Gramophone MP3 player

[Herr_Dokter]

Ladies and gentlemen,
I found the continued transportation and assembly of portable speaker systems a source of frustration, and so I aimed to create a portable sound system capable of housing my Mp3 player, and also connecting to my portable thinking engine in order to play sounds at our RPG the Clockwork Opera.

Here it is:



It fits in the palm of your hand.


I took it along and had it signed by gramophone-loving musician Duke Special(www.dukespecial.com)

Here is a look at the mechanism:



I purchased a speaker set from the eBay auction rooms.  Finding such a set with a mechanical volume control was essential (they are mostly digital these days).
I dismantled the speakers and placed them inside a tea-caddy which I purchased for fifty pence.
I found a crank in my box of assorted fixings and attached it to the volume control.
The horn is from an old Car horn that I purchased in a charity shop some years ago.
As you can see, there is just enough space inside to fit a tiny MP3 player.  It may even fit an Ipod nano along the surface.

As I have said, it fits in the palm of the hand and is capable of producing quite a sound!
Your thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

-Herr Dokter, esq.
(of the Clockwork opera)

[Col. Adrianna Hazard]

How delightful! I've been waiting for someone to do a mod like this (because it is an absolutely drool-worthy idea) and now my desire to see a portable, mp3-playing gramophone has been sated.

Congratulations on your wonderfully steampunk "speakers". 

[imperialgirl]

That's gorgeous! Lovely work! Such a wonderfully inventive use of a tea caddy!

The only way it would be better would be if the MP3 player could somehow be operated without the need to open the casing, but I'm not sure how one would go about doing that.

Anyway, really great job! 

[Daemon]

Any chance of a video of this?

[Jonathan Nightingale Lait]

Thats great,  I want one! How about fitting the speaker so it plays through the horn?

[blackrider23]

Thats great,  I want one! How about fitting the speaker so it plays through the horn?

I was wondering about that.  The horn on that probably doesn't actually go all the way through though.  But I love the idea.  I may have to borrow some aspects of this.

[Herr_Dokter]

Many thanks for your enthusiastic comments. 
Daemon, I'm not sure how useful a video would be... it really just sort of sits there. 

As to the horn, my apologies.  I was unable to get a picture of the full workings. 
In fact it is a two-speaker system with one set into the front as can be seen, and a second set into the rear.  The horn does indeed go all the way through, fixed in place with a metal epoxy.  Pleasantly the sound coming from the horn is amplified to be just louder than the front speaker.  When the lid is closed the combined speakers give a wonderfully warm sound.

By far the icing on the cake is the working crank.

-Herr Dokter, esq
(of the Clockwork opera)

[Sir Theodore Catchpole]

i would have had the speaker going thour the horn
very nice what is the horn from?
oh and did i say very nice?

[Aren Galet]

Wonderful! 
It's lovely.  Some much more appealing than white plastic.

[Daemon]

Many thanks for your enthusiastic comments. 
Daemon, I'm not sure how useful a video would be... it really just sort of sits there. 

Well I mean a quick one showing it in your hand (for scale), showing the innards/workings etc.

[Tinkergirl]

Do you mind terribly if I were to post about this on the main Brass Goggles site - it's a lovely thing and the extra description about the warmth of the tone through both speakers at once really sets it off in my mind.

[Herr_Dokter]

Please do...  I'll try and get better photos of the insides.  Do you want higher resolution of the current pics at all?  Anything else you need?

-Herr Dokter, esq.

[Keithe]

Nice work! I like the fact that the crank is used for the volume control.

[Sir Theodore Catchpole]

Please do...  I'll try and get better photos of the insides.  Do you want higher resolution of the current pics at all?  Anything else you need?

-Herr Dokter, esq.

everything and the sink that you have in your house

[Sir Theodore Catchpole]

if someone offred you money do you think you could make another one?

[Herr_Dokter]

Flattered, sir flattered.  I didn't really clock up the cost of parts etc., as it was a personal project.  The real problem is finding the horn, and looking at the eBay auction room they seem to sell at about £20.  Finding a manual volume control speaker system would be tricky too... it was a coincidence it fitted so well...

In short, a lot more R&D would be needed.  What sort of figure would be realisitic?

In the meantime, I encourage you to try something similar yourself!

-Herr Dokter, esq.

[Tinkergirl]

The pictures you have seem like they'd serve admirably, I'd probably use the first one.  I usually use images 450 pixels wide, but I can manage slightly smaller.  Thank you.

[Sir Theodore Catchpole]

Flattered, sir flattered.  I didn't really clock up the cost of parts etc., as it was a personal project.  The real problem is finding the horn, and looking at the eBay auction room they seem to sell at about £20.  Finding a manual volume control speaker system would be tricky too... it was a coincidence it fitted so well...

In short, a lot more R&D would be needed.  What sort of figure would be realisitic?

In the meantime, I encourage you to try something similar yourself!

-Herr Dokter, esq.

if the horn is £20 and if say you did not care if it had a crank or not then i think if you could do it for a cost of £35 it would not be bad that is still $70 USA so on my end it would be bad . grrrrrrr i hate the exchange rate of our money!

[Herr_Dokter]

-Herr Dokter, esq.

[Sir Theodore Catchpole]

-Herr Dokter, esq.

would you mind if i used this image in an novel advert for the
steampunk news paper magasean what ever thing that is being stated at
http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/bg-forum/index.php?topic=3294.0

[anno]

Superbly done Herr Dokter.

[Herr_Dokter]

Many thanks, Tinker Girl for featuring me! 

I should point out my pigeon-german name spelling.  There is a Herr Doktor on the forum- a true gent, whose spelling is much better than mine.

Thanks again.
I feel proud!

-Herr Dokter, esq.

[Sir Theodore Catchpole]

so i was thinking something like haveing words coming out of it and have them saying stuff like top of the line and reall wood and use any mp3 player what do you think?

[Hikaro Takayama]

Herr Dokter,

I don't know how electronics-savvy you are, but one can easily obtain kits, both for general pre-amp and power amps that one can make one's own manual volume control for, and those are fairly cheap (I got two of the preamp kits from outpost.com/Fry's Electronics for about $5 and a 6 W power amp kit made by a company called C's Kits for not more than $5 or so)...

Nice work, BTW.

[JingleJoe]

This is a fantastic doohickey Herr Dokter, I want one! If you were selling them I'd gladly pay around £40 or 50 for one! (maybe even 60 if I happened to have plentiful amounts of currency at my disposal) You could make them more unique by using a different horn for each one e.g. a modified metal funnel or perhaps a fancy lamp shade painted and used upsidedown to resemble a real gramophone. That would give them an edge; each one being slightly different.
Please do tell us if you do start selling them!