[dorkbotnyc-blabber] mono powered speakers

[Jascha Narveson]

Hi, Brent -

Hm, this is interesting.  I've purchased a $20 pair of computer  
speakers and have cut one off.  Right now I'm playing a CD walkman  
through the other one, and I do notice occasionally the speaker will  
cough up little bursts of noise - not super frequent, but once or  
twice every few minutes or so.  Is this the kind of behavior which I  
can expect from having chopped the other speaker off?

thanks,

jascha

On Jan 23, 2008, at 9:29 AM, Brent Buescher wrote:

> You won't get cheaper than half a normal computer speaker set; in fact
> you should be able to find computer speaker sets with one dead speaker
> for free.
>
> The only problem with that approach is that computer speaker
> amplifiers (and similar things for mp3 players and such) have fairly
> low-impedance inputs.  This means they put a load on your circuit when
> you hook them up to it, which can make it behave differently than when
> they're not hooked up.  May or may not matter for your application.
>
> The little Radio Shack speaker has a high-impedance input, or at least
> older models did.  I have one in my toolbox for tracing out audio
> signals and so on.  It is a little expensive for what you get and
> adding a wall wart doesn't make it any cheaper.
>
> If you want something bigger with high-impedance inputs, watch
> discount stores like Wal-Mart and Target for when they put their cheap
> little guitar amps on sale.
>
> Another approach: if you trace out radios you can usually find the
> input to the audio amplifier and add an auxiliary input.  Wal-Mart has
> $5 clock radios that would be easy to convert into little mono
> amplifiers.
>
> Brent
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