$1 E-Circuit Mini Powered Speaker review & teardown
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- The only powered speaker that probably sounds worse than the built-in speakers in your new smartphone. It used to come with a better-quality 3-watt speaker, as shown in this video: • Dollar Store Speaker T... But it looks like they've further cheapened the design since then.
Video contains music by Julian Croot ("80s Inspired Retro Synth Track"): picturedmedia.c...
If the traffic in my area sounded that blown out I think I would stay home!
It's a shame you broke PCB, it would have been useful for testing purposes, just like you pointed out :( Looks actually kinda cute!
It sounds like an old AM pocket radio because it's exactly the same type of speaker! The only good use for those little paper cone speakers is as a vintage PC speaker. Still a heck of a deal for a buck!
I can't help but wonder if the sound coming out of that thing is better than the built-in Lenovo speakers. I wouldn't be too surprised if it was.
High definition sound!! 😆
7:37 Yes, as we can see a bit later, you did ruin the thing there, but I guess you and we viewers agree in not giving a damn about that.
I've always wondered what these sounded like now I know lol
Dang. I have a bluetooth speaker that I got on AliExpress, and it sounds much great than this piece of elder telephone speaker.
You get what you pay for
Not Bad 👍
Oh man, winamp brings so many memories. The early mp3 days.
i still using winamp on my pc
@@phoenixkaidan8915 Are they still making new versions? I use vlc and potplayer these days. The latter is fantastic for streamed content.
@@SuperFinGuy I think there was a new version released a few months ago
@@KofolaDealer 5.8 beta build was leaked, and they opted to just release the build
I am using winamp, Version 5.54 from 2008. Still works great 11 years later.
Dollar store tat? Where’s the brown sofa?
Ashens!! I got the reference!
In the UK with a Neo Quad Games.
I immediately knew the reference, big Ashens fan over here!
For a dollar i'd expect that thing to be made out of recycled bottles in a melted mass unlike anything commercially acceptable. That it comes with a switch, speaker, led, mini jack, an amplifier circuit and enclosure for a dollar. WTF. If I go to the electronics shop 4 LED's a dollar. A switch is a dollar by itself! A speaker is like 2-5 dollars (tiny crap ones). How they do this for a dollar?! Incredible. Keep in mind the store selling it still has to turn a profit meaning this was actually sold for LESS than a dollar (with shipping!?) to the store! Holy hell.
I'm sure it's sold under 100's of brands all over the planet, they just change the package based on what store is selling it, so they do by making millions of them which drives the cost down, so I'm guessing they make this thing for $.50 at volume, sell it to Dollar Tree for $0.60 - 0.75 so that's a minimum $0.25 profit for Dollar Tree, so not that bad really when they might get $0.10 profit on something like $1 carpet cleaner, laundry soap, or some food product. So yeah it is kind of amazing.
You know those bottles STILL Float out at Sea just Waiting for the chance to be Saved and recycled -
Before being Swallowed by 'Monsters'! [their view, not mine] ~ little birdie told me.
@@hvaoigu3984 That's crazy man! O__O
It's amazing to think that anyone made any money on this, or that the components within could be made, purchased and installed for so little. I take it the little amplifier board did not survive losing a corner?
The speaker looks exactly like the one that comes with the "light blue" AM radio kit.
Well, what the heck...I went and bought one. The last one that the particular Dollar Tree in question just so happened to have. It's blue, same as this one, and actually came *with* the 1/8" cable (also proudly proclaiming such on the box). Judging by the amount of dust on the box, I'm guessing it had been there for a while. The speaker driver in mine is identical to yours.
I've spent the last half hour or so listening to Pandora radio on it from an iPhone SE. I like it. While not perfect and certainly susceptible to cellular phone interference, I'm very much of the impression that it's bloomin' brilliant for the money. (How could it not be?) It definitely plays loudly enough to make me happy. Had there been any more, I'd have bought several more to use as test speakers.
uxwbill I am the (semi) proud owner of one too! I purchased mine about two years ago, and it most certainly does the job for a computer without a built in speaker! I'd like to rig it up as a built in speaker (on unless headphones plugged into the front panel, pulling power, instead of batteries, from a USB header so it's only on when it needs to be) but I'm way too lazy for that.
@@uxwbill It's too bad my dollar trees doesn't sell this speaker anymore. As is, it's a good speaker for projects like intercoms and alarms. For parts it's an inexpensive source for jacks and LEDs. But, for a higher quality speaker, the circuit board (with its 8002a IC chip in that BTL bridge configuration and its THD+Noise= 0.08% according to the updated spec sheet: www.shenzhensum.com/products/datasheet/8002%282.0W%29.pdf) needs a better driver element.
I used a 2inch Boston Acoustics# 304-050001-00 wide range speaker element (20 Hz - 20kHz) in a modified Sodastream Syrup enclosure. That rig sounds better than my Sony Ericsson MPS-70 Portable speaker.
That puff of smoke it burped out upon its demise was quite amusing.
U get what u get for a dollar not too bad though
Nice video. For 1 $ can be use for small projects.
9:53 I popped it!
Where's my hammer?
"Traffic report? You can't handle the traffic report!!!" :P
Combine it with cheapest mp3 player and you have
You don't fail on your pursue to cover the absolute worst electronic stuff available on the market, give it a twist and make for a truly enjoyable video. It's not by chance new content from you counts as a bit of a better day to me.
Well...
Can't see the most stringent of audiophiles rushing out to get one of these.
'ts not that bad, though, I guess.
When you drop the next Mother 3 video?
...uh, Monday, probably.
While it's dirt cheap, I'm surprised it's as good as it is for that price! I have a pair of '90s Koss passive/active walkman speakers and they sound about the same; mainly mid-range, not much else. They're not audiophile grade though, just some portable speakers that are better than nothing. Plus I'd rather have mid-range than ear-piercing treble.
You straight-up KO'd one of the traces on the amplifier PCB 😂
Better than a rechargeable speaker I got for free at a job recruitment event about a year ago. It used the hardwired audio cable for charging the battery (no joke - it came with an adapter to convert the 3.5mm jack to USB for charging), and actually never worked at all outside of turning on. I kept the tiny Li-Ion battery and the driver and junked the rest.
I've seen this item at Dollar Tree and passed on it. Now I'm wondering, for a buck, if doing a USB 5v mod to it would blow it up or not.
The speaker looks like it can't handle more than a watt or two. 5V would blow it or distort it to be unlistenable.
Probably distort it is my guess; though VWest showed the amplifier is a 5 volt part.
I would say the amp chip could handle it, just not the crappy speaker.
For a buck, maybe I'll just have to find out.
+jaykay18 If you do so, please tell us if it worked out! :-)
Well now I've seen it all- Jersey 101.5 killed something
I have seen that same 8002 amplifier chip in many Chinese pocket radios.
you get what you pay for. BTW: nice speaker blowout at the end. LOL
They've got these in Poundland too!
You are obsessed with cheap electronics
Yeah, but it is interesting, sort of in a "how low can you go" way.
"And that's it for the speaker: Burned out over Traffic report."
Hilarious. 😂😂😂
9:54 --- lmao at the little puff of smoke. It also sounded like the F word was coming out of the speaker right as it popped.
Never noticed your HRC banner in the background before. Solidarity, man. Love your videos of the weird electronics you find, too.
My life would not be complete without Winamp.
You feed them manna and they complain it isn't steak
I like your adventures into the worlds of cheap electronics, it would be interesting to see if there is anything at these dollar based stores that would even come close to any higher quality products. One must always lower ones expectations when purchasing any dollar based items.
The dollar tree sylvania LED light bulbs are great. They have outlived the more expensive lowes brand ones which is amusing.
they carry the jot sci calc which is good
the non flat micro B USB cables they carry have been working good for me for about a year, and the 3.5mm Aux cables are alright as well.
I seen LED light bulbs for $1 in Dollar tree. You should do a video about the $1 LED light blubs. It doesn't cause radio interference.
Brian RadioDX530 he already made one
Trying using that little amplifier in a normal speaker set probably 4ohm of your serious amplifier for test the sound...
To be fair at least they've made it amplified. I've got a £1 speaker which is surprisingly made of metal, but it's so quiet you could barely hear it!
I remember in the 90's when Dollar tree had Stereo speakers for $1, so I got a pair, turned out they where not amplified, and where so quiet my ferrets at the time made more noise moving around in their cage. LOL!
@@CommodoreFan64 I've got a few of those - basically a 3.5mm cable soldered onto 0.5w or 1w speakers lol
"I buy this crap so you don't have to ".
Holy shit, I have that speaker. Pretty useful for testing a dodgy headphone port that may or may not have high voltage present in the wire so the more expensive one does not blow up. And also it's pretty good for connecting to Geiger-Müller counter kit.
Also, it's good for projects because it has a speaker and amplifier circuit for less than $1 and you can reuse it for connecting it up to Arduino and whatnot (Mozzi library plays HQ audio and it's perfect for this speaker!)
p.s. The speaker is garbage and it's only good for speech and whatnot, but the amplifier seems good enough for bigger speakers!
Honestly, these things are pretty amazing for $1. 'aint exactly something for listening to your tunes, but for little electronics projects that need a bit of sound, pretty great!
Can't wait for Michael Fremer's review
They sell these in Poundland in the UK for £1. I replaced the driver with slightly better one out of a shower speaker.
I replaced the speaker in mine with a 0.5 watt one of the same size and a bigger magnet and it sounds much better.
I actually think the Brookstone sounds worse to be honest.
there's a measure instrument call "DATs" from Dayton, that device allows You "to see" the sound that a speaker can reproduce, very usefull to modify or calculate a very acurate box, also to built a crossover...or review any set of speaker.
You can get a decent sounding portable speaker for around $20 these days. This is a real waste of time purchase. I wonder what a better speaker would sound like. Doesn't seem too hard of a soldering job to connect it to something better
Next time, use a soldering iron to remelt the plastic peg holding it down; or even just take a knife/razor/chisel and remove the top part of the melted peg.
I picked one of these up in Poundland in the UK and it came with the cable.
"It's listenable." Like 25 cent ramen noodles are eatable. Hee, hee!
Comparing a $1 speaker to a Brookstone speaker is not exactly fair.
I would have this over the "smart" spy device known as the amazon alexa etc .
Echo is the speaker, Alexa is the service it uses…
I bought one of those at dollar tree a year or so ago and my samsung phone is twice as loud as it
For $1, you can be happy if it works... It does what it was made for, or at least, it _did_. ;-)
Here's what you can do with the rest of it: Remove the circuit board from the housing, solder a small wire onto it to replace the missing part (that broke away), solder another 3.5mm jack onto it and connect the wires that once led to the batteries to a USB cable (maybe even a micro USB one, that makes it more interesting for mobiles). As a result, you have a nice, super compact headphone amplifier for devices that don't have enough power for passive speakers and headphones for $1... ;-)
Andro Only that's actually brilliant. Almost something I would have thought of. I've got a few passive speakers that I don't know what to do with, this is actually just quite genius.
No highs. No lows. Must be...the Dollar Tree!
Almost time to look for the Mighty Malt eggs! lol
@@TheTrueVoiceOfReason They should have the Easter stuff out by now.
For those interested, I have tested this speaker using 5 volts. Just search for "Will The ECIRCUIT $1 Mini Speaker Run Off 5 Volts USB?"
"cheap" "this is so cheap" "this cheap quality" What did you expect? Do you buy this trash knowing it is trash, to then rant about how trashy they are? come on! This is starting to get old.
If you don't like it, don't watch my videos.
Maybe the price would have been better if it had been like $0.50 or something like that although I will say it doesn't sound too bad it's pretty good for vocals however the book stone does sound a lot better. Now of course I'm not too sure if you turn up the volume on that AV receiver but hooking it up to something that big yes it was bound to burn out way too much power for that little thing. I would say one thing if you had a laptop that didn't have very good speakers or the speakers were damaged on it this cheap little speaker could be a decent replacement if you don't want to spend too much money on actual PC speakers.
I own two of these one blue and the other black. Both suck.
I had one like that to. So crappy I dropped it and it fell apart.
Oh my I love your X60
I'd bet, putting in a better speaker (like you described) would make a huge difference. The thing about these modern amp chips of that size is, for what they are,, they blow away the small cheap boombox amp chips that were used back in the 80s, to fairly recent. Even the ICs you'd fin used in many cheapy computer speakers.
Side note... I like messing around with these small amps, even have come across some higher quality amplified rechargable speakers at secondhand stores. What I've noticed about these, is sometimes they will filter out the lower bass frequencies on the input line to not overdrive the smaller speakers that are used.
I have one of these tiny speakers. It's ok I guess. Got it mostly for the parts. I'm going to get a few more because I need some 3v AAA battery holders for LED lights. I had this speaker of which I used the amplifier to make a homemade boombox amp, it originally ran on 2 AA batteries so I put a 9 volt battery on it and it sounded much better and louder so maybe try 6 volts on this amp, it may sound louder and better.
That's what I need to circuit trace. Perfect.
Never seen this one before. It’s at Dollar Tree for a buck. I was at Dollar Tree and I didn’t see it, but when it shows up, I’ll give it as pass. It lacks the volume control and a AC or DC adapter. Not the best sounding speaker in the collection. I might as well stay away.
The quality sounded not too bad due to the lack of volume. It sounded almost like it came out of my Audiotronics Classette 148B school cassette recorder, or any other school audio equipment.
I've purchased a couple of these things and modded them to have speaker terminals coming out the top instead of a speaker. Those little amps can actually get some big speakers to a decent volume! I was shocked. With a little bit of modification, I could imagine this being great for something like testing speakers at thrift shops before you buy them.
One of these would be cool just to mod and stick into a DIY project.
R.I.P. Brookstone 🙏
The blue speaker sounds bad, but it’s really good for $1
Blowing up speakers 9:49
5:29 The dollar one sounded better.
Best speaker around this size for cheap is probably the sol Republic punk. I have one and it's pretty good
Jeebus. The PC speaker in my 486 looks better built than that thing.
Steve F they often are. The older HP and Compaq machines had amazing built in speakers.
I love how the manufacturers have the nerve to say a dollar speaker produces high definition sound!
If those shitty looking speakers could produce good sound, Shure, Klipsch, Sony and other audio gear producers would be sweating buckets right now.
sounded good to me actually
Yep, pretty much only good for a parts machine....
Speaking of speakers, have you taken a close look at DML aka Distributed Mode Loudspeakers. I have been pretty impressed by the sound/price ratio and if I can clear projects I thought I'd give it a go.
I had no idea why they cheapen out the cost (and the design) to make these obnoxious pair of speakers. I mean, the 3-watt speaker driver that used to be included in the same model sounds a heck lot better than these tinny high-end oriented speakers. Expecting the bassy hype on these speakers? Zilch, nada!
But hey, what do you expect for $1?
I have two 2 of these they work ok I use them for my minidisc Walkman and iPod. My cousin had one and on the first day he bought it he accedentally pushed in the auxiliary jack too far so I tried to fix it I just said it’s disposable tech.the next day we were going to go get a new one but never did. You could go next store to Walmart and buy a Sony speaker with an auxiliary jack & Bluetooth for $10.
Here in 2021. I have a few of these $1 globe speakers. To make it a little bit worthy, yes, replace the crap speaker with a better sounding speaker. Needs to be in the range of 4-16 ohms to get the best out of it. I have also taken out the circuit board, on two of them, & used them to make a $2 mini stereo amplifier & it works great & sounds great. One modification you will need is to put some sort of heatsink on the amp chip, as this chip gets hotter as you crank up the input audio signal volume. If you cannot find heatsinks, you can find some sort of long piece of sheet metal & screw down the 2 circuit boards on them with both chips touching the metal sink. Just make sure to put some heatsink compound on top of the chip. The heatsink will of course lengthen the life of the chip amps. I have read the amp chip datasheet. But I haven't checked on the schematic further, so that I should be able to add a logarhythmic stereo potentiometer somewhere on the boards that can change the volume somewhere in the signal chain, since these globe speakers only have an on/off switch & input jack. I also used a dc adapter instead of batteries. Again though, these globe speakers aren't that great out of the box (cuz of said speakers), but can be a nice quality device once you do some simple DIY on them.
1$
Ive in a pinch gotten some headphones from a dollar store and those usually aren't too bad considering usually just highly uncomfortable but this isn't worth the parts its made from.
WOW! 8 Alkaline AAA batteries for $1
Here in Canada we get only 2/$1.. scam
It only costs $1. What sort of quality are we expecting?
None
Only rubbish quality
Too bad it failed the last test, I was thinking the whole video to buy a bunch of them and build a 2019 version sweet sixteen.
You buy this crap so we don't have to.
Love your vids
You broke the PCB! Now you ruined its collector's value.
I think the Old telephone speaker I have would fit - may be better, - or not. =\ i Like the Cardboard! oops ~ '
These are in pound land here in the uk
that's about $1.29 USD, you guys are getting ripped off big time.
@@CommodoreFan64 there's literally piles of them in the pound land near me because no one wants them 😂
@@jdriver2308 Zero surprise there, but at least from what I gather from other comments they are throwing in a short 3.5mm Aux cable for the extra cost, which is not saying much considering how quickly those cables fail LoL!
I had one of them before.
The batteries got hot and swollen.
Went straight in the trash.
Don't buy.
I had some cheap headphones that sounded pretty well but they broke and the drivers inside were like that one, so they are using headphone drivers as a speaker driver??
I remember getting one of these just to see what it sounded like and it was about as bad as I expected
I got one of these a month ago in Poundland.
I got reminded of this video while currently going through Jersey 😂
9:55 It sounds like he said the f word right when it blew!
Man todays traffic was so bad that little Johnny , the speaker, got into a coma for a garbage years
I love your dry sense of humor. "proper cabinet and amplifier" lmao
Hahaha you killed that little speaker lol, infact I got a bluetooth speaker that sounds ok than this one
The speaker went out with a unclimatic "Poof" haha.
HiFi has been replaced by "high definition".
Like the 80s test track song you use in your videos. Any info on where it came from?
It was composed by Julian Croot of PicturedMedia Ltd.