Hi there. I am not an electrical engineer.
I received an Echo Dot for Christmas, which does not come with a very power speaker. I have hooked it up to our stereo, but I do not want to have to switch inputs every time I want to hear the audio output. I also do not want to plug it into a dedicated speaker, I want to use the ones already there in the room. I knew that plugging it directly into the speakers themselves would require some power amplification, and after doing some research I managed to build one myself with a potentiometer and some basic wires. Essentially I now have a box that plugs into a power source, connects to the Dot, and then outputs audio to stereo wires that I have plugged into my speakers.
Lo and behold, it works. Except for when the stereo itself is also putting out a signal to the speakers. I did some more research and realized I need to now build a mixer.
This is my ideal end-result:
My setup: Media devices connected via HDMI to my smart TV. TV outputs an optical signal to the stereo system. Stereo outputs via speaker wires to a subwoofer, which then also outputs to the Left and Right speakers via speaker wire. As of right now I have to switch the input wires to the subwoofer whenever I want to use the stereo or Dot, which entirely defeats the purpose of my original project.
I'm not afraid to learn stuff for this project (in fact that is ideal), and have even been considering looking into Arduino for a solution. However, I want this to work as soon as possible, and I would be starting on the ground floor if I went that way (although I do have some programming experience).
Please let me know if this is not going to be as simple as I'm thinking, or if I should just buy some pre-existing product (that I haven't found yet). Hopefully, though, someone out there will have a great solution.
Thanks!
I received an Echo Dot for Christmas, which does not come with a very power speaker. I have hooked it up to our stereo, but I do not want to have to switch inputs every time I want to hear the audio output. I also do not want to plug it into a dedicated speaker, I want to use the ones already there in the room. I knew that plugging it directly into the speakers themselves would require some power amplification, and after doing some research I managed to build one myself with a potentiometer and some basic wires. Essentially I now have a box that plugs into a power source, connects to the Dot, and then outputs audio to stereo wires that I have plugged into my speakers.
Lo and behold, it works. Except for when the stereo itself is also putting out a signal to the speakers. I did some more research and realized I need to now build a mixer.
This is my ideal end-result:
- A device that takes audio from two sources and mixes them into one output.
- This device might as well also take over the duties of the amplifier I built, so as to limit the clutter of boxes behind my TV.
- CRITICAL: the Stereo input signal is automatically attenuated whenever a signal is detected coming from the Echo Dot input. I feel like this shouldn't be incredibly difficult, but my research thus far hasn't yielded any workable results. There just doesn't seem to be a demand for what I am doing.
My setup: Media devices connected via HDMI to my smart TV. TV outputs an optical signal to the stereo system. Stereo outputs via speaker wires to a subwoofer, which then also outputs to the Left and Right speakers via speaker wire. As of right now I have to switch the input wires to the subwoofer whenever I want to use the stereo or Dot, which entirely defeats the purpose of my original project.
I'm not afraid to learn stuff for this project (in fact that is ideal), and have even been considering looking into Arduino for a solution. However, I want this to work as soon as possible, and I would be starting on the ground floor if I went that way (although I do have some programming experience).
Please let me know if this is not going to be as simple as I'm thinking, or if I should just buy some pre-existing product (that I haven't found yet). Hopefully, though, someone out there will have a great solution.
Thanks!