Add a Wireless Subwoofer to your Tank

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TankDriver
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Add a Wireless Subwoofer to your Tank

Post by TankDriver »

While thinking about how to get better sound from my vehicles, it occurred to me that if I could transmit the sound out of a tank wirelessly to a subwoofer, while still using the onboard tank speaker, then those non-directional low frequencies would 'fill the room' while the more directional mids & highs will seem to come from the tank speaker, giving correct location cues to my ears while the tank moves around. Here's how - make a 'series' speaker loop with 1 male & 2 female '2-pin' connections: one for the regular speaker & one for the feed to the transmitter. This will allow both to be connected to the single speaker terminal on your board (using the 1 male plug)... since you wire it in series, there's no danger of blowing your board's amp, as long as you are careful to not short positive to negative. Now, feed the speaker signal from the board to a "speaker-to-line level" converter (which is passive so doesn't need any power) to drop it down to line level, and then feed into the line input on your transmitter. Next, connect the line out of your receiver to a small battery-powered headphone amp, and the output of that to your subwoofer. If the sub is passive, then the level will be controlled from the headphone amp, and if the sub is active, then you will also be able to adjust volume at the sub & will probably have more volume. Very important to use these two level converters with the wireless gear, since it will sound like hot garbage if the impedances are mismatched. Notice that I used the 'line in' instead of the 'mic in' and the 'line out' instead of the 'headphone out' for the cleanest distortion-free sound. Very important to use analog wireless gear for this, since any digital gear will have a built-in delay due to the necessary encoding / decoding of the audio, and that could / would drive you nuts! Pictured here is all the sound gear required: the 2 units on the left are on the receiving end, while the 2 units on the right should fit into a 1/16 tank... but maybe you'll have to remove the smoker ;) See video link at end of this post for audible example.
Image

This twin-speaker Tiger (on the blocks for repairs) will be getting the 'sonic implant' soon:
Image

Here's a short video with the subwoofer being turned up on 'tank-in-a-box' bench tester while its internal speaker still plays:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g00e0pzv ... tqhj5&dl=0
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Herr Dr. Professor
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Re: Add a Wireless Subwoofer to your Tank

Post by Herr Dr. Professor »

Out of curiosity, I checked https://www.movophoto.com/collections/w ... icrophones. Oh, these are lavalier microphones. :/ (I never used one, even in big lecture halls. My big mouth sufficed. :D ) I have a commonly-available speaker that connects to my iPhone via Bluetooth. Would there be a gizmo (the technical term) that could transmit sound from the tank via bluetooth, or is that too expensive and complicated?
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TankDriver
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Re: Add a Wireless Subwoofer to your Tank

Post by TankDriver »

Herr Dr, there would be an unavoidable delay with any digital system and even more with Bluetooth, around half to 1 full second behind the action. So it would work for non-synchronous sounds like the engine, but you'd notice the machine gun & cannon sounds out of sync with the tank
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TankDriver
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Re: Add a Wireless Subwoofer to your Tank

Post by TankDriver »

FYI good Dr, there are a ton of adapters that you can hook up to any analog audio output & transmit the sound over Bluetooth (with a delay), like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/sspa/click?ie=UT ... %26psc%3D1
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TankDriver
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Re: Add a Wireless Subwoofer to your Tank

Post by TankDriver »

Also worth noting Dr that even though these are designed to be used mostly with lavalier microphones, those are just one of many possible sound sources, since the mic is not hard-wired... the transmitter & receiver have 1/8" jacks for both line & mic level inputs & outputs
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Herr Dr. Professor
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Re: Add a Wireless Subwoofer to your Tank

Post by Herr Dr. Professor »

Thank you: I have the link you sent, TankDriver, and I will consider possibilities. Right not, I am scrimping money, but the day may come.

(Ahem, it sure looks as if the driver of Tiger 123 slammed on both track brakes.)
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