Vintage Philips speakers restoration with TPA3118 bluetooth amplifier

A few month ago I've restored a vintage Philips RH591 amplifier from 70's. I've sold this amplifier but I've kept the speakers cause I liked it.

 

They have two 5 inch octagonal AD-5060/M8 midrange speaker each, and one 1 inch AD-0161/T8 tweeter.

First thing I've done was measuring the impedance. One of the speaker had a short circuit. So I decided to open both.

 Opening the two was not so simple. At Philips they have used some kind of glue for the backpanel, even if the backpanel has securing screws. That glue was also used to join the speaker to the case, although also there are screws.

Once opened I've noticed there was also a 2nd order low pass and high pass filter.

One of the tweeter was broken, so I had to change both. I've used two 90's Pioneer tweeter. They do not sound as clear as the AD-0161, but they perform quit good at all.

I had to draw and print a frame to connect the new tweeter to the case, it was a pretty simple piece.

Another thing I've drawn and printed is the bass reflex tube. They speaker were closed but they sound better with a bass reflex. I've drilled an hole on the back panel for the bass reflex.

I've used a simple one capacitor 1st order filter. I prefer to let the midrange speaker works also on high range, and then boost that range using the tweeter. I've found they sounds better with this configuration.

Just a few rework on the wood side and a clean of the front grill and the speaker were ready to be reassembled.

 I also would like to make the speaker active, possibly with a bluetooth amplifier board.

One of the speaker contains the power supply and the amplifier, the other it's a passive one.

I have an adjustable 4A 230V linear power supply, which I put in one of the speaker. I also put a power plug and a power switch. It's regulated to 20V.

I've buy a couple of boards based on the TPA3118 monolithic IC. One of the two (the blue one) has a little hissing noise on the bluetooth, but the other (the black one) sounds really good. The blue one also has a fake TPA3118, even the pins are not 32 but 28, so it may be TPA3110 or a fake one.

 

In order to move the audio jack mounted on the board, on the backpanel, I've desoldered the jack and find out that the jack tip to GND select the bluetooth input, otherwise the jack input is used by the preamplifier mounted on the amplifier board. So I've added a little DPDT switch to select the audio source for left and right channel, which can be bluetooth or line input from the jack.

For the second passive speaker connection I've used a GX12 screwing connector.

 Because the speker were mounted on the top of a bookshielf, I've added a power switch to the power cord, and I've left the switch activated on the speaker. that way I can power both on from the desk.

So, how they sounds? They are really loud and sounds more crystalline than I tought, the just a little bit low on the bass, not that they don't have but without any equalization I would have preferred a little more of basses.

Notes

• read risk disclaimer
• excuse my bad english

3 kind of Ruby Amp: Standard, Bassman and Hiwatt with distortion mod

I've introduced you the Ruby Amp here http://davidegironi.blogspot.com/2019/08/my-ruby-amp-bassman-mod-small-bass.html when I was talking about my bass amplifier 1W amp.
The Ruby Amp is a small guitar amplifier built around the LM386 IC.

This time i present you 3 kind of Ruby Amps from my collection.

Then the first one, it's a standard one, straight like the one of the runoffgroove.com site http://www.runoffgroove.com/ruby.html with a gain control.

Second one is a Bassman mod one, with a distortion switch that pump up the LM386 gain to it's limit. It was built on a PC speaker case.

Last one, the third, like the previous, was built on a PC speaker case, but this time it's an Hiwatt mod, again it cames with distortion switch.

All those you see above, I've built using a PCB board I've design.

Then some bonus pictures of the first one I've built. It's a standard one without gain pot. It was built on a prototyping board, it was 2010.

Most of them runs on a 9v supply voltage, some on 12v.
A personal note on the supply, if you are using a high to low voltage transformer and a rectifier to get your supply voltage, use big caps or even better a voltage regulator like the LM7809 if you want to avoid noise from your power line.

As you can see, I've always use salvaged parts, even that, they sound pretty well to my ears.
I've built others, always using recovered case and parts.
Although I've never use those amps in a record they sounds good, are simple to build and portable, so if you need one small amp at your friend house or during a BBQ, those are the amps.

Notes

• read risk disclaimer
• excuse my bad english

ST Audio DSP2000 C-Port on Linux using JACK and wineasio

subtitle:
Make revive the ST Audio DSP2000 C-Post audio board on Linux

I've a DSP2000 C-Post Audio System made by ST Audio (http://www.st-audio.de), I'm using it in my small recording room for instruments and voices, then I usually move to my main workstation to mix in a comfortable environment.
Even if it is a card from the late 90s, it still does a pretty decent job.

This system is build of an external unit and a PCI Card.

See main specs below:

• 10 x 10 24-bit/96kHz 100% Full-Duplex recording path support
• 2 x balanced (XLR) inputs with built in pre-amps (-24dB to +50dB) & switchable phantom power (48V)
• 2 x balanced (XLR) outputs
• 8 x 1/4" unbalanced inputs
• 8 x 1/4" unbalanced outputs
• coaxial and optical & AES/EBU I/O connections as standard
• stereo headphone output with volume control (1/4" connector)
• 2 x 16 channel (32 channels) MIDI interface ports provided (2 outputs, 1 input)
• peak LED for channel 1&2

On this card, all the magic happens in the IC Ensemble Envy24 I/O controller chip, nominally the ICE1712.
The problem with this card it that official drivers just work on Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP, unluckly support for those old O.S. is at the end of life.
But we have an ace up sleeve, it is called Linux.
We can make this card revive, using a brand new, and free also, linux distrubution.
The one I've choose it's Linux Mint 18 (http://www.linuxmint.com/).

As workstation I choose the Reaper Digital Audio Workstation (http://www.reaper.fm/). I'm using this station to record, then i will post mix all on my main workstation, using Reaper of course, this time on Microsoft Windows.
I'm using a Intel Core 2 Duo, 4Gg RAM, 256GbHdd as main hardware cause I do not need a lot of power just to record tracks, of course my mixing workstation is a powerfull i5 machine.

Reaper can works on linux thanks to Wine (http://www.winehq.org/).
The ICE1712 alsa module, which is the linux driver that makes the card works, it is already built in the choosen distribution.
The trick here is to use the WineAsio (https://sourceforge.net/projects/wineasio/) wrapper, to make Reaper works on ASIO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Stream_Input/Output) through JACK (http://jackaudio.org/).

So, let's dive into my small guide.

Step 1) Install Linux Mint, of course!

Then we have to add install the KxStudio repository (http://kxstudio.linuxaudio.org/). For my x64 Linux Mint distribution, commands below will works

sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https software-properties-common wget
wget https://launchpad.net/~kxstudio-debian/+archive/kxstudio/+files/kxstudio-repos_9.4.6~kxstudio1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i kxstudio-repos_9.4.6~kxstudio1_all.deb
sudo apt-get install libglibmm-2.4-1v5
wget https://launchpad.net/~kxstudio-debian/+archive/kxstudio/+files/kxstudio-repos-gcc5_9.4.6~kxstudio1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i kxstudio-repos-gcc5_9.4.6~kxstudio1_all.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

VST and wineasio works on x86, so let's set our architecture

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Now we are going to install jack, realtime mode is preferred, when installation ends make the current user part of the audio group using "Administration / Users and Groups: , then logout and login again on your session

sudo apt-get install jackd jack-tools

Commands below will install wineasio, and also wine-rt that is a dependance on wineasio.

sudo apt-get install wineasio

This command will register wineasio, id successfull it should return something like "Successfully registered DLL wineasio.dll"

regsvr32 wineasio

The mudita24 (https://github.com/NielsMayer/mudita24) mixer and alsa-tools should help configuring our card

sudo apt-get install alsa-tools
sudo apt-get install mudita24

Finally, we can install Cadence from the KxStudio tools to enable the ASIO driver.

sudo apt-get install cadence

Once Cadence is installed we have to set the device binded to the driver to Alsa / hw:DSP24.
Then make autostart JACK daemon, and also it could be usefull to route ALSA and PulseAudio to Jack, simply settings the ALSA Bridge to ALSA->Jack

A reboot is preferred now.

Reaper should now recognise the card using the wineasio driver, all should work fine, at least on my hardware.

This card still rules, and can be used at least to record up to 8 tracks.


Notes

• read risk disclaimer
• excuse my bad english

Pad DIY per Batteria Elettronica

-- ref. 2010/06 --

Progetto di autocostruzione pad per edrum.

Il progetto comprende:

• pad piatti
• pad rullante / tom
• pad hi-hat
• pad grancassa

pad piatti

I pad sono costituiti da legni di 15mm di spessore, tagliati a forma tonda, con diametro di 10 pollici.
Al di sopra del legno è stata incollata della gomma dello spessore di 3mm, dello stesso tipo utilizzato per la pavimentazione di palestre, reperibile nei vari centri fai da te.
Il piezo di 27mm utilizzato per rilevare le vibrazioni è incollato su una piccola lamina di alluminio (30mmx70mm), e successivamente avvitato sul legno del piatto.
La colla utilizzata per ogni incollaggio è al policloroprene (tipo bostik super chiara).
Al di sotto del piatto è stato inserito un adesivo per evitare la rotazione.
Al centro del piazzo viene praticato un foro passante per il fissaggio al supporto.
Nota: nelle foto è stato anche applicato un bordo in cora per tapparella.

pad rullante / tom

Questi pad sono costruiti da una base di legno di 15mm di spessore, tagliato a forma quadrata, con lato 200mm.
Al di sopra del legno è posto uno strato di spugna, ricavato dai tappeti utilizzati per lo sport.
La zona battente del pad è costituita da una lamina di alluminio di spessore 0.6mm incollata ad una gomma di spessore 3mm (la stessa utilizzata per i pad descritti sopra).
Al di sotto della lamina è stato incollato un piezo da 27mm.
Gli strati sono trattenuti da 8 viti passante (2 per lato).
Per consentire l'attacco al supporto del pad è inserita una vite passante con scasso all'interno del legno costituente la base.
Se il piezo risulta troppo sensibile è possibile eliminare la spugna sottostante ad esso.
Nota: nelle foto è stato anche applicato un bordo in legno.

pad hi-hat

Il pad battente è costituito da un pad piatti come quelli descritti sopra.
Al posto dell'elastico per evitare rotazione è stata costruita una apposita base in legno che trattiene una vite passante attaccata al piatto, tramite alcuni elastici.
Per il pedale di apertura è stato utilizzato un potenziometro a slitta azionato dal pedale, attaccato al corpo della struttura da una base costruita con piattine di ferro. Per evitare rotture nel potenziometro, utilizzo per l'attacco al pedale, un piccolo tubo in silicone solitamente reperibile nei negozi di modellismo.

pad grancessa

Il pad per grancassa è costituto da un pad simile a quello per rullante / tom descritto sopra, ma di dimensioni ridotte.
Questo pad è fissato su un legno che lo rialza fino al punto di battuta del pedale utilizzato.
Il battente del pedale è stato sostituito con un battete prodotto con un legno quadrato, per consentire l'attacco di ulteriore materiale assorbente, onde evitare sensibilità troppo alte.

A corredo le foto e gli schemi di realizzazione, grazie ai quali è semplice capire il metodo di realizzazione:

• diagrammi, foto e istruzioni complete per la realizzazione

Notes

• read risk disclaimer