Hi, You remember this Uh, Sonos Play 5 Gen 1 speaker I found in the dumpster and it ended up working just fine and I did a tear down of this. So I'll link it in down below and the build quality of these is actually quite excellent. The design and build quality. Unfortunately, there were tons of people in the comments who own the one of these things and they said no, it belongs in the dumpster Um, because Sonos are just evil in terms of like it how they uh, this Gen 1 product is not compatible with the New Gen 2 software and that's probably why it got uh, tossed out and then the software is a real pain in the backside to actually, uh, get working.

So to get this Gen One working I do have to use the older, obsolete Gen 1 software and then you've got to create accounts and you've got to do all sorts of things. And even though it has a line in like this, you have to actually register the thing first and then get all the software work can get everything set up before the line in will work. So even if you want to use it as a dumb speaker yeah, you like you can't just plug in like your shoe phone into here and then just have it work and this is what I want you know I want to use it down in the dungeon down there as a speaker I just want to plug my shoe phone into there and um and just have it work but it doesn't work. You've got to set the stupid thing up.

You've got to give them all your details and they are. Yeah, you can create a throwaway account and all that. No, this is absolute garbage. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to hack this thing.

um, to get rid of all the smarts out of it, we're going to rip the guts out of it. and then we're going to put in hopefully some old-fashioned knobs in here and we can just get this thing working as a not just a dumb speaker, but also as a Bluetooth speaker as well. So let's go. You could design your own amplifier to fit in here and everything but what? I've got I he's got this on eBay It was like 30 bucks or something and it's a fussy audio.

It's a Zkt B21 it's a 50 watt uh times two. uh class D amp. uh plus it's got a subwoofer as well because this, um, actually has one subwoofer in the middle plus uh, two two-way uh speakers in here as well. So it's got a line in and Bluetooth and uh yeah, we need a DC uh external DC uh supply for it.

But anyway, this is very nice. It uses a TI uh chipset I'll put that up here now. So if I was to design this myself, this is pretty much what I would uh actually design and would have used the same TI chipset or you know, something. uh equivalent.

So yeah, it's got a chongx cap on it and we'll need a crossover for the uh two-way uh speakers of course. but uh, but check this out. I think this might actually fit in there perfectly. So yeah.

I just couldn't believe how painful this thing was and I did like do a factory reset on it now I can't get the stupid thing working even with the Uh Gen 1 software. it's just oh, it's just. it's just so bad like and it's a shame because they actually make design and make decent Quality Hardware It's just a shame that they want to be Dr Evil And uh, get all of your details and then brick your products. I mean how many of these things have been bricked Because you know it just doesn't work with the latest Gen software or whatever.

It's just like. It's unbelievable. There are a couple of support posts here we'll have to take out, but we've still got two mounting posts over here so the base can still screw back on. Yeah, that's almost purpose designed for that.

And then we've got a another hole in the back for the audio jack, Another hole for the Uh power supply. The power supply will have to be external unless maybe we could hack the internal power supply so that we can power it from its existing power supply over here. So this requires a Uh 12 to 24 volt input. So yeah, we should be able to get something like that out of the existing Sonos power supply.

We might as well make a use of it. we'll just we can just rip the rest of it out. I Mean, once again, look at the attention to detail here. They went to the effort to have a little uh, clamp in there and they even molded that into the plastic.

A little cable clamp just so that that wire going over there wasn't flapping around in the breeze like unbelievable attention to detail in my tear down video I said this is the juicy hero of uh Wi-Fi you know smartspeakery things and yeah, I'm stand by that and they've got individual uh, rubber penetrators on there for each Wi-Fi antenna cable going through. Unbelievable. Come on there we go. I've shown this before in the tear down the acoustic design.

They've got these sealed enclosures here. they've got all the foam over all the cables and then inside here they've got the Uh dual ported horn port on this thing. Um, they're just absolutely fantastic. So anyway, um I think yeah, we might be able to tap off the mains power supply down here and I've got Sagan here with me.

Sagan What do you reckon should I just take out all the smart stuff on here which is actually which is all the evil part of it. First, insert evil off here. Oh yeah. Evil laugh.

Okay, go try and do a maniacal laugh That is an excellent impression of the directors of Sonos. All right, All right. So anything we should do depends what party it is, depends on the quality of the power supply. It looks pretty decent quality.

Well, if it's good, then keep the power supply, rip out everything else, and plus ripping stuff out is just way more entertaining. Yeah, sounds like a plan. Good plan. Okay, so let's rip the evil out of this thing.

Huge board to board interconnect in here. Totally forgot about the a whole bunch of screws on the bottom here. There you go. We've still got the uh, the soft power button on top here, but uh, we can rip all that out.

Oh that's tempting, isn't it? Knobs on the front or back? Oh I wish I could do a live poll I'm a live pole. What do you think? Say again, should I mount this on the bottom like this and have the knobs coming out the front like retro style? Like retro style? Yeah. or should I try and mount it in here inside and have the knobs sticking out in the back there? I Say the front is more accessible. front is more accessible.

You are right laid lamb. But we do get to destroy the evil Sonos branding on the front. What do you think we should call it? Should we call it the Fronos Free Sonos from its evil captors? Yes, Fronos All right. it's going to be called the Fronos.

Now, the reason why we can't just mod the amplifier board here and just like, bypass all the intelligence and just feed the signal directly in. It's controlled by a Cirrus Logic 44 800 down here and this is an I2s audio interface chip and then it's a Pwm output Uh, Drive in the audio, the discrete Pwm audio section here. So it's not like we've got like an analog amplifier in this thing that we can just feed the audio signal into. Unfortunately, if you wanted to design something, if you you know to feed in I2s digitally um, if you wanted to do that, but you know, Look, it's not worth this amount of design effort to actually do that.

Anyway, there's all the evilness It is. Gonski look at at the design effort they went to for this. Just the power switchboard up the top with this custom rubber grommet here to get the acoustic seal in there. Unbelievable.

Like Guild in the Lily There you go, got out the entire Sonos PCB and I'll show you that serious logic down there and then all the five channel Pwm that's a discrete transistor solution over there driving the Uh. And there's the output caps and inductors and the output filter in for the class D. But the audio power supply out here. you know it's got to be 12 to 24 volts.

Something like that. Does that help us? Voltage test points. Was the designer nice to us? No. uh, we should be able to work this out by deduction.

Look at this isolation here. They've isolated all of the mains Supply over here from all the digital. this is all Digital Ground Plane here. What is this device? What is this six pin? Joby A common mode choke there? So aha.

I Think that is the main voltage output so we could even desolder that and remove all of the Power from all the stuff on this side here if we're not using it anymore, right? So let's actually, uh, measure the voltage here. Of course, all this stuff along here is all Mains potential. So we'll use our patented type takeaway protection mechanism here. I Can physically see that the center pin is ground.

it's to the ground plane 25 volts. Bingo that's a volt above our 24 maximum. so I don't know what the absolute maximum is and the other one 11.6 so we haven't got quite got the 12 12 to 24. but that's going to be good enough for Australia Ah, curiously, you can see the Ernie Bernie Mark there on the PCB where the uh, all the five channels um, audio has just that's where it's gotten hot, right? So there are output driver transistors on the bottom.

there discolored. cool, huh? Okay, that choke is Gonski, so we should be able to just wire into these two. Uh, caps here are in parallel Jackon brand. Never heard of them anyway.

35 volt job is there in parallel and they're the uh, that's the 25 volt output, so just wire across that. and I Did check the data sheet for the Ti Uh chip. It will accept up to 26 volts. So 25 volts? No problem.

Let's just double check that make sure there's no sense business. Uh, going on? Yep, 25 volts? No workers? All right. That'll work nicely. and we've already got an existing hole or multiple holes.

We can feed down there as well and we can acoustically see all those if you want to get all uh audio. Foolery So we'll just run the wire under the bottom there and through there and we can access. uh, then we can wire that into the board on the bottom side. No workers right? So now we have to clear space for our board to go in here.

so we've got to. uh, cut out those. You don't have to use the Dremel You can get in there with a nice pair of Flush Cutters and then the bottom here. We have to actually remove these ones as well.

Uh, they, they're a bit trickier. Someone was very unsure of the manufacturing date. Either that or somebody on the production line was bored. There you go.

Look at that. Bobby Dazzler. It's almost like it's purpose designed in there. There's plenty of height in there, no workers.

and I Oh beautiful. And if you wanted to, you could actually, uh, cut that off and just use that as a label plate on the front And you could definitely choose either front controls or rear like that. I Think front is better because you know you've got it. Sitting on a bench, you want to be able to adjust uh, the volume? you might want to be able to.

you know, tweak the individual uh responses. and that's actually got a clicky on off switch as well. It doesn't switch off the mains, but at least switches off the power to the main amp down here. So yeah, I'm thinking front and then that will just fit in there nicely.

It is curved though. Unfortunately, it's curved a little bit so that's a little bit of an issue. but still. Um, yeah, no worries.

Unfortunately, we don't have enough room to get in there for that. uh, Phoenix plug really. so I'll just desolder that and we can solder the wires directly into that later. Mrs EV Blog has made an appearance.

You think controls on the front I could have controls at the back, but I think controls on the front? Are you on the front? Yeah. Front front. Yep. As long as we keep these cool uh, tubular like things.

cooler tubular. Like the cool tubular light things. they are tuned ports so they're the acoustic chamber. It works as a big acoustic chamber so they've got acoustic foam and these ports are specifically designed to match the resonant response of the chamber and all that sort of thing.

So they look like a trumpet. which is why they look like a trumpet. Correct? Okay, thank you. Mrs AV Block I Took care of that.

Look at that, it's gonna fit in there. Oh, practice. Like almost to the millimeter. Oh, you can see, there's not much of a curvature there.

Like that's almost exactly the dimensions board. I would have designed to actually fit in there. Incredible actually. I Don't think I had to dremel out that one.

I Think that would have been perfectly fitted between there and there. Oh maybe. Oh, maybe half a millimeter in it? I Don't know. Half a bees dick free the Sonos and I can desolder and use the front panel as a drilling template.

Nice. Yeah, that worked. I don't even have to have the holes. Uh, the threaded part actually penetrate out because that is a perfect fit.

that is not that is not coming out at all. Beautiful now. Unfortunately, the supplied knobs are these deep recess types and they don't fit on there. So the subwoofer here is, uh, controlled by its own amplifier.

It'll have its own low pass filter for it that'll be on the PCB So no worries. But we've only got the single Left Right speaker output. so we've got a two-way speaker system here. so we need to, uh, measure the impedance of the woofer and the Tweeter here.

Even though we do have this, it's a Peerless R4 Ohm Joby It's you know, it's reasonably decent. I Maybe the Tweet is a Peerless as well I Don't know. Design A a simple Just A First Order Butterworth crossover for it. So when you're measuring speaker impedance, you don't want to use your regular multimeter because well, it's not measuring impedance.

So because the Tweet is the one, we don't have specs on the Tweeter showing 7.3 Ohms. Now, the woofer is should show something under four. Ohms. Yep.

three. it's not actually three Ohms. Uh, so we'll go for the nominal 4 ohm rating. So what we can do so we can actually use something a little bit better so our LCR meter will be slightly better.

Let's measure our woofer again. One Kilohertz, 3.6 Ohms. And that's actually going to change with frequency there. at 10 kilohertz, it's uh, 8.8 Anyway, we're going to run with the uh, phenomenal 4 ohm uh impedance.

but the Tweeter is the one that we don't know you can hear that one Kilohertz. We don't want one Kilohertz either. 10 Kilohertz is about where a tweetery operates at 8.2 Ohms Ah That's good enough for Australia. We'll take 8.2 So if we go to an online calculator, a two-way crossover, none of that three-way A rubbish.

Now the frequency here: I'm going to be using this mostly with audio. like to listen to podcasts and videos and stuff so speech. You want to the crossover to be high enough to avoid uh, the vocal frequency range. So some studio monitors I've got here.

they avoid the Uh vocal range and they are a 2.8 kilohertz crossover frequency. So uh, 2.8 cm pounds are right. You know, three something like that. Now you've got a ton of options.

Go in. the comments down below. come on, flame away. I'm just gonna go which is good enough for Australia A First Order Butterworth You can go right up to a six order link which Riley First Order Butterworth which is just going to be a series Uh capacitor and a series inductor.

Boom there it is there. 6.9 microfarads that's close enough to the Um 6.8 mic standard value and the inductor is 230 micro. Henry's near enough to 220 something like that. which is a standard.

Anyway, if you want to have a look at these, these will all be like the first order will be the same. It's just different Uh values basically. And if you want a second order Butterworth then you have two capacitors and two inductors. They're different values.

It gives you a more shaped Uh response. and then you can go to a third order Butterworth You require a uh, the two capacitors, one inductor like that, and a fourth order Butterworth All right, let's have a look at that. Two caps, and two inductors. Thank you very much.

That's two fancy pantsy for Australia If you go for a fourth order link which Riley it's exactly the same circuit except it gives you a different response because you tailor the different values. 6.8 mic cap, it's got to be a non-polarized type, so none of that polarized rubbish and we just go for a 220 uh mic inductor. no workers and I don't think I'll be buying the metal eyes polyprop. Ah, I'm not that fancy fancy.

40 bucks, 50 each, no thank you. I'll go for the non-polarized Electro and crossover caps 6.8 mic. Look at that and if you want to see the physical difference in size between the Electro non-polarized and the polyprop, um yeah, look at that. Wow.

but uh, they're like 14 bucks a pop. No thanks, right? So I've bodged in a series uh cap with the Tweeter and I've botched in I put I had to put two uh inductors in series I did that over there and over there. oh gun, come all down so they don't like flap around in the breeze and everything so no worries I'll tidy that up but uh yeah, she should be good to go. So now all I've got to do is uh extend the cable over here I could uh use a pin header but I think I'll just uh cut the wires and splice in some newies now.

I've got the left and right speakers and the subwoofer fed through and the power. That's all we need. One last star power Polarity check before I plug it in. we do get 25 positive.

Excellent winner winner chicken dinner. Check it out. It's connected to my shoe phone via the newfangled Bluetooth and uh yeah, you plug it in via the headphone jack. It works as well.

I've got volumes so it just clicks like that and click on. It's a little bit hard to access I Do need to get better knobs I actually filed these ones down so that they fitted. So for the main drivers, we've got the base amount of heat energy out there. we go.

I'm actually claim a coefficient of performance take out the treble. you know, for that guy with a real squeaky, high-pitched voice. and then we've got a subwoofer seeing those figures. But as I said, sucking just the volume for the subwoofer and the frequency of the subwoofer, treble base of the main drivers and Main volume.

so we can connect directly via the input now. or we can, uh, just connect via the newfangle Bluetooth And of course, the top buttons do absolutely nothing. So there you have it. We've freed our Sonos from the evil software overlords.

I Love it! So hopefully this will encourage others to modify um, their, you know instead of tossing these things out. A lot of people have said, oh no, it's just sitting on the shelf because it's not compatible with the bloody firmware or whatever it is. and now I Screw that. Get it out.

Put a new board in it like this. It fits like a glove and you can turn it into a totally independent system. So yeah, screws on us. but I'm sure there's some Sonos Fanboys Oh good and it's absolutely fantastic.

And I Love it. Yeah, stick it up. Yeah. Anyway, if you like that video, give it a big thumbs up.

As always discussed down below, catch you next time.