Going Mobile..

Alobar

Addicted Member
Well sorta. I have always liked the idea of blasters in that they can be set up at a moments notice and have a room full of music for any occasion. But sadly (at least for me) the SQ of most of those machines are not good at all! :no:

Because of that I have not had a blaster in over a decade and instead suffered with wireless BT headphones.. But I have always wanted to, with the right small speaker build something like this in order to have better SQ and be able to spread the speakers out a little, to 4 feet just to gain a bit of stereo effect at a little distance..

Never really could find the right speakers for this however. I had briefly thought the JBL LSR 305's would do it, but there is no driver protection on those what so ever.. That and that they were just a bit too big and heavy for the task in mind.. Since then my LSR 305's are more or less permanently hooked up to the TV..

Then right before Christmas these showed up on Amazon for just $55 closeout! Blue Aura WS80i That is almost stocking stuffer prices these days! Geez so I ordered a pair.. They came in perfect new condition and have great sound! Not quite as much umph as the LSR 305/308's I have but the highs are better I think on the Blue Auras. The build quality is very high and the grill is darn near bulletproof!

Anyway I am not a Norm Abram type although I always admired the work he and those like him did.. And I decided to use just scrap wood left over from a Murphy bed project which was birch ply in 3/4" and 3/16". This wasn't ever supposed to be a real piece of furniture, but just a way to contain all this stuff (there are 3 120v ac plugs just to energize it all). I knew with all the parts and pieces it would only be a short while before something got lost or whatever. And since I will be using it for music all over the house while I am finishing building it, just having something to grab and go will mean the difference between using it or leaving it in the box..

I just got the drawer slides today, the big handle for the top is supposed to be here in a few days.. It is a little heavy, maybe 25 lbs est. But nothing I can't handle.. All the electronic pieces in the middle are held on with Velcro as well as the speakers held in place that way..

I wish I had made this out of solid wood, but didn't have anything nice so birch veneer plywood made it much more work and looks inferior, but I do like using up scrap wood too!

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Thanks everyone! Going to be putting this thing into good use in the months to come finishing my house. I find when working that music is a good thing to have around, and streaming is a pretty good option for me in that venue..

As for 'why a wireless speaker?' well there isn't a good answer for me. These speakers can be played in different rooms and the transmitter has its own DAC or plug in an analog signal. The wireless part really isn't anything I needed, and self powered even, probably not required as I could have placed a small class D amp in the middle part and just ran speaker wire out to the speakers (instead of power). But this is what I went with due to the price as well as build quality (and it turns out SQ is good too).

So this plan started in my head before the speakers had even arrived. I used the Blue Aura web site to get the dimensions to get started. I use CAD software quite a bit (designed my house with it in 3D) so it was natural to build a crude model (in CAD) to which I could make changes, and when done, pull dimensions off from it to build the thing.. Here is the model I used to design and build it from. I never spend a lot of time trying to make anything I am designing from CAD look photo realistic..

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Awesome.

Guessing the next step is to motorize it so the speakers could slide out remotely at the push of a button on one of the many remote controls I am sure you own...:)
 
OK, this thing is officially done and ready to be put to use on the job with the handle that came today from Amazon..

Now what do I call this "thing" as my wife started referring to it as?
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Like the way the speakers slide out,well done.
I do too. They slide smooth and when closed there is a pretty good indent that keeps the speakers locked fairly good. Enough that I now have no plans to put in latches. These drawer slides have a hundred lb rating and there is no side to side movement are all.

So tonight I set the "rig" on top of my large JBL's and turned these little speakers up a bit, putting it through its paces , and am just very impressed with the sound these little gems produce. Bass was not lacking at all, in fact I could actuall feel it in the floor! My room is very large, with a back wall 40 feet back and side walls 20 feet apart and with a 12 12 pitch ceiling some 20 feet from the floor. I was rather amazed how well these did in such a large space. No sign of them running out of spl or any distortion I could detect. Totally happy with this for its intended use!
 
VERY nicely done!!
Wish I had the CAD skills/patience.
I'm still trying to eval the Blue Auras I have (2 pair), and have not A/B'd then directly with the 305s yet, but so far I get more and more impressed with them each listen. The HF is definitely 'there', and the bass is not lacking, either.
There is an amazing amount of wires & gack for, uh, wireless speakers, but are 'just the ticket' for surround speakers I just couldn't pull wires to, and perfect for kitchen TV speakers!
I guess I can see why these didn't do well in the market (so closed out?) as they are NOT typical BT wireless, and have more 'smarts' built into their 'OS' than I ever expected - you can pair any pair of them with any of the transmitters...all from the remote. Very well thought out.
Yay!
 
VERY nicely done!!
Wish I had the CAD skills/patience.
I'm still trying to eval the Blue Auras I have (2 pair), and have not A/B'd then directly with the 305s yet, but so far I get more and more impressed with them each listen. The HF is definitely 'there', and the bass is not lacking, either.
There is an amazing amount of wires & gack for, uh, wireless speakers, but are 'just the ticket' for surround speakers I just couldn't pull wires to, and perfect for kitchen TV speakers!
I guess I can see why these didn't do well in the market (so closed out?) as they are NOT typical BT wireless, and have more 'smarts' built into their 'OS' than I ever expected - you can pair any pair of them with any of the transmitters...all from the remote. Very well thought out.
Yay!
Yes I am finding them to be very comparable to the LSR 305'S in every way except perhaps the waveguide tech, but for my usage that is probably not required. And since you were (once again) the one who turned me onto these, I want to thank you! That list of good audio ideas you have provided me is growing still!

As to the wireless technology that went into these, I am thinking that since these were released some time ago (decade maybe?) that other wireless technologies might have caught up with those sorts of needs, making that part obsolete. But I wouldn't know really as that side of audio, (surround sound, a/v, multiple channel ) is fairly well beyond my knowledge. And the wireless part, for this project anyway was entirely unneeded. Even active speakers were unnecessary as there would be plenty of room for a small class D in the middle part. But it is what it is, works great and just what I needed for adding a little quality sounding musical joy to all those rooms where finishing work is needed all over the house .

And this is completely off the subject, but the MiniDSP 4x10 came yesterday! How can something from Hong Kong get here faster than amazon can send something from Seattle is beyond me! Now capacitors and resistors, speaker wire and binding posts are on the way! So much more gak! :)
 
So I'm back on working on the house, with music! :banana: I have been playing the Blue Auras on several different machines including a laptop, tablet and this older cell that is deactivated (no sim card) but has a 200GB micro SD card. It also has JRivers phone app on it which I have not fully explored yet. Today I discovered it will happily play music from my NAS drive (even hi rez files) through the phone and onto the FiiO DAC (bypassing the phone's internal DAC). The SQ is great too! I have all my set up playlists and smartlists at hand and seems like a good solution for having my music available anywhere there is wifi on the property.

OTOH streaming from Amazon unlimited is no fun. The SQ takes a huge hit (even through the FiiO) and the interface is just so LAME! :eek2: Waiting for Qobuz to reach our shores I decided to give Amazon a try.. Will cancel that at the end of the month..
Excuse the mess!
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