8 ms·

De-smarting the Marshall Uxbridge

292 points by fanf2 2y ago

tlhunter 2y ago
Lately I've been wondering if there's a way to do this to Smart TVs. Personally, I like the name "stupify" better ;)
- rotifer 2y ago
  A year or so ago I bought a Hisense 65U88KM, which comes with Google TV. During the setup procedure it asked me if I wanted to enable the "smart" features, such as Google TV, the camera and microphone, or connect it to a network. I said no to all of them, and that was that. Now it just acts as a dumb screen for my Apple TV box.
  - Astronaut3315 2y ago
    I did the same with a Sony A80L, which also runs Google TV. I even uninstalled the bundled streaming apps for good measure, although I never see the home screen. It behaves like a monitor. I never see the TV UI unless I ask for it.
    - dexterdog 2y ago
      I find that most of those reset to some nonsense occasionally or whenever the power goes out. I make sure they have no internet connectuon, but I usually have to dig up the remote to get back to hdmi1 so my device interface will come back up. I accept the annoyance because I accepted the discount that they give to have all of the spyware crap on there that I am blocking. I wish they could sell something cheaper that is just a display, buy product managers will be product managers.
      - CharlesW 2y ago
        > I wish they could sell something cheaper that is just a display… The "smart" part is what makes TVs cheaper, since that's what opens the door to a higher CLV. People willing to put their money where their mouth is can still buy dumb displays: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/browse/Multimedia-Displays-Digital-Signage/ci/17761/N/4205668457 https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/browse/Multimedia-Displays-Di...
        dexterdog 2y ago
        Which is why I buy them and then cripple all of that stuff by not giving it a network connection.
    - RajT88 2y ago
      My LG could be configured to behave like this (and believe me, I am thinking about going that way). I have a cheap FireTV which cannot be made to behave this way. If you disconnect it from the internet, it will still require you to interact with the (slow-ass clunky) OS in order to select a different input. Your best case scenario with some of these smart TV's is the ones which run Android to replace the launcher. Possibly, this gets reset periodically, meaning you have to keep doing it. Apparently there's a few Fire devices which can be flashed with LineageOS - I might try researching that and see if it is doable. A FireTV stick with LineageOS would be the best case scenario.
- userbinator 2y ago
  Look up "universal scaler" boards.
- echoangle 2y ago
  What exactly would that do? Just select any video input, attach your preferred input device and never touch the TV remote again.
MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
This looks an EE‘s approach who hasn’t had a lot of exposure to speaker design. You need to consider Thiele/Small parameters of the chassis, enclosure volume, baffle design and a million other factors to design a proper crossover. You can’t just ltspice your crossover and call it a day. VituixCad would be a more appropriate solution. And then you actually have to measure! Replacing and amp and „smart“ crap is easy if there is an analogue crossover you can reverse-engineer, if it was just some DSP things get difficult quickly (unless its just a single broadband chassis, but even then…). And no, you can’t use pre-built „standard“ crossovers or some calculator on a website either. But other than that, nice that he saved some hardware.
- ipsum2 2y ago
  You seem to be very knowledgeable about this subject. I have some Google Nest Audio speakers that sound fantastic, but have the same problems as bluetooth speakers, and lack a 3.5mm input jack to convert into normal speakers. Do you have any recommendations on how to do this, for someone with minimal audio knowledge and some basic EE?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - liminalsunset 2y ago
    The Google Nest Audio speakers are kind of a special case. They only sound good because they use a sealed, extremely rigid cast aluminum sealed enclosure with a high excursion driver. The performance of these speakers with a regular crossover and amp will be poor, due to the low efficiency of the enclosure/small driver. To get around this, Google put in the TI TAS5825M smart audio amp. By measuring the speaker parameters through V/I measurement and a model, it drives the speaker in a closed loop way with far more power than it would actually be able to handle nornally to compensate for the resistance from the enclosure air pressure, and throttles to maintain the coil at a safe temperature. The chip also does DSP to compress the audio signal, cutting the peaks off the bass as needed when the volume is turned up so volume is maintained at the cost of bass. One way to explore could be to just feed I2S audio from an I2S ADC i.e. PCM1808 to the digital input of the amplifier. The processing is internal to the amp so theoretically you won't lose the tuning. However this may turn out to be a relatively annoying reverse engineering project with fine magnet wire involved. Note: I2S is different from I2C - the amp will likely have both. You will likely need to keep the original system around to program the amp over I2C (or capture the transaction and replay it) - otherwise you will likely get no audio. The "raw" audio performance of this device (just an amplifier connected directly to the internal speaker and dsp on the computer) is impressive, kicking out bass down to 40Hz. It will, however, not last long like that. Reports online are that these blow speakers easily even when used with the default amplifier. I would recommend that if 3.5mm input is desired, to replace them altogether with the IK Multimedia iLoud Micro Monitors. These have sound quality just as good as the Google at similar size, with the same DSP tricks, but have regular inputs and no smart features.
Mathnerd314 2y ago
I'm curious about price - sure, the speakers were free ($240 value), but I don't think printing up a PCB is cheap, and those are some pretty big capacitors.
- stavros 2y ago
  A PCB like that would cost around $1 each, if you got 10 or so, so it's not expensive at all. I don't know how much assembly costs, but I'd be surprised if the total was over $20.
- jdietrich 2y ago
  JLCPCB have changed the game. Five 2-layer PCBs of up to 100x100mm cost just $3.50 including global shipping. Things get more expensive if you stray from their standard specs, but you're still looking at just a few dollars per board. https://jlcpcb.com/ https://jlcpcb.com/ The biggest electrolytic caps in this circuit cost $3.29 each in qty 1, but they're fancy "audio-grade" Nichicon caps; a standard-grade capacitor of that size would cost you $1.68 if you want a Japanese brand, or as little as $0.36 if you can settle for a Chinese brand.
  - f1shy 2y ago
    And you can even order all or the SMD components soldered for less money that you can buy solder and other consumables for soldering never mind the time.
    - leoedin 2y ago
      I recently got 20 reasonably complex 4 layer gold plated pcbs assembled for about $10 a piece by JLCPCB. Maybe 20 items on the BOM, 50 parts total. It’s insanely cheap. 5 years ago when I was last regularly getting PCBs built it would cost 10x that. And it would be a really manual process - loads of emails back and forth. PCBway have managed to automate basically the whole process.
- beala 2y ago
  I think the biggest cost is labor. Dumpster diving for speakers and then spending dozens of hours in high skilled labor to replace the insides is actually hilarious. I wonder how much he'd charge a client for a project this size? Probably many thousands of dollars. But I can't knock a man for having a hobby. Clearly they're optimizing for fun and nerd cred, not cost.
gavinuhran 2y ago
I have this speaker and cannot believe how annoying the smart features are. I'll be talking on the phone in my apartment and the speaker will think I'm trying to prompt it. "SORRY. YOUR DEVICE IS NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. PLEASE CHECK YOUR BLUETOOTH SETTINGS AND TRY AGAIN." (at max volume!) It's unbelievable. I'm not an EE, but would love to know how I can disable these incredible unsmart features.
- emidoots 2y ago
  Return that crap and buy something like Audio Pro speakers instead
- seba_dos1 2y ago
  There's an article that tells you that. I believe it's linked somewhere above this comment.
  - bonzini 2y ago
    The article removes all the smart features (not just the annoying ones) and requires pretty serious knowledge of analog electronics. Probably it doesn't fit the bill for the parent comment.
    - dheera 2y ago
      I mean, it's a speaker in a box, so you could also just snip the speaker wires, ditch the circuit board, solder some extension wires, and plug it into an external audio amplifier box of your choice. If you go that route you don't really need much EE knowledge. (This is also only if you already have this box and want to reuse it. Otherwise I would just go to your next neighborhood garage sale and pick up some good speakers for $10)
    - seba_dos1 2y ago
      > and requires pretty serious knowledge of analog electronics If you want to understand the whole thing in depth, then yes, I guess so. However, at the end it just links to the already made project published at MIT license that you can simply replicate with barely any knowledge. It's an equivalent of self-compiling a software project after checking out its repo, which sure, may seem overwhelming if you never did that before, but ultimately it boils down to some reading comprehension and step following exercise.
mgaunard 2y ago
what exactly is the problem with smart speakers? Most people just want to stream Spotify
- netsharc 2y ago
  "We are delighted to announce an update to our smart speaker line: we are sunsetting the online services for this model. Your devices will be disabled in March 2025. They will no longer work, and please bring them to an electronics recycling center near you. You are eligible for a voucher to get a discount when you upgrade to a newer model."
  - mynameisvlad 2y ago
    This is pretty much word for word what has already happened at least once. Sonos at least reversed their decision to disable the devices when they sunset S1. They just made them incompatible with their current system but allowed people to download the old apps. Unfortunately, devices that were already marked for trade-in before they made the decision are still completely bricked.
    - lelandfe 2y ago
      "Sustainability is non-negotiable!" was my favorite platitude from their website at that time. As Sonos needlessly condemned 6 year old speakers to the landfill.
      - exe34 2y ago
        corporations are functionally psychopaths. they will say whatever you need to hear to spend money and they will do whatever it takes to maximise profit, even when it goes contrary to what they have said.
    - f1shy 2y ago
      I bought a Yamaha CD-N301, came with a web radio, where you could setup a user, and make an index of URIs with webradios. After that you could select the station from a menu in the front. 3 months after purchase, the service started costing 3 dollars per month. I only use the CD function now. I contacted Yamaha, the answer was “it still works, we never promised it would be forever free” PoS
Slava_Propanei 2y ago
Removing gay apps from electronics and automobiles. The future!
mysteria 2y ago
If you're going through all the effort to design a PCB have you thought about driving the I2S input digitally? I skimmed through the AD85050 datasheet and it has internal DSP functionality which would have been already tuned for the drivers and box by Marshall. The reason powered boxes sound decent despite their relatively cheap hardware is because of the extensive processing they have in the background to compensate for any hardware defiencies. As the AD85050 has a stereo I2S input there's a possibility for the actual crossover to be either done on the amp chip itself (with the same signal driving both channels) or done on the Amlogic SOC. The latter would be ugly as you would need another DSP chip on your board to do the crossover functionality, or perhaps you could program the AD85050 via I2C to add the appropiate low and high pass filters. A two channel A/D converter would work on the front end, as you could drive both channels with a single analog input to get a stereo I2S out with duplicate channels to drive the amp. A USB input would be much messier if you want true stereo using two speakers unless you plan on doing routing on the software side. With SPDIF you probably could get away with splitting the signal and using a SPDIF to I2S converter chip in each speaker, but you would still need some way to separate out the left and right channels. The AD85050 has mixing functionality via I2C which may help with that. And of course, all this might be more work than desigining an amp in the first place, and it really depends if you want to explore the analog or digital side of things.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  Marshall speakers, from my experience, has a brand sound signature, and that tuning is not very optimal for every genre of music. Replacing the DSP with a simpler amplifier may allow to get more detailed sound from the drivers and the box themselves and may create a more pleasant listening experience. From what I have seen, the drivers seem pretty full-size for that box, and any disturbing sound characteristic can be tuned with a simple equalizer. A more dynamic approach might create audibly weird sound profile if done wrong. Modern DSPs are magic, but I still prefer an audio pipeline where things show their deficiencies and not hide things real-time.
- f1shy 2y ago
  > The reason powered boxes sound decent despite their relatively cheap hardware is because of the extensive processing they have in the background to compensate for any hardware defiencies. I will not argue that that could be one ingredient, but a couple of months ago I did a toy for my kids, I bought decent speakers, placed them in a cheap plastic box, and was absolutely amazed bybthe sound quality. The amplifier is a sub 1 dollar class D bought in a Raspberry Pi shop. No processing at all. If the box is sturdy and sealed, and the speaker is good, is incredible what you can do.
05 2y ago
There’s a project to load OpenWRT onto LinkPlay A31 [0], might be easier than basically replacing the insides.. [0] https://github.com/hn/linkplay-a31 https://github.com/hn/linkplay-a31
kazinator 2y ago
> I liked it even though the sound reminded me of the “disco smile” (hollowed out mids), but I chalked that up to overly consumer-friendly default EQ settings. The much simpler explanation is that it has hollowed out mids because it's a Marshall.
- cue_the_strings 2y ago
  I'm completely unfamiliar with Marshall hi-fi equipment (that's kind of recent?), but their guitar amps are not really known for being inherently scooped. At least until the mid 70s, maybe even the JCM800 era, Marshalls were known for having more mids than their mainstream counterparts (Fender and Vox). Practically every guitar amp's "netural" settings are scooped to an extent, though. People like that sound and it's "traditional". Even when people play direct into a mixing desk, I find that they almost always scoop the mids a bit, it's simply what you associate with electric guitar.
  - kazinator 2y ago
    I really believe there is more to it. It is hard to even begin to like the non-scooped tone, even through forced exposure. The funny thing is that the traditional mid-scooped rock guitar sound actually sounds midrangey, and that becomes obvious in a mix with other instruments. In other words, the EQ curve (particularly of distorted guitar) is actually a "volcano crater" shape. The overall profile is midrangey, like a low-band telephone call that is limited to around 4-5 kHz. Frequencies above that are too dense with clashing harmonics and so tend to get substantially rolled off to eliminate harshness, and guitar speakers being basically "midwoofers" do that naturally to a great extent. The guitar mid scoop is actually a fairly narrow area. E.g. centered on around 700 Hz, with a bandwidth from around 300 to 1.6 kHz. This is the "volcano crater". What may be going on is that when we have narrow band sound limited to below 5 kHz, we need to crater it so it doesn't sound like an annoying honk. Otherwise the natural midrange in that 700 Hz area will overpower the lacking high end. I'm guessing that the guitar mid scoop could possibly improve the perceived voice quality in narrow band calls. However, the upper end of the midrange cut is critical; extending the cut into the 1.6 to 3.1 kHz area will make the tone utterly disappear, and the 3 kHz to 4 kHz particularly has to be there so the tone has "bite"; it is often boosted a little. Volcano with not too wide a caldera. (By the way, I'm aware there are styles and guitar tones with a lot of high end past 5 kHz.)
szundi 2y ago
Article suggests that complicated tools are annoying and not right to be that complicated. But one can argue, that if such complexity is actually needed to tackle tasks (like the multiplatform compilation of the Linux Kernel for example), then it is pretty obvious that in the optimal case the learning curve is at least in a linear relationship with the complexity. If given complexity is high enough to surpass the related learning time threshold of the given person then he/she/whatever is going to be annoyed for sure. There is no escape from this.
summeroflove20 2y ago
[dead]
munchler 2y ago
For those (like me) who are unfamiliar with this device: It looks like a Marshall amp, but is a 9" tall Bluetooth speaker.
jimnotgym 2y ago
Tangential question, I have a nice audiophile so and no speakers at the moment. I want some speakers for $low that have decent performance. I can build boxes (used to be a carpenter), but need a design and what look like expensive drivers and crossovers. Is DIY speaker construction actually a cheaper way of getting a top notch hifi, or should I just buy second hand?
- Blackthorn 2y ago
  What do you consider low price? For sheer quality, it's pretty damn hard to beat the price of Kali studio monitors.
  - jimnotgym 2y ago
    I'm really thinking of 'low enough that my wife doesn't kill me', which is a variable amount! Thanks for the Kali tip. They are a little more expensive in Europe, but still a possibility. I guess re DIY I'm looking for that mythical thing where it is still cheaper to do something yourself rather than buy it!
- alright2565 2y ago
  This website is a good starting point: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/Reviews/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/Rev... Click on the magnifying glass with an "A" to get to the advanced search to be able to filter by price.
- t-3 2y ago
  For a nice tower or woofer box, building your own is usually way cheaper than buying new but rarely significantly cheaper than scavenging or second-hand purchases. There are tons of designs, but in general just build based off the specs of your drivers and the area you'll be placing them and you'll be alright. For specialized types like electrostats, building your own is pretty much the only way to go unless you're ready to drop 10-20k on commercial offerings.
rasz 2y ago
>I was delighted, and immediately impressed by the sound quality. The low end was punchy and deep, much deeper than the modest dimensions led me to believe. The high end was crisp and detailed. Its amazing what a brand name does to ones ears, all of a sudden a small plastic box with SBC Bluetooth codec sounds great.
achr2 2y ago
I bought one of these Marshall speakers to use as a practice amp, only to find that the dsp latency is unusably bad. Maybe this is an option…
amelius 2y ago
Why did he replace the class D concept by a more power-hungry and heat-generating class B amplifier?
- eimrine 2y ago
  Are there any decent class D microscheme in dip casing?
309electronics 2y ago
Ah the classical Rakoit Linkplay series of modules! I have a arylic up2stream amp that also has one but its the A31 series. Pretty neat to know that its a full Linux computer on a little daughterboard running Linux. Just sad that they dont comply with the Gnu GPL for Uboot and Linux and other Gnu stuff and as an argument have "the multiroom streaming software is quite complicated to integrate reliably". I might get one myself and see if i can do some hacking work and maybe get Openwrt or any other Linux distro on the module with amlogic chip. They seem to be able to be flashed with other firmware because i flashed my Linkplay a31 module instead of arylics software with a tiny openwrt image for the chip which in my case was a Mt7628 so basically a router soc. They seem to use standard Linux and Uboot but with a few custom binaries to handle communication with the dsp-coprocessor on the carier board and a webserver for Management and app control and a custom binary called rootApp that does the magic sauce

292 points by fanf2 2y ago

tlhunter 2y ago

Lately I've been wondering if there's a way to do this to Smart TVs. Personally, I like the name "stupify" better ;)

rotifer 2y ago
A year or so ago I bought a Hisense 65U88KM, which comes with Google TV. During the setup procedure it asked me if I wanted to enable the "smart" features, such as Google TV, the camera and microphone, or connect it to a network. I said no to all of them, and that was that. Now it just acts as a dumb screen for my Apple TV box.
- Astronaut3315 2y ago
  I did the same with a Sony A80L, which also runs Google TV. I even uninstalled the bundled streaming apps for good measure, although I never see the home screen. It behaves like a monitor. I never see the TV UI unless I ask for it.
  - dexterdog 2y ago
    I find that most of those reset to some nonsense occasionally or whenever the power goes out. I make sure they have no internet connectuon, but I usually have to dig up the remote to get back to hdmi1 so my device interface will come back up. I accept the annoyance because I accepted the discount that they give to have all of the spyware crap on there that I am blocking. I wish they could sell something cheaper that is just a display, buy product managers will be product managers.
    - CharlesW 2y ago
      > I wish they could sell something cheaper that is just a display… The "smart" part is what makes TVs cheaper, since that's what opens the door to a higher CLV. People willing to put their money where their mouth is can still buy dumb displays: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/browse/Multimedia-Displays-Digital-Signage/ci/17761/N/4205668457 https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/browse/Multimedia-Displays-Di...
      - dexterdog 2y ago
        Which is why I buy them and then cripple all of that stuff by not giving it a network connection.
  - RajT88 2y ago
    My LG could be configured to behave like this (and believe me, I am thinking about going that way). I have a cheap FireTV which cannot be made to behave this way. If you disconnect it from the internet, it will still require you to interact with the (slow-ass clunky) OS in order to select a different input. Your best case scenario with some of these smart TV's is the ones which run Android to replace the launcher. Possibly, this gets reset periodically, meaning you have to keep doing it. Apparently there's a few Fire devices which can be flashed with LineageOS - I might try researching that and see if it is doable. A FireTV stick with LineageOS would be the best case scenario.
userbinator 2y ago
Look up "universal scaler" boards.
echoangle 2y ago
What exactly would that do? Just select any video input, attach your preferred input device and never touch the TV remote again.

MrBuddyCasino 2y ago

This looks an EE‘s approach who hasn’t had a lot of exposure to speaker design. You need to consider Thiele/Small parameters of the chassis, enclosure volume, baffle design and a million other factors to design a proper crossover. You can’t just ltspice your crossover and call it a day. VituixCad would be a more appropriate solution. And then you actually have to measure! Replacing and amp and „smart“ crap is easy if there is an analogue crossover you can reverse-engineer, if it was just some DSP things get difficult quickly (unless its just a single broadband chassis, but even then…). And no, you can’t use pre-built „standard“ crossovers or some calculator on a website either. But other than that, nice that he saved some hardware.

ipsum2 2y ago
You seem to be very knowledgeable about this subject. I have some Google Nest Audio speakers that sound fantastic, but have the same problems as bluetooth speakers, and lack a 3.5mm input jack to convert into normal speakers. Do you have any recommendations on how to do this, for someone with minimal audio knowledge and some basic EE?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- liminalsunset 2y ago
  The Google Nest Audio speakers are kind of a special case. They only sound good because they use a sealed, extremely rigid cast aluminum sealed enclosure with a high excursion driver. The performance of these speakers with a regular crossover and amp will be poor, due to the low efficiency of the enclosure/small driver. To get around this, Google put in the TI TAS5825M smart audio amp. By measuring the speaker parameters through V/I measurement and a model, it drives the speaker in a closed loop way with far more power than it would actually be able to handle nornally to compensate for the resistance from the enclosure air pressure, and throttles to maintain the coil at a safe temperature. The chip also does DSP to compress the audio signal, cutting the peaks off the bass as needed when the volume is turned up so volume is maintained at the cost of bass. One way to explore could be to just feed I2S audio from an I2S ADC i.e. PCM1808 to the digital input of the amplifier. The processing is internal to the amp so theoretically you won't lose the tuning. However this may turn out to be a relatively annoying reverse engineering project with fine magnet wire involved. Note: I2S is different from I2C - the amp will likely have both. You will likely need to keep the original system around to program the amp over I2C (or capture the transaction and replay it) - otherwise you will likely get no audio. The "raw" audio performance of this device (just an amplifier connected directly to the internal speaker and dsp on the computer) is impressive, kicking out bass down to 40Hz. It will, however, not last long like that. Reports online are that these blow speakers easily even when used with the default amplifier. I would recommend that if 3.5mm input is desired, to replace them altogether with the IK Multimedia iLoud Micro Monitors. These have sound quality just as good as the Google at similar size, with the same DSP tricks, but have regular inputs and no smart features.

Mathnerd314 2y ago

I'm curious about price - sure, the speakers were free ($240 value), but I don't think printing up a PCB is cheap, and those are some pretty big capacitors.

stavros 2y ago
A PCB like that would cost around $1 each, if you got 10 or so, so it's not expensive at all. I don't know how much assembly costs, but I'd be surprised if the total was over $20.
jdietrich 2y ago
JLCPCB have changed the game. Five 2-layer PCBs of up to 100x100mm cost just $3.50 including global shipping. Things get more expensive if you stray from their standard specs, but you're still looking at just a few dollars per board. https://jlcpcb.com/ https://jlcpcb.com/ The biggest electrolytic caps in this circuit cost $3.29 each in qty 1, but they're fancy "audio-grade" Nichicon caps; a standard-grade capacitor of that size would cost you $1.68 if you want a Japanese brand, or as little as $0.36 if you can settle for a Chinese brand.
- f1shy 2y ago
  And you can even order all or the SMD components soldered for less money that you can buy solder and other consumables for soldering never mind the time.
  - leoedin 2y ago
    I recently got 20 reasonably complex 4 layer gold plated pcbs assembled for about $10 a piece by JLCPCB. Maybe 20 items on the BOM, 50 parts total. It’s insanely cheap. 5 years ago when I was last regularly getting PCBs built it would cost 10x that. And it would be a really manual process - loads of emails back and forth. PCBway have managed to automate basically the whole process.
beala 2y ago
I think the biggest cost is labor. Dumpster diving for speakers and then spending dozens of hours in high skilled labor to replace the insides is actually hilarious. I wonder how much he'd charge a client for a project this size? Probably many thousands of dollars. But I can't knock a man for having a hobby. Clearly they're optimizing for fun and nerd cred, not cost.

gavinuhran 2y ago

I have this speaker and cannot believe how annoying the smart features are. I'll be talking on the phone in my apartment and the speaker will think I'm trying to prompt it. "SORRY. YOUR DEVICE IS NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. PLEASE CHECK YOUR BLUETOOTH SETTINGS AND TRY AGAIN." (at max volume!) It's unbelievable. I'm not an EE, but would love to know how I can disable these incredible unsmart features.

emidoots 2y ago
Return that crap and buy something like Audio Pro speakers instead
seba_dos1 2y ago
There's an article that tells you that. I believe it's linked somewhere above this comment.
- bonzini 2y ago
  The article removes all the smart features (not just the annoying ones) and requires pretty serious knowledge of analog electronics. Probably it doesn't fit the bill for the parent comment.
  - dheera 2y ago
    I mean, it's a speaker in a box, so you could also just snip the speaker wires, ditch the circuit board, solder some extension wires, and plug it into an external audio amplifier box of your choice. If you go that route you don't really need much EE knowledge. (This is also only if you already have this box and want to reuse it. Otherwise I would just go to your next neighborhood garage sale and pick up some good speakers for $10)
  - seba_dos1 2y ago
    > and requires pretty serious knowledge of analog electronics If you want to understand the whole thing in depth, then yes, I guess so. However, at the end it just links to the already made project published at MIT license that you can simply replicate with barely any knowledge. It's an equivalent of self-compiling a software project after checking out its repo, which sure, may seem overwhelming if you never did that before, but ultimately it boils down to some reading comprehension and step following exercise.

mgaunard 2y ago

what exactly is the problem with smart speakers? Most people just want to stream Spotify

netsharc 2y ago
"We are delighted to announce an update to our smart speaker line: we are sunsetting the online services for this model. Your devices will be disabled in March 2025. They will no longer work, and please bring them to an electronics recycling center near you. You are eligible for a voucher to get a discount when you upgrade to a newer model."
- mynameisvlad 2y ago
  This is pretty much word for word what has already happened at least once. Sonos at least reversed their decision to disable the devices when they sunset S1. They just made them incompatible with their current system but allowed people to download the old apps. Unfortunately, devices that were already marked for trade-in before they made the decision are still completely bricked.
  - lelandfe 2y ago
    "Sustainability is non-negotiable!" was my favorite platitude from their website at that time. As Sonos needlessly condemned 6 year old speakers to the landfill.
    - exe34 2y ago
      corporations are functionally psychopaths. they will say whatever you need to hear to spend money and they will do whatever it takes to maximise profit, even when it goes contrary to what they have said.
  - f1shy 2y ago
    I bought a Yamaha CD-N301, came with a web radio, where you could setup a user, and make an index of URIs with webradios. After that you could select the station from a menu in the front. 3 months after purchase, the service started costing 3 dollars per month. I only use the CD function now. I contacted Yamaha, the answer was “it still works, we never promised it would be forever free” PoS

Slava_Propanei 2y ago

Removing gay apps from electronics and automobiles. The future!

mysteria 2y ago

If you're going through all the effort to design a PCB have you thought about driving the I2S input digitally? I skimmed through the AD85050 datasheet and it has internal DSP functionality which would have been already tuned for the drivers and box by Marshall. The reason powered boxes sound decent despite their relatively cheap hardware is because of the extensive processing they have in the background to compensate for any hardware defiencies. As the AD85050 has a stereo I2S input there's a possibility for the actual crossover to be either done on the amp chip itself (with the same signal driving both channels) or done on the Amlogic SOC. The latter would be ugly as you would need another DSP chip on your board to do the crossover functionality, or perhaps you could program the AD85050 via I2C to add the appropiate low and high pass filters. A two channel A/D converter would work on the front end, as you could drive both channels with a single analog input to get a stereo I2S out with duplicate channels to drive the amp. A USB input would be much messier if you want true stereo using two speakers unless you plan on doing routing on the software side. With SPDIF you probably could get away with splitting the signal and using a SPDIF to I2S converter chip in each speaker, but you would still need some way to separate out the left and right channels. The AD85050 has mixing functionality via I2C which may help with that. And of course, all this might be more work than desigining an amp in the first place, and it really depends if you want to explore the analog or digital side of things.

bayindirh 2y ago
Marshall speakers, from my experience, has a brand sound signature, and that tuning is not very optimal for every genre of music. Replacing the DSP with a simpler amplifier may allow to get more detailed sound from the drivers and the box themselves and may create a more pleasant listening experience. From what I have seen, the drivers seem pretty full-size for that box, and any disturbing sound characteristic can be tuned with a simple equalizer. A more dynamic approach might create audibly weird sound profile if done wrong. Modern DSPs are magic, but I still prefer an audio pipeline where things show their deficiencies and not hide things real-time.
f1shy 2y ago
> The reason powered boxes sound decent despite their relatively cheap hardware is because of the extensive processing they have in the background to compensate for any hardware defiencies. I will not argue that that could be one ingredient, but a couple of months ago I did a toy for my kids, I bought decent speakers, placed them in a cheap plastic box, and was absolutely amazed bybthe sound quality. The amplifier is a sub 1 dollar class D bought in a Raspberry Pi shop. No processing at all. If the box is sturdy and sealed, and the speaker is good, is incredible what you can do.

05 2y ago

There’s a project to load OpenWRT onto LinkPlay A31 [0], might be easier than basically replacing the insides.. [0] https://github.com/hn/linkplay-a31 https://github.com/hn/linkplay-a31

kazinator 2y ago

> I liked it even though the sound reminded me of the “disco smile” (hollowed out mids), but I chalked that up to overly consumer-friendly default EQ settings. The much simpler explanation is that it has hollowed out mids because it's a Marshall.

cue_the_strings 2y ago
I'm completely unfamiliar with Marshall hi-fi equipment (that's kind of recent?), but their guitar amps are not really known for being inherently scooped. At least until the mid 70s, maybe even the JCM800 era, Marshalls were known for having more mids than their mainstream counterparts (Fender and Vox). Practically every guitar amp's "netural" settings are scooped to an extent, though. People like that sound and it's "traditional". Even when people play direct into a mixing desk, I find that they almost always scoop the mids a bit, it's simply what you associate with electric guitar.
- kazinator 2y ago
  I really believe there is more to it. It is hard to even begin to like the non-scooped tone, even through forced exposure. The funny thing is that the traditional mid-scooped rock guitar sound actually sounds midrangey, and that becomes obvious in a mix with other instruments. In other words, the EQ curve (particularly of distorted guitar) is actually a "volcano crater" shape. The overall profile is midrangey, like a low-band telephone call that is limited to around 4-5 kHz. Frequencies above that are too dense with clashing harmonics and so tend to get substantially rolled off to eliminate harshness, and guitar speakers being basically "midwoofers" do that naturally to a great extent. The guitar mid scoop is actually a fairly narrow area. E.g. centered on around 700 Hz, with a bandwidth from around 300 to 1.6 kHz. This is the "volcano crater". What may be going on is that when we have narrow band sound limited to below 5 kHz, we need to crater it so it doesn't sound like an annoying honk. Otherwise the natural midrange in that 700 Hz area will overpower the lacking high end. I'm guessing that the guitar mid scoop could possibly improve the perceived voice quality in narrow band calls. However, the upper end of the midrange cut is critical; extending the cut into the 1.6 to 3.1 kHz area will make the tone utterly disappear, and the 3 kHz to 4 kHz particularly has to be there so the tone has "bite"; it is often boosted a little. Volcano with not too wide a caldera. (By the way, I'm aware there are styles and guitar tones with a lot of high end past 5 kHz.)

szundi 2y ago

Article suggests that complicated tools are annoying and not right to be that complicated. But one can argue, that if such complexity is actually needed to tackle tasks (like the multiplatform compilation of the Linux Kernel for example), then it is pretty obvious that in the optimal case the learning curve is at least in a linear relationship with the complexity. If given complexity is high enough to surpass the related learning time threshold of the given person then he/she/whatever is going to be annoyed for sure. There is no escape from this.

summeroflove20 2y ago

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munchler 2y ago

For those (like me) who are unfamiliar with this device: It looks like a Marshall amp, but is a 9" tall Bluetooth speaker.

jimnotgym 2y ago

Tangential question, I have a nice audiophile so and no speakers at the moment. I want some speakers for $low that have decent performance. I can build boxes (used to be a carpenter), but need a design and what look like expensive drivers and crossovers. Is DIY speaker construction actually a cheaper way of getting a top notch hifi, or should I just buy second hand?

Blackthorn 2y ago
What do you consider low price? For sheer quality, it's pretty damn hard to beat the price of Kali studio monitors.
- jimnotgym 2y ago
  I'm really thinking of 'low enough that my wife doesn't kill me', which is a variable amount! Thanks for the Kali tip. They are a little more expensive in Europe, but still a possibility. I guess re DIY I'm looking for that mythical thing where it is still cheaper to do something yourself rather than buy it!
alright2565 2y ago
This website is a good starting point: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/Reviews/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/Rev... Click on the magnifying glass with an "A" to get to the advanced search to be able to filter by price.
t-3 2y ago
For a nice tower or woofer box, building your own is usually way cheaper than buying new but rarely significantly cheaper than scavenging or second-hand purchases. There are tons of designs, but in general just build based off the specs of your drivers and the area you'll be placing them and you'll be alright. For specialized types like electrostats, building your own is pretty much the only way to go unless you're ready to drop 10-20k on commercial offerings.

rasz 2y ago

>I was delighted, and immediately impressed by the sound quality. The low end was punchy and deep, much deeper than the modest dimensions led me to believe. The high end was crisp and detailed. Its amazing what a brand name does to ones ears, all of a sudden a small plastic box with SBC Bluetooth codec sounds great.

achr2 2y ago

I bought one of these Marshall speakers to use as a practice amp, only to find that the dsp latency is unusably bad. Maybe this is an option…

amelius 2y ago

Why did he replace the class D concept by a more power-hungry and heat-generating class B amplifier?

eimrine 2y ago
Are there any decent class D microscheme in dip casing?

309electronics 2y ago

Ah the classical Rakoit Linkplay series of modules! I have a arylic up2stream amp that also has one but its the A31 series. Pretty neat to know that its a full Linux computer on a little daughterboard running Linux. Just sad that they dont comply with the Gnu GPL for Uboot and Linux and other Gnu stuff and as an argument have "the multiroom streaming software is quite complicated to integrate reliably". I might get one myself and see if i can do some hacking work and maybe get Openwrt or any other Linux distro on the module with amlogic chip. They seem to be able to be flashed with other firmware because i flashed my Linkplay a31 module instead of arylics software with a tiny openwrt image for the chip which in my case was a Mt7628 so basically a router soc. They seem to use standard Linux and Uboot but with a few custom binaries to handle communication with the dsp-coprocessor on the carier board and a webserver for Management and app control and a custom binary called rootApp that does the magic sauce