amped up
brief
An old pair of Klein+Hummel speakers where my flatmate and I replaced the analogue amplifiers with digital amps. This enables new functionality like EQ, DSP and Bluetooth.
specifications
Year
2024-2025
For
Collaborative Project
Type
Upcycling
Model
Klein+Hummel O 96 - 3 way studio monitor speakers
Upgrades
idea
My friend Julian acquired these speakers with one broken amp. We brainstormed how to revive them with modern features and came to the conclusion that digital amps with Bluetooth and DSP for frequency response control and room acoustic adaptation would be the way to go.
credits
Idea & Concept
Till Solenthaler & Julian Fehr
Build
Till Solenthaler
AI Declaration
No AI tools used
process
01. RESEARCH & DESIGNJulian led this phase due to his speaker expertise. We chose digital amps for DSP functionality, fitted into the left enclosure with separate boards for mids/highs and lows.
02. REMOVE OLD AMPSRemoved old analogue amplifiers. Screenshot of the manual shown as reference since I have no photo of the old amps.
03. TEST CIRCUIT & BUILD ENCLOSURECreated a backplate with a power connector, switch, aux input and speaker terminals for the second speaker. Mounted components onto the backplate and wired everything up.
04. MOUNT BACKPLATEMounted the backplates to the speakers. The first one with the Amps and DSP board went onto the left speaker, the second one with only cable terminals went onto the right speaker.
05. CONNECT AND TESTConnected everything and tested functionality. Bluetooth worked and EQ settings could be adjusted via DSP software.
06. CAPTURE IMAGESUsed backdrop setup with studio lights to create portfolio images.
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