a bit more to make sure my friend's random device has a better chance of working at all. Bluetooth is already a tire fire so I wouldn't like to add another layer of interop issues.

rob_c 4y ago

Very cool, would be curious to know battery life Vs audio quality but very impressive non the less

happyopossum 4y ago
Battery life is listed at 5 hours, which to be frank, is horrible. 25-40 hours is pretty common with big over-ear headphones these days, even ones with ANC…
- rob_c 4y ago
  > 25-40 hours is pretty common with big over-ear headphones these days... well yes... But frankly given low power btle with audio chips exist it's related more to chip/software than say the battery type...

melkael 4y ago

The instructions recommend to print with ABS. Any reason for not going for PETG or PLA ?

eurasiantiger 4y ago
Higher glass transition temp so can be left in the car, and less prone to break when dropped?
Saris 4y ago
PLA and PETG start to soften at lower temps, 60C and 80C respectively. But ABS is up at 105C, so it won't have any chance of deforming in a hot car or something. I still think 80C on PETG should be high enough, and it's a much nicer material to print.

pxx 4y ago

> They sound awesome – on par with pairs that cost around $200 I don't know. The problem is that $20 pairs often sound on par with ones that cost around $200. But the ones that cost around $200 have much better ANC than the $20 ones. You can definitely tell on an airplane. And these don't have noise cancelling at all.

willcipriano 4y ago
Bluetooth audio isn't fantastic in my experience. I prefer wired if I'm looking for sound quality. Still you'll enjoy something you made yourself more than the $200 version you just bought.
- marcinzm 4y ago
  >Still you'll enjoy something you made yourself more than the $200 version you just bought. That's not the case for me. I enjoy the process of making something but in terms of day to day usage I enjoy the better version more.
  - iasay 4y ago
    Similar. I enjoy the effort someone else has put in to work all the bugs out.
- codethief 4y ago
  > Bluetooth audio isn't fantastic in my experience. I had been thinking the same but then I still gave it a shot and bought some new headphones with Bluetooth (and aptX support), in my case the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2 (in-ear), and the Sennheiser Momentum 3 (over-ear). Turns out they can easily compete with (or are even better than) the cable-bound ~$250 in-ears I used to have.
  - bosie 4y ago
    Does the momentum 3 sound better when you use the cable for it?

skeyo 4y ago

The homebrewer in me was like "what do headphones have to do with brewing"

zdw 4y ago
Or with installing open source software on a Mac.
quercusa 4y ago
Or Hebrew...

dijonman2 4y ago

I really want long range bluetooth, from one side of my house to the other. I like to walk around while on calls and range sucks. I looked into bodypack solutions but it’s receive or transmit, can’t find transceivers.

infofarmer 4y ago
If you're looking into bodypack, why not just carry the phone around? Spotty Wi-Fi / 4G coverage?
- dijonman2 4y ago
  This is for calls where dial in is not permitted.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    Are you not allowed to use Teams / Zoom / whatever on the phone? I used to do this before I had wireless headphones.
  - mikestew 4y ago
    And to support what sibling said, I open the Teams app on my phone, not dial in, join the meeting and go walk the dog around the neighborhood. Unless you simply don’t have a smartphone (or an app for your meeting software), I can’t see how one would more simply solve your problem.
vladvasiliu 4y ago
If it's just for calls, look at DECT headphones. I have a Jabra model, don't know if they still make them. Coverage is great, I can walk around my parents' house, and even out in the garden, without loss of signal. They live in a hundred-year-old stone house. Sound quality is great for calls. Music is ok-ish. They don't have any kind of ANC. Another drawback is the big-ass base that for some reason requires a dedicated power cord.
- 4y ago

DarthNebo 4y ago

I just wanted to be able to use 18650 cells in my headphones & never worry about battery life.

xchaotic 4y ago
These are overkill and way too heavy for headphones
- DarthNebo 4y ago
  I don't mind them as long as the weight is balanced out with clamping force or higher up the band. There's even smaller sized cells which go into electric toothbrushes as well. The point is to have cells that can be sourced easily & replaced without much fuss which these LiPo packs do not enable.
dghlsakjg 4y ago
At a quick glance the hardware for this is compatible with Lithium Ion chemistry so go for it. Just need to make some minor mods to put a battery holder on. More specifically, just about any headphone with a LiPo (flat square) battery could be modified to accept an 18650. The charging voltages are the same, so you would just have to snip the old battery out and wire in an 18650.
- DarthNebo 4y ago
  Yeah, I've seen a few TP4056 charging boards with Type-C as well. Will try retro-fitting them into my Crusher Wireless.
joshspankit 4y ago
I like the idea of a vertical mount in the earcups: If the battery dies you click it open, slide out the dead one, slide in a fresh one, click it closed, and listen for a bunch more hours
- DarthNebo 4y ago

harha 4y ago

Small side note on Bluetooth: I regularly use four devices (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop) and I have two pairs of headphones (in ear and over ear). Since it’s 2022 and we have so much amazing technology all around us, these are the two things I’m missing: I’d like to be able to use any combination of these without pairing again and I’d also really like to stay connected while I’m listening to something or having a conversation. Is this really too much to ask for? Now the funny thing is that it doesn’t matter if I spend $20 or $200. I’ve heard AirPods may be better as long as you stay in the apple ecosystem, but that’s one constraint too much.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hombre_fatal 4y ago
It would be more interesting if we started threads about TFA instead of rehashing the same generic complaints about X just because X appears in the title.
- harha 4y ago
  Ok let me rephrase that: can anyone explain why this common scenario doesn’t work and if there’s any way to solve this? Would a homebrew device running my own software help?
  - scarface74 4y ago
    I can’t imagine dealing with the shit show of BT outside of the Apple ecosystem in 2022. You’re not going to like the obvious answer - get into the Apple ecosystem and buy Apple headphones. They seamlessly switch between my iPhone, iPad and Mac. If I am watching something on my iPad and my iPhone rings, they automatically switch. If I start watching a video on my iPad and then start playing a video on my iPhone, they automatically switch. Not to mention if I’m using my AirPods with my AppleTV at night and my wife starts talking to me, I just take one side out and the TV pauses. Of course they work in just the opposite manner. If I put them in, audio switches to them. I’m not sure if auto switching from my watch. But since I can take phone calls on it anyway. It doesn’t matter as much. Also if I pair to any device connected to my Apple ID, all of my other devices automatically show them as an option - iPad, iPhone, AppleTV, Watch, Mac.

intsunny 4y ago

The whole bluetooth headhones situation is a little ironic. Us Linux types remember how long it took until the MP3 patents expired for us to stop having to add non-free repos everywhere and being treated as the ugly cousin because we couldn't support such a universal codec out of the box. Fast forward today, and we're back at square one because everyone and their mother wants some new codec to make bluetooth audio quality suck not so bad. (Bluetooth couldn't do better than SBC out of the box? really?) The only difference between yesterday and today is that, we Linux folks are much better at quickly enabling support for proprietary codecs out of the box.

terramex 4y ago

I have converted my old Beyer Dynamic DT 770 to Bluetooth [1] and used them daily for past 6 months and I recommend this BT module over what is listed on that website: https://www.gotronik.pl/odbiornik-bluetooth-50-audio-aptxll-qcc3008-przetwornica-5v-p-8185.html https://www.gotronik.pl/odbiornik-bluetooth-50-audio-aptxll-... It has 5V stepdown converter and Li-Po charger as well as amplifier integrated on board. Cheap USB-C Li-Po chargers lack neccessary 5.1kOhm pull-downs and therefore work only with USB-A->USB-C cables. Soldering them onto charger PCB is borderline impossible, while adding them to most USB-C sockets is fairly easy (usually there are free pads to solder 5.1k SMD resistor). You then connect 5V and GND from USB-C socket to BT module and it handles charging the battery that is connected to separate pads. I don't really understand why article recommends board without amplifier, I tried using CSR8675 board without one and it was waaay too quiet. With 500mAh battery salvaged from old BT speaker I get over 20h of loud playback, which is fine for me. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/r32ru2/yet_another_dt770_internal_bluetooth_conversion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/r32ru2/yet_anot...

thatcat 4y ago
Thinking of doing a similar mod to my shp9500. Have you tried pairing this with an android phone yet? I'm also curious how it sounds on aptx instead of aac.
leobg 4y ago
I like that the Bluetooth part on the board is blue.
- vladcodes 4y ago
  I don’t like that it doesn’t contain any Viking runes tho
  - iampivot 4y ago
    TIL!
userbinator 4y ago

thatcat 4y ago

Found a wired version https://www.instructables.com/DIY-3D-Printed-Headphones/ https://www.instructables.com/DIY-3D-Printed-Headphones/

flas9sd 4y ago
fyi, those are from the same person, see https://homebrewheadphones.com/build/ https://homebrewheadphones.com/build/

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

These look nice! I have also been making my own headphones. I recently posted a twitter thread with build instructions if anyone wants to make them. [1] Notable difference is that mine are simpler to build, though less integrated. I use an off the shelf bluetooth to 3.5mm adapter rather than one of those integrated boards (I did recently buy an integrated board to test out). The off the shelf bluetooth adapter just plugs in to the short 3.5mm cable I build in to the headphones, which has the advantage that you can make them wired headphones with a simple extension, which sometimes has its use. Anyway take a look! [1] https://twitter.com/TLAlexander/status/1550903550930067456 https://twitter.com/TLAlexander/status/1550903550930067456

lostgame 4y ago
I very much appreciate that your design incorporates the ability to use them wired as well. While I’m out/in transit, of course there’s nothing particularly terrible about Bluetooth. When I’m at home, however - I produce music a lot more than I consume it. I also mainly consume music at home on my record players anyway, which obviously I don’t use Bluetooth for. As any audio producer will tell you; the latency introduced be even the newest Bluetooth standards makes producing music in a DAW a frustrating experience at best. I love the ‘best of both worlds’ headphones with optional latency-free wired support. I can take them on the go and use Bluetooth on the bus, I can connect a wire at home; and produce in bliss. I would absolutely love to create my own headphones from the ground up sometime, choosing my drivers and cushioning carefully, and ideally modelling/3D printing my custom design, based on taking measurements of the shape of my head and size of my ears. (I prefer over the head headphones as even the most comfortable buds tend to hurt my ears after a short while.) Sounds like a fun summer project sometime. :)
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  Aww I’m glad you like the design! Feel free to use mine as a jumping off point, it’s all open source and I just want people to benefit however. Onshape is free and I’ve got like six different headphone designs in the Onshape design files linked in the thread. But yeah I use the wired mode a lot. On one of the headphones I got a TRRS splitter and added a microphone and I can plug the TRRS cable into my Xbox controller and use it as a gaming headset. It’s a very flexible system!

userbinator 4y ago

I believe the CSR chipsets have some programming tools available as well, so you can change things like the voice prompts to your liking (many of the cheap modules seem to come with the infamous "the Bluetooth device is ready to pair" meme sound) and adjust the device name.

tehwebguy 4y ago

This rules! I have one of this bluetooth chip but mine didn’t come with the breakout pre-soldered & I’m struggling to solder them myself, thinking I should try paste + heat gun. I believe you can also can change the name that the BT module broadcasts if you have an FTDI to USB cable (or something with UART pins like an Arduino). (You can also just change the “display name” on your iOS device bluetooth settings but it is just the name your device shows. I’m guessing this is doable on Android and everything else too.)

squarefoot 4y ago

Apologies for hijacking the thread. If anyone is interested in building high quality digital uncompressed and very low latency phones, speakers and other audio devices, I've found a while ago this doc about a pair of modules promising some impressive performance. http://www.vastera.com.tw/1/PDF/DIO-S003B.pdf http://www.vastera.com.tw/1/PDF/DIO-S003B.pdf Unfortunately so far I haven't been able to find any seller.

djkoolaide 4y ago
This would be a game changer as a DJ.