Looking for advice - New project

Help and Support
1

I’ve ordered some things and am about to embark on a 2nd volumio project.

Before I start I’m looking to make this work as well as I can so any feedback is welcome as it’s all still new to me. I’d love any hints and tips. I want to know if you think i could do things better… so please let me know.

My plan is to turn a vintage radio into a volumio player. The radio i’ve bought is like this (can’t figure out how to post pictures!!)

radio

I plan to strip out the old speaker from the radio. I’d then add a raspberry pi (used a 3b+ in the other build - is there any benefit to getting a 4?)

I then was thinking of using the hifiberry miniamp (was also looking at the amp2 - but i thought it might be overkill for the speakers and i’m not planning on using the dials for hardware volume control) and 2 of these

speakers

Would love to hear your thoughts?

Cheers

2

Choice between rPi3 and rPi4 depends on you needs.
Ethernet 300 Mbps vs Gigabit
USB2.0 vs USB3.0
The rPi4 is faster, but has more temperature issues. you’ll need most likely a fan.

Personally I would go for the 4.
embed the on/off switch in the powerline, so you can actually fully turn on the rPi.

3

I do something very similar on old bakelite vintage radios. What you suggest will work, and work well, except for the speakers you’ve selected.

I’d suggest something like a pair of Faital Pro 3Fe22 (or 3FE25)

Speaker Goodness

Alternatively, it may be worth considering going mono with a single 4 or 5" speaker.

4

Thank you, is there a significant boost in speed?

I used a zero at one point in my other speaker and switched to a 3 (4 wasn’t out at the time) and it’s a lot quicker.

Does the model of 4 make a difference (2gb, 4gb or 8gb) imagining 8gb again would be overkill?

5

Thank you so much, I went for the speakers I’ve chosen because I don’t need to solder the wires… But I guess that’s something I should learn to do…

I can see speakers you’ve linked look a lot better, will I notice a significant difference in sound quality?

Also I thought about a single mono speaker… In place of the one that’s there… Do you have any recommendations for that?

I’ll wait your suggestion but I’m going to buy new speakers now :ok_hand:

6

You don’t need to solder, you can use crimp on faston connectors. But, don’t be scared of soldering!

The difference between the speakers you initially linked to and the FaitalPro’s will be night and day. A lot will depend on the space you have to fit the speakers. Do you have enough space in the opening for two 3" speakers? Is the case deep enough to fit the speakers?

With regard to the mono speaker, have you tested the speaker that’s already there? If you have a voltmeter, check it’s resistance. If it’s between 4 and 8 ohm it should be usable. If it is suitable, and it still works, it could be the best speaker to use.

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7

I would go for the 4G. Should be more than enough for Volumio. I don’t think paying another 30 Euro for 8GB, will be noticeable.

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8

Not sure whether to post a seperate topic for this… But I’ve gone with your suggestion… But encountered a couple of issues I’m hoping someone can help with.

I’ve gone with the speaker in the radio… Which plays perfectly. However I have an issue which I believe relates to the hifiberry miniamp and volumio. The volume is at 100 and isn’t very loud…

I’ve tested the speaker with a justboom amp and don’t have this issue. can anyone help with a fix?..

Also wondering how you control 2 volumio devices. I’ve tried the volumio android app and the sound@home app but not having much joy with them…

9

What is the impedance of the old speaker?

The miniamp can deliver 3 W, GPIO19 output is 3,3V.
If the impedance increases, the current will decrease to a point that it can’t provide enough power to drive the speaker.
As the output voltage is fixed at 3.3V, the power can be calculated like P = (U x U) / R
so if the impedance of the old speaker is 10 Ohm => (3.3 x 3.3) / 10 =>10.89 / 10 = 1.089 W

The justboom delivers 40W, so this means it has more power to drive this speaker as it is powered by a 15V external PSU.
Using the same formula:
(15 * 15) / 10 = 22,5W, that roughly 22 times more power to drive the speaker.