Always wanted to make a case with speakers in it

[westrock2000]

It's not "HiFi", but it sure has plenty of volume and will work great for the target audience. Was built for a family member. Plus it was fun!

Case is Antec Three Hundred Two. Enclosed the harddrive cage with aluminum sheet metal. Used a non-ferrous blade to cut the metal. The Antec Three Hundred Two is well suited for this. Has large volume for getting speaker response. Has nice flat surfaces to put sheet metal on. Internal volume was 0.179 Cubic Feet. Amplifier is from Parts Express "TDA7492 Digital Audio Amplifier Board 2x50W" Part # 320-606. The voltage booster is Yuan-Jing Adjustable Boost Converter Board. Part # 320-6546. Boosted ATX 12V up to 16V for a little more headroom. Initially the voltage level of the headphone out was too high for the amplifier input and so I had to turn the volume way down. I used a voltage divider for a 4:1 (10.5K to 2.5K) ratio and it did have just about exactly a 4x volume decrease in Windows Volume slider. I would probably go with a 5 or 6:1 ratio if doing it again. Had horrible ground loop noise when the headphone plug was plugged into the back of the motherboard. Was a little skeptical, but a $8 ground loop isolator (3.5mm to 3.5mm) fixed it perfectly.

 

[westrock2000]

 

[RogueTadhg]

Well. That's definitely a step-up from the dinky computer speakers already in most cases. POST beeps must sound so good!

 

[B00nie]

Nice clean job. The problem with a setup like this is that if you keep your computer case on the floor like most do with their towers, the treble is attenuated heavily due to the high frequency beaming of the 3-4" drivers.

Also that 10db dip at 3khz is most likely very audible but alas the previously mentioned problem is probably the biggest one.

You could fix (at least partly) both those problems by building an active eq circuit to boost 3khz by +10db (Q 0.5 - 0.7) and then make a shelving EQ rising from 2khz up. You want at least +6db at high frequencies if the case sits at your feet.

 

[westrock2000]

Ya I'm gonna take some more measurement and mess with the Realtek equalizer