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Offline vonTirpitz

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Sound System Speakers
« on: January 29, 2017, 11:04:42 AM »
I'm planning on running this question through the folks over at RC Universe as well but wanted to go ahead and get a thread started here.

Aside from the stock speakers that have come with my Taigen tanks and a handful of old surplus PC speakers I wanted to glean from the experience of others what they considered the best available for quality of sound and robustness.  I figure that a quality speaker is going to be just as important, if not more so, than the underlying hardware and firmware.

Of all of the components I've been gathering up I have yet to decide on what I will do about speakers.  I have even played with the idea of also acquiring a sub woofer to enhance the true grumble and roar one would expect from a tank (as long as I don't end up shaking it apart first).   :o

So what are your thoughts?
"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time."

                                                                 -LT

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Offline LukeZ

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Re: Sound System Speakers
« Reply #1 on: January 31, 2017, 12:03:28 PM »
I don't have a lot of experience with speakers or model sounds generally. I do have a Visaton FRS7-4 (2.5") and I can say at least in loudness it lacks nothing. It is not a problem to get it loud enough to hurt your ears. Bass, not so much. For bass you need surface area, which is constrained in our small models. I have heard building an enclosure also helps though I have not experimented with that myself. Visaton also sells an FRS8-4 which is slightly larger (3.5"), maybe it would be a bit better.

One thing to note is that speakers come in 8 ohm and 4 ohm models. All else being equal, you will get a louder sound from a 4 ohm speaker than 8-ohm, especially at the low voltages we are running. Note the Visaton model number I listed above has a "-4" at the end, that signifies 4 ohms. Visaton also sells 8 ohm versions, so watch what you get.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the speaker that sounds the best to my ear is the stock Tamiya 2.5". Somehow it even manages to have a bit of bass. I think the other thing Tamiya has going for them is high quality sound files to begin with.

One idea I had but never pursued, involved using a detached subwoofer. Because low frequencies are rendered by the human brain as non-directional, it (theoretically) wouldn't matter where those frequencies originate from - in other words, they would no have to come from the location of the model itself. That is why it doesn't matter what corner of the room you put the subwoofer in a home theater setup, though of course it is very important where you place the other speakers.

The idea is one could get a cheap Bluetooth audio adapter and install it in the tank parallel to the onboard speaker. The onboard speaker will play the high notes. Then the other end of the Bluetooth audio device will be fed into a regular home theater subwoofer somewhere nearby. Most subs come with a low-pass filter already so you would only be playing the lower frequencies. Of course this isn't very practical for outdoors, you would need A/C power for the sub, but simply as an experiment it might be interesting to try. It definitely frees you from the size limitation that hampers bass frequencies in a model.

But I suspect the next thing one would start to notice once you get better speakers, is how poor the sound files are.
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Offline LukeZ

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Re: Sound System Speakers
« Reply #2 on: January 31, 2017, 12:06:05 PM »
Here is the best-sounding model tank I have ever heard. I'm not sure what sound system he is using. Maybe he even dubbed another track over his video. I contacted him once to get more details but he never replied.

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Offline vonTirpitz

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Re: Sound System Speakers
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2017, 08:48:49 PM »
Here is the best-sounding model tank I have ever heard. I'm not sure what sound system he is using. Maybe he even dubbed another track over his video. I contacted him once to get more details but he never replied.

Okay that is very impressive.  Too bad you never heard back from the owner but at least I now have an idea about how good is good. 

I'm going to do some experimentation to try and emulate that sound quality. >:(
"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time."

                                                                 -LT

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Offline vandborg

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Re: Sound System Speakers
« Reply #4 on: February 19, 2017, 04:19:27 AM »
I have been building tanks for many years and in differnt scales (1/6 - 1/16) both from kits and 3D printet models. All the time, sound is the big problem. I have used ElMod and IBU boards to all my tanks, but they are quiet expensive.
The most important thing in my wiev, is speaker quality and a good box. I do a lot 3D printing and modeling and I make custom box for my tanks. This way I can can make it as big as possible (the bigger the better) and I always use some kind of damping material (wool etc).
As speakers I use Visatron FR 58 for 1/16 tanks. For bigger tanks I make a system with full range speaker and a subwoofer. They need a extra amp and I use different kind of class D amp´s from Ebay or AliExpress.
Here is a picture from a box I made for a Tiger I, auf E Taigen metal kit.
Tiger Box.jpg
Sound System Speakers Tiger Box.jpg
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Regards

Torben
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http://www.panzerteam.dk/

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Offline LukeZ

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Re: Sound System Speakers
« Reply #5 on: February 19, 2017, 01:17:51 PM »
Torben I agree with you a box is very important for good low frequency sound. If you design any 3D printed boxes for specific models, perhaps you will be willing to share the files with the community. More and more people are acquiring now 3D printers so they could print these in their own homes.
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Offline vandborg

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Re: Sound System Speakers
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2017, 03:21:30 AM »
No problem Luke. I like to share my things. Over at Thingiverse (http://www.thingiverse.com) I have a few 1-16 scale things, a V1 german rocket and a LCM3 type landingcraft. The Langdingcraft is rather huge, 96 cm long and I have redesigned so there is space for a Tiger I.
Regards

Torben
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http://www.panzerteam.dk/

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Offline johnnyvd

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Re: Sound System Speakers
« Reply #7 on: June 28, 2017, 10:42:20 AM »
Torben,

Nice looking box for the tiger. Do you have a link to the thingiverse page for that box? Or is it possible to share the STL with us?

Cheer, John
* E-75 / E-100 PAK44 "monster" - in progress
* Sturmjagdtiger PAK44 - in progress
* pz.kpfw KV-2 754(r) - in progress
* T-34 88mm "Kurland Tiger" - in progress

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Offline johnnyvd

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Re: Sound System Speakers
« Reply #8 on: August 10, 2017, 07:08:58 AM »
The Visaton FRS 7 W is a much used and very nice system speaker for tank models:
20170810_140520.jpg
Sound System Speakers 20170810_140520.jpg
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* E-75 / E-100 PAK44 "monster" - in progress
* Sturmjagdtiger PAK44 - in progress
* pz.kpfw KV-2 754(r) - in progress
* T-34 88mm "Kurland Tiger" - in progress

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TWA2016

Re: Sound System Speakers
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2017, 03:31:50 PM »
Hi Folks
I am not sure if I am posting this in the right section as the questions will most likely cross into firriest areas of the forum (my apologies if this is the case).

It has taken me a while to do this as its the first time I have got into programming.
After seeing the video wibblywobbly did on https://www.rctankwarfare.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=208&t=22849
I decided to give this stuff a go.

I have built the models etc


Sound:
Here is a short video of the gun sound. The sound file is a 16bit wav file and is stored on a 2mb flash memory on the Adafruit FX card. The FX card is connected to an 3.7w class D amplifier, the speaker is 8ohms and has a 15w output.
I will probably use a different speaker with the actual model when I build the base it will sit on.


The next stage is get the sound to work with the Tank IR code (and sort the sound file ending out (the easy bit for me)).
I have tried a few different libraries and sketches etc but I am really struggling with this.

Help most welcome
T

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Offline LukeZ

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Re: Sound System Speakers
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2017, 06:39:03 PM »
Hi Trevor, I posted over in your RC Tank Warfare thread.

We can start a new thread here if you want as well, but this one is dedicated to a discussion of speakers, so not really the same thing.

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