Another prototype (Line Array Amp)

…and an update to the stereo 3-way design

I still have some reservations about building the second-generation line array amp I described in a previous post, as it requires soldering at least 10 of those 40-pad LFCSP amplifier chips. Those packages are notoriously difficult to solder by hand, and it is way too easy to create bridges to the package thermal tab using the tools that I have. If I were getting younger instead of older, I might take the plunge, but unfortunately, I just keep getting older and less skilled at working under a microscope.

I had previously posted about the 8-channel SSM3582 amplifier board from Midiworx (see below) and pointed out that the board doesn’t support TDM I2S audio, so it wasn’t a viable option for using with the ADAU1452/ADAU1466. Also, the I2C lines aren’t brought out to a connector, so there was no way to program the amplifier chips to support TDM audio. The ADAU1452/ADAU1466 has 48 channels but only 4 output ports, so unless you use TDM, those extra channels can’t be used.

Fortunately, Analog Devices came up with a nice solution for adding extra output ports with the ADAU1463/ADAU1467 chip. This device has extra pins that can be programmed to output extra serial data streams, so that it is possible to have 12 I2S outputs, each stereo, for a total of 24 channels. 24 channels is enough to make a line array amplifier with electronic curvature, using independent delay on each channel. Midiworx is now selling a ADAU1467 module with all those extra I2S data lines brought out to the connectors. So, with the ADAU1467 module and three of the SSM3582 boards, we can make a nice 24-channel line array amp without going blind.

I’ll probably still try my own SSM3582 amplifier boards, since these Midiworx amps are a bit pricey at $70 (it takes 6 of them for stereo!) and because there is no guarantee that they will be around forever. However, I should be able to get started on building a next-generation line array with these boards and debug a lot of software and work on the cabinets.

The design will use a CPU board with a socket for the ADAU1467 module and a PCM5102a DAC board for the subwoofer channel. This board with have the connectors to interface to the 3 SSM3582 boards, and it will include some SPDIF I/O with TOSLINK connectors to provide excellent noise isolation.

An interesting variation on this line array CPU/DSP board would only use one of the 8-channel amplifier boards to provide a high quality 3-way stereo amplifier board that would allow me to replace all of those older ADAU1701 designs that are stuck with Bluetooth Classic as the control interface. This newer design will use either Bluetooth BLE or MQTT (Arduino IOT) for control, so the amplifier will function as a “thing” on the internet. The recently announced ESP32C5 looks like an especially good choice for this board, as it will support the much less crowded 5GHz WiFi channels.

This prototype will have two SPDIF receivers: one for connecting to the WiiM mini streamer module, and the other for the SPDIF data extracted from the HDMI PC or TV signal. This provides a very high quality digital audio source, and on a Windows PC the volume of the HDMI audio is controlled by the Windows sound system, so you can use those media buttons on your keyboard for volume level and mute. I don’t have any need for other inputs, but I’ll add a budget ADC board for some backward compatibility.

It looks like the ESP32C5 still has a way to go before being available in the small XIAO or QT-Py format, so this prototype will still use the XIAO ESP32C3. Wondom has a nice TAS5756 stereo amp board with I2S inputs, so I’ll provide their input connector on this board for making a low-cost stereo 3-way system. There is only one DAC, for the stereo subwoofer channel. The board is mostly laid out, but I need to do some more checking before sending it off for fabrication. There is a lot of 3MHz switching going on around those connectors on the right side, where there will be short jumpers to the power amps. I’m hoping the signals will be clean enough at the amps, but that’s what I need to verify with this prototype.

Another motivation for this board is that the last board I made, described in the previous post, did not work well with a single ground plane. That board had 3 DAC’s, and the analog output had a lot of buzzing noise that was due to the radios in the ESP32-C3. I had to cut the ground plane with a razor blade and provide a separate ground to the analog circuitry to keep it quiet. It took a long time to figure out that it was the ESP32-C3 causing the noise, but once the grounds were separated, the board became quiet. Lesson learned.

Diversions can be nice

That “diversion board” discussed in the 12/15/2023 post turned out nice. The “motherboard” has two 16-pin SMD chips and a couple of SMD passive components, but it was fairly easy to build. I used socket pins for all the modules, and once you get the hang of mounting them straight on the board, assembly goes quick.

Act 2 ADAU1466 Board

The end product is nice to have in a speaker builder’s toolbox. Add one of those Sure 6-channel amps and you will have a nice stereo 3-way DSP/amp for a PC system. By using one of the 4K HDMI Audio Extractors from Monoprice (product #24278), you can feed this amp from the PC’s HDMI audio using a TOSLINK cable. Windows controls the volume on the HDMI digital output, so you can control the volume using either Windows or an Android or IOS app–that flexibility is nice. With the two SPDIF inputs, you can route audio directly from the PC or else play remotely from a WiiM Mini streamer. Those optical inputs provide perfect electrical isolation, so you don’t have to worry about ground loop noise.

This board can also be used for television audio using the analog inputs. And, because I kept the dipole logic in the SigmaStudio code, it can be used for some interesting open-back speakers. It’s a more versatile design than I originally envisioned, and it is easy to build. The 3-way design doesn’t take advantage of the speed or extra memory of the ADAU1466/ADAU1452, but the newer DSP is still a nice step up from the older ADAU1701 designs. The ADAU1466 provides the SPDIF interface and an array of sample rate converters, so adding “master” digital devices with their own clocks is easy. Also, the ADAU1466 is a lot more responsive due to the faster SPI interface, and the external PCM5101A DACs are much higher quality than the internal ADAU1701 DACs. Those PCM5102A DAC modules are great for the money, but if you want an even better DAC, just change the board layout to use an upgraded module. The Kicad source files are here.

Another upgrade from the older ADAU1701 boards is the use of the ESP32S3. That CPU has twice the memory of the ESP32C3, which allows using the Arduino IOT libraries alongside the Bluetooth BLE control. That’s important because you can develop a single control panel for the DSP and use the Android or IOS app to control the essential features like volume, input, and stored configurations. The IOT cloud tools are somewhat limited in that the individual controls are too big to be used for complicated control functions like specifying custom filters, but they are great for controlling some high-level functions. The Arduino Cloud dashboard for controlling this board is shown below. You can control the DSP from this dashboard on the PC, or you can use the Arduino Remote IOT app on either Android or iOS–they all look and behave the same. It’s an easy way to provide control from an iPhone, although, as noted, the dashboard is limited due to the size and features of the controls. I expect that connectivity to home automation apps will be available soon if they aren’t already, which should add to the fun.

The Arduino CPU can save two different settings, so the Configuration menu allows A/B comparison of two different crossover/EQ settings. Also, you can send the codes documented on these pages using the Messenger control, which will allow control of any feature supported by the micro.

I still haven’t installed this board in the old Act 2 plate amp, since there was a lot of software changes to adapt the 5-way Arduino code for this board. Most of that work is complete, or complete enough that I’m ready to move on. But this diversion proved useful, as I was able to work some more on the Arduino Cloud code and better understand how Windows PC’s control the digital audio outputs via HDMI and SPDIF. Plus, I’ve got both a 5-way and a 3-way configuration of the control software. I don’t think it is practical to develop a “multi-way” code base for both the Arduino and Android environments–it is so much less confusing to have separate programs for 3-way and 5-way designs. The screen shots below show how the Android Crossover screens are different for the two options. The fancy graphing was too hard to implement for a 5-way design, so it got stripped out. The 4 crossovers for the 5-way design makes the HCI rather “busy” (this screen shot was taken before the titles got fixed).

The board design for this diversion only took a couple of hours, so it felt like this would be a quick side-trip. However, the changes to the Arduino and Android code took quite a few days, so it turned out to be a significant diversion, but worthwhile, nonetheless. I’ll probably write this up as a project or article once I get the board wired to amplifiers and speakers. Now, back to those Marthas and the next-generation line array.

12/15/2023: Another Diversion

The second-generation line array is still in the pipeline, but so is cleaning up some old projects. One that I really liked but needed an upgrade is the “Act 2” active subwoofer with a stereo 3-way plate amp, described in this article. It has two 5-1/4″ subwoofer drivers, with Speakon connectors for the midrange and tweeter outputs. I like this arrangement, because I can use it to test different mid/tweeter combinations, and it is a nice setup for PC audio. I’ve got two mid/tweeter cabinets already (one of which I’ve never really listened to) and I wanted to be able to test some other combinations of drivers I have laying around. The existing plate amp uses some older circuitry, with the ADAU1701 for analog I/O, a teensy CPU with “classic” Bluetooth for control, and one of the older Linkplay modules for WiFi. I want to use the newer BLE or MQTT control interfaces and I want to use the newer WiiM Linkplay module to use the much less crowded 5GHz WiFi band.

What I wanted to save from the original design was the chassis and the amp board, which I had modified to use film output filter capacitors. The chassis and amp were a big investment in time, and even though I would have preferred a newer amp with an I2S interface, this older 6-channel amp was still “good enough”. The inside of the original 6-channel plate amp is shown below.

The replacement for the 2×6 ADAU1701 board, in block diagram form, is shown below. I wanted to go with optical connections to avoid ground loop issues, but I’m also using an analog input board to provide more flexibility. The ADC board was about $3 on AliExpress, and the DAC boards are about $4 each. It’s a bit silly to try putting that circuitry on the board yourself, given those low prices for the modules. The circuit board ends up being a “motherboard” for interconnecting the modules, with all the modules using sockets. The only other components on the board are the SPDIF receivers, some multiplexer chips, some decoupling capacitors, a voltage regulator, and 4 resistors. That “switch” for the SPI interface allows control from either SigmaStudio or the micro. It uses the voltage from the SigmaStudio programmer to control the multiplexer, so you can load the code from SigmaStudio and then unplug the programmer and revert to control by the ESP32.

The draft layout is shown below. I’ll send this out for fabrication in the next few days. I had all of the library parts already in Kicad, so the PCB design came together fairly quickly:

The Russell

Hmmm…what drivers lurk behind that cheap metal grill? And why is the name singular?

One of my goals in these retirement years is to use up or dispose of or somehow repurpose a large stash of boards or electronic equipment that I have accumulated during many years of this speaker-building hobby. I’ve got a lot of DSP boards with different CPU’s and software, and I’ve got lots of drivers and lots of cabinets with drivers in various build stages. One set of drivers that was particularly interesting was a SEAS Excel Millennium tweeter and a 7″ Excel W17EX-001 magnesium cone woofer. My friend Russ had given me these when I was his co-worker, along with a passive radiator that I had already used in a subwoofer project. These drivers were too good to just leave on the shelf, and they were too expensive to buy another set for making a stereo pair. So, what could I do with these?

I had already made a large “Hi-Fi” Bluetooth speaker for a friend’s gathering, by adding a Qualcomm Bluetooth module to a 12″ PA speaker that had been modified with a nice Galaxy Audio midrange and Audax horn tweeter. It had a 200W amp and a ready-made 3-way crossover. The crossover had not been optimized for those drivers, yet it still sounded quite good, and made an easy source of audio that could fill the room nicely. Since this formula seemed to work well, I decided to use the same approach to use these fine SEAS drivers. I also had an Icepower 500ASP amp already mounted in a chassis, so I would have plenty of “oomph” to power this speaker.

Since I am trying to use up parts rather than buy new stuff, a design goal was to keep the remaining components I needed on a tight budget. Also, this speaker is not addressing any new technical challenges, so I tried to keep the design and build time to a minimum.

The Excel magnesium cone woofers require a high-order crossover to suppress the resonances, but I found a nice design at the Troels Gravesen site for these exact same drivers. It uses a whopping 20 components, but I had a large stash of crossover components that I wanted to use up, and this was a worthy cause. I had to unwind a number of coils that I had to get the right values, but it turned out that I only needed to order a few extra resistors and capacitors that came to less than $10 for the lot. I got one of the bare 3-way boards from Parts Express and decided to go all-out ugly with cramming all those parts on the board. I think I nailed the “ugly” pretty good.

PE had some clearance 10″ drivers that were used in some of their subwoofers, and it turned out the 10″ was almost ideal for a smallish (1.7cuft) sealed cabinet. I added a few more crossover parts to make the Troels design a 3-way.

I didn’t want to spent much time making a nice cabinet, so I bought a DJ/PA cabinet with a 12″ woofer from Newark that was on sale for $51. The cabinet is made from low density fiberboard (LDF), which is only several steps up from cardboard in terms of strength and rigidity. But with some generous cross-bracing, I was able to get the cabinet satisfyingly sturdy. I had to fill in the 12″ driver opening with plywood and reinforce the entire front panel with a sheet of plywood but that turned out OK. After cutting out the new 10″ opening, there was plenty of front baffle space for the two Excel drivers. The W17 driver was installed in a 6″ PVC cap stuffed with absorbing material, which worked fine for the 2-pole 250Hz crossover frequency.

I toyed with using a simple QCC3008 Bluetooth module as the primary source but decided to go with a WiFi streamer instead. I had some old WFA28 streamers laying around, but found that Linkplay is selling refurbished Wiim Minis on eBay for $59, so I was able to discard the WFA28’s. I’ve got too many speakers on the 2.4GHz band already, and the Mini can use the 5GHz band, where there are a lot more channels available.

I was thinking about giving this speaker to a neighbor, but after I put on some James Taylor for my wife, she made it clear that we are going to keep this speaker. The Excel drivers are shockingly clear and articulate, and they can absorb that 500W amp without complaining. That 10″ woofer is surprisingly good in this cabinet, and it off-loads the 6.5″ W17 driver so that it can “specialize” in midrange, where it is an amazing speaker.

This is a nice speaker to have for a party or event where you don’t need stereo but want lots of clear high-quality audio. The handles make it easy to move around, and having a potent amp and streamer make it “fun”. Obviously, I failed miserably at clearing out my driver/electronics storage space, as I now have a large party speaker sitting in the same area. But if someone wants to hold a party, we are ready to provide the music.

Update: made a deal with the wife that this will go in her greenhouse, although right now it is in her kitchen area. Since it is not going back in my storage area, it’s more of a success than I thought previously.

Active speakers with built-in test signals

Sometimes it’s nice to have a tone or sweep generator or even some white noise to test your speakers. SigmaStudio has a good selection of “sources,” even for the ADAU1701, that don’t require a lot of instructions. I’ve never used them before, but I’m finding them very useful for this next round of active speakers that are starting to take shape. This post describes how those built-in test tools are implemented.

The ADAU1466/SSM3582 boards from the ElectrACC Store at AliExpress have quite a few inputs, but I’m only interested in the Bluetooth, SPDIF and analog sources. Once I got all that basic switching straightened out, I added a “Test” button and a new screen to control the sources:

This feature requires some new SigmaStudio “code” for the sources, along with the code that controls the switching. Here is the new section of SigmaStudio code:

The Mute is just an extra white noise generator that is turned off, and the VCO uses the potentiometer on the ADAU1466/SSM3582 board to control the oscillator frequency.

The ESP32C3 code to control the new blocks is fairly easy to write, as it only requires 3 new commands that reuse a lot of existing code. The new commands are: ADAU1466_Source, ADAU1466_Sine, and ADAU1466_Sweep. The VCO and white noise sources don’t require any software control, so they only need to be selected, without any other CPU control. I’m still working on the Sweep code to get a good combination of range, step size and sweep speed, but it’s coming along. These built-in test sources will be a nice feature to incorporate in all future active speaker designs.

On another topic, I had made a throw-away desktop speaker for testing the dipole compensation, using some cheap $1.29 drivers from MPJA. I’ve had to replace all the drivers because those SSM3582 amps have enough power to completely fry the voice coils when the volume is accidently turned up too high. Even though those amps aren’t rated for high output at 8 ohms, I think they will do fine for desktop speakers or the very efficient Martha speakers.

Overall, I’m still impressed with those ADAU1466/SSM3582 boards. For $120 shipped you get a nice ADAU1452/ADAU1466 DSP, plus Bluetooth and analog input that uses a “decent” PCM1808 ADC chip. You also get SPDIF I/O and 8 very high-quality power amps that can provide moderate power at 4 Ohms. With 2 Ohm loads and a 16V supply, they are rated at 50W each. If you can figure out what to do with all of those amps, these boards can be a lot of fun. These boards are an excellent “deal” for the price.

August 2, 2023: Another brainfart

I think that most speaker builders start thinking about their next projects well before the current one is finished. Sometimes that feels like an attention-deficit problem, but the truth is that it is just a healthy part of the creative process.

While plodding along with the ADAU1466 code for the Marthas, it struck me that those 8-channel SSM3582/ADAU1466 boards could make a very nice desktop amplifier for an active speaker. And since the new code includes support for multi-way dipoles, why not try a desktop dipole? I’m still working on finishing up the Marthas, but I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about these desktop dipoles.

The 8-channel amp boards are only $115, and that buys you 8 channels of high- quality amplification, plus the ADAU1452 DSP plus SPDIF input, Bluetooth, and decent quality analog input (using the PCM1808 chip). That’s a great start for relatively small investment. The amps on the board aren’t powerful enough for filling a room with sound, especially for a dipole, but they are potent enough for near field listening while sitting at a desk. I’m confident that there is plenty of power for the tweeter, upper midrange and mid-woofer drivers. Fortunately, there are pads on the board that make the I2S signals available for each channel, so it won’t be too hard to add a higher-powered amp for the woofer/subwoofer. I hacked a cheap SPDIF-to-analog board for the subwoofer channel for the Marthas, and the same trick could be used for the woofer channel of these desktop dipoles.

Another reason I’ve been mulling over this new project is that I’ve got some very nice white oak from a tree that we had to take down because it was sending roots into our septic system. So, the project name will probably be the “Antiseptics” or some other reference to that tree. I cut up some nice 22″ log sections for firewood, and I think it will be possible to use some of those pieces to make the baffle.

The baffle will be modeled on the top section of the Linkwitz LX521. The log sections are about 11″ in diameter, and I’d like to make the baffle and stand out of just one piece of wood. My band saw isn’t big enough to slice down the log, so I would need to rough-cut the baffle/stand using a chain saw. And I don’t have access to a large jointer, so I would need to make a router sled to get a reasonably flat face for the baffle. But if I could make those tools work, I think the result would be stunning. I’m probably going to start on these soon, because it is going to take a while for this wood to dry after those rough cuts.

July 1, 2023: It’s a Slow Train

The “Return of the Marthas” is starting to take shape, but it is taking a long time to tailor the existing software. The Marthas take the 3-way Arduino/Android code and make it 5-way, while upgrading from the AUDA1701 to the ADAU1466. Those changes haven’t been a huge technical hurdle, but there are so many tedious details that make the effort a real slog.

The crossover code works, which is a good start. Tapping the buttons on the Android app advances to the next crossover type or the next frequency in the list, and long pressing will return to the previous value in the list. The buttons send out the command codes that are documented in this draft PowerPoint briefing. The Arduino code determines the required filter types and calculates the biquad coefficients, and then puts that data into the ADAU1466 Parameter RAM. All of that code seems to be working properly.

The Android commands are sent using Bluetooth BLE messages. However, the commands can also be sent using MQTT over WiFi. The Android screenshot below shows a quickly implemented interface using the Arduino Cloud tool, with a “Messenger” widget. The command code for a crossover is “F”, and the command “F0704” sets the frequency of the Subwoofer-Woofer crossover to the 4th value in the table, which is 200Hz. Obviously, sending these codes using a messenger widget is not an elegant way to control the DSP, but it works fine for testing. The Arduino IOT code runs on a PC, but the IOT tools can generate an Android or iOS app that mimics the PC layout. So, we finally have a simple path to control high-level DSP functions from an iPhone.

The ESP32 does not allow using Bluetooth and WiFi simultaneously because there is only one RF channel. However, the CPU can receive data on either Bluetooth and WiFi, and as long as you don’t use Bluetooth and MQTT at the same time, it doesn’t get confused. That is, the code can monitor IOT messages and listen for Bluetooth commands, and it will respond to commands from either source.

Next up will be the EQ. I’m switching from a 9-band EQ to 10-band, as 10 bands seems to be more common, and the frequency spacing is a bit more “intuitive”. All of the frequencies and labels and command codes will get changed, both in the Arduino code and the Android app. Again, it won’t be hard, but there is a surprising number of time-consuming edits even for this seemingly simple change.

It’s a slow train, but at least it’s moving.

April 16, 2023

Finally, some progress with the ADAU1466…

There are quite a few software differences between the ADAU1701 and the ADAU1466, so I expected a long and difficult effort to update my ADAU1701 library files for the newer DSP. However, it really wasn’t too difficult, and the problems I ran into were from unexpected differences and some over-reliance on SigmaStudio.

The ADAU1701 code uses a micro to allow controlling the volume, input selection, crossovers, bass enhancements, and EQ from a cell phone app. In order to do that, the code in the micro needs to be able to generate the proper data to control the DSP cells and then be able to write that data in the proper format to the Parameter RAM in the DSP. None of the “upper” layers of the code are affected by the change, and the lowest levels (I2C communications) are identical. The ADAU1701 uses a different number representation: 5.23 versus 8.24 for ADAU1466, but this change was easy enough to implement.

But I ran into a snag with the biquad coefficient loading routine. The biquad coefficients get calculated in the micro using the “Audio Cookbook” equations published by Robert Bristow-Johnson. For the ADAU1701, there are safeload registers for updating the 5 biquad coefficients all at once, to minimize “glitches”. The ADAU1466 also has these safeload registers, but for some mysterious reason the “order” is totally different, and I can’t find any documentation anywhere on the Analog website that explains the “correct” order for the coefficients. In fact, the only documents I could find were for one of the SHARC series, which use an even different order. The normalized coefficients for the ADAU1701 must be loaded in this order: B0, B1, B2, A1, and then A2. The ADAU1466 loads the coefficients in this order: B2, B1, B0, A2 and A1. Get that sequence wrong and you won’t get any output from the ADAU1466. C’mon, ADI…that is just weirdly inconsistent, and you could at least document the coefficient order somewhere.

But the other snag that really cost a lot of debug time was relying on SigmaStudio to set up the clocks. I was able to control the volume just fine, but the biquads seemed to be getting calculated or loaded incorrectly. This didn’t make any sense, until it became clear that it was a clock issue. Somehow the default clock dividers got changed to “0”, so instead of running the DAC at 48K, it was running at 288KHz. I would expect SigmaStudio to be smart enough to know that if you have selected 48KHz sampling, the clock dividers need to be properly set, or at least issue a warning notice that your selected sampling rate is not possible given the current clock ratios. So, lesson learned. Fortunately, the clock dividers are well documented in the datasheet, with default values and two examples. But jeez…who reads the fricking manual when we have this sophisticated software to help us out (not)?

The other major difference of the ADAU1701 and the ADAU1466 is the way the self-boot EEPROM is configured. I never used an EEPROM in any of the board designs on Audiodevelopers, because it was easy to load the ADAU1701 code from the micro. This approach had the nice benefit of not needing a USBi programmer. I just processed the “tx” file generated by the SigmaStudio compiler to create an Arduino “.h” file with the code and loaded the Program RAM at power-on reset using that data. But the ADAU1466 uses two different memory spaces with multiple pages, and there is a lot more code to deal with. For the ADAU1466, it makes more sense to let SigmaStudio program the EEPROM. So, the new designs will require a USBi interface board to program the EEPROM. The biggest “downside” to this approach is that the USBi SPI interface interferes with the I2C interface from the micro, because on the 72-pin devices like the ADAU1466, those signals are shared pins. So, when using the USBi, you need to unplug the micro. You will need to develop and test the SigmaStudio code fairly well before using the micro to control the cells. The 88-pin ADAU1467 does not use the same pins for the slave SPI and I2C signals, so that might be a better choice for future designs.

That’s the end of the gripes. The ADAU1466 is a really nice chip. Having 8 ASRC modules plus SPDIF is great–you can connect anything to the DSP and not worry about synchronizing the clocks. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, as my wife would say. SigmaStudio hides the complexity of the ASRC–it is really nice to just pick from some high-level menus and hear the audio without having to program a huge number of registers. I’ve used several other ASRC chips, and no other chip is this easy to use. And overall, SigmaStudio is really nice. I’ve used it before for designing the ADAU1701 signal flow but have never used it in “active download” mode. I much prefer controlling the DSP with my cell phone app, but I can certainly understand why DIY’ers would be enthused by SigmaStudio.

There is still a lot of code to update to use the updated libraries, but there don’t seem to be any problems that will require extensive debugging in implementing the next generation designs. The only challenge left is that spring has arrived here in the Maryland mountains, so “software season” is officially over. It’s time to work on those legs that have atrophied over the winter. Progress on software will be slower, but I’ll start ramping up on the cabinet work and maybe get some new board designs completed.

Feb 26, 2023

I haven’t posted in a while, as other projects have kept me busy, but it’s time to return to this long journey. These pages have actually covered a lot of territory, but the end goal is still a bit in the distance. And the goal remains the same: developing the hardware and software that we need for easy-to-use and easy-to-DIY multiway active loudspeakers.

The focus of the articles and projects so far has been on 2-way and 3-way designs, where the DSP is an ADAU1701 controlled via a cell phone app. These designs have allowed exploring emerging hardware and newer chip-level systems that are essential building blocks for scalable multi-way active speakers. Also, we now have some reasonably effective software that can be used to take the next steps. Given where we are now, it is possible to map out the next steps in this journey. There will be new articles in the upcoming “Next-Gen” articles to address each of the following areas, starting with an overview of projects to come:

Feb 8, 2022

This is a preview of some upcoming projects. First, I’m still interested in a project that requires no custom hardware development, so when I saw the new 4-channel JAB4 DSP/Bluetooth amp from Wondom, I couldn’t resist. I’ve got a JAB4 board running in one of those PGA2311 preamp cases with an ESP32 CPU board for control and a Nextion display. I still need to deal with the auto power-down feature of the JAB4, and I’ve got lots of code to write for the Nextion display, but this is starting to look like a really nice solution for active speakers.

There will also be an end table version using a highly modified case that I ordered from Sam’s for about $50. This Bluetooth end table will be stereo (speakers on both sides) with an active crossover and bass enhancement that you can control from your cell phone. Plus, it will have a wireless charger built in the top. The drivers are ones I’ve been intrigued by for a while: the glass-diaphragm drivers from BDNC (Speaker Drivers – BDNC (Holding) Limited (newbdnc.com). This will go in our greenhouse so my wife can keep her “babies” entertained (she’s got turnips, peas and spinach shoots popping up already).

DecorTech Rectangular End Table with Bluetooth Speaker and USB Charging Port, Walnut

I’m hoping these projects will move along quickly, as I’m anxious to extend the ADAU1701 libraries to control the ADAU145X/ADAU146X, and I’ve got plans for a second-generation line array amp. We’ve had a lot of snow and many days with temperatures in single digits, and these are all good “software season” projects.