Speaker recommendations for RPi gadget

Parts Express sells miniature speakers, and associated electronic modules.

Did I forget to say "in the UK"? Yes, apparently I did. Sorry about that.

Most of the stuff is made in China and the far east. I know nothing about the EU & UK situation, but most of the stuff we order is shipped from HK, mainland China, Taiwan, etc. I'm sure that there are UK suppliers, but have no idea about who, where, and prices. A German small speaker OEM that I've used is Visaton. I'd also question the power availability via the Pi's USB connectors. As I remember the maximum available is about 2W.

If you want them to be passive (i.e. no external power) then presumably these are the same as headphones.

So just repurpose some headphones by removing external bits?

You don't mention the size of the touch screen which you are using as a height guide.

I would expect them to sound tinny and generally crap and not very loud as you don't seem to be proposing to use any amplifier.

Cheers

Dave R

I agree with you about the sound quality, but you can power amplified speakers from USB. I once had such a pair I used with a netbook when travelling.

...but this is probably not a great idea if you're taking the power direct from an RPi rather than a powered USB hub: the power available from a Pi's USB socket is rather limited (max 10w input power less what the Pi is using).

Surely everybody knows by now you don't power ANYTHING with the pi's USB sockets.

I think you'll have to define an EVERYTHING that excludes keyboards, mice and USB flash drives. And possibly WiFi dongles, if you're not using anything else.

Well, the first 6 USB speakers listed by Amazon said "powered by USB" and only one even mentioned the possibility of using a wall wart or a powered USB hub. One of the speaker sets wanted 11 watts: its ad said "Power by simply plugging the USB power cable into virtually any USB port".

If you think that nobody is going to connect speakers directly to an RPi expecting it to boot up normally and be happy driving those speakers, then I have this bridge going cheap...

On Thu, 18 Feb 2016 01:28:10 -0000 (UTC), Martin Gregorie declaimed the following:

But... London Bridge was sold decades ago...

Why did you think of that one? There's a rather nice bridge in Auckland and another in Sydney, to say nothing of one over the East River in NYC.

On Thu, 18 Feb 2016 13:35:49 -0000 (UTC), Martin Gregorie declaimed the following:

The nearest to the address in your signature block... And it is a bridge that really WAS sold...

It isn't even in the UK, let alone Essex. There's a bridge at Dartford that could be worth a bit.

That makes sense, thanks, and of course its was and is alive and living in Arizona. IIRC they thought they were buying Tower Bridge, though. Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle contains splendid descriptions of an earlier bridge - the one extant during the Restoration and Enlightenment era.

However, for some reason, whenever I think of selling bridges its always the Brooklyn Bridge that comes to mind. Dunno why: reading too many low- life American crime novels probably.

They mention the bridge destroyed by fire on their web site but it can't be the same bridge. According to their website, it's called 'The London Bridge' and spanned the 'Thames River'. ;-D

The 'Medieval' bridge, built around 1280 IIRC and replaced by the one that's now in AZ was the first stone bridge, but it had a more or less continuous row of wooden houses along each side, which were burned down at least twice. Seeing that the Baroque Cycle is set in the period from a little after 1660 until about 1715, i.e. from shortly after Charles II's Restoration until Blenheim Palace was being built but before Louis 14 died, this is the 'London Bridge' bridge that appears in the story.

Apparently that's a myth, albeit a popular and amusing one.

Yeah, so I saw (AFTER posting, natch), but by now its a folk-truth with a life of its own.