I don't know of anything less than 15W with a 1" shaft and most if not all are 8Ω. I would pursue a different way to do it. Did you say this speaker is connected via bluetooth?

It's connected through usb on a micro usb hub on a raspberry pi zero w. I have the option of bluetooth speaker but having a bluetooth paired to its just a hassle to connect them if they were enclosed together inside a portable console

 

Have you looked at the other side of the board to see if you can get to the low level audio and insert a volume control there. You will probably have to look for the datasheets on the ICs used. Posting a picture of the component side of the board that is clear enough to read the part numbers on the ICs may help with a solution.

Les.

Nah I haven't yet. Not too familiar with that aspect of it tbh. But yeah for sure. I'll have that posted here in a few minutes

 

It's connected through usb on a micro usb hub on a raspberry pi zero w. I have the option of bluetooth speaker but having a bluetooth paired to its just a hassle to connect them if they were enclosed together inside a portable console

I would be looking for a software solution on the RPi side for managing the volume.

 

Just to clarify before anyone thinks I have this. I found this earlier and thought it might work. But see it's Lin/Gnd/Rin as well as 5v and Gnd for the power. And that brings another question, would I need to power this board as well or would I need to just put L/R input The shipping is gonna take forever lmao

 

Yes you would need to power that board as well.
So now you would be connecting the output of the USB amp to the input of this amp, which is kind of counter productive.
I'm not sure the output of the USB amp with the speakers removed is a clean signal.

 

Yes you would need to power that board as well.
So now you would be connecting the output of the USB amp to the input of this amp, which is kind of counter productive.
I'm not sure the output of the USB amp with the speakers removed is a clean signal.

Oof lol
Alright well, looks like this might be a lost cause thanks for all who's replied and gave me some insight on this project. If anyone else has any more input on this ordeal, please do! I will still be posting that photo later of the usb speaker board on the components side

 

The L pad is designed to provide a match.

Yes, but it's a restive match.
Modern speakers are designed for a low source impedance (<1Ω) to give good speak damping., not for a matched impedance.

Ω

 

The L pad is designed to provide a match.

A match was made 65 years ago with Vacuum tube amplifiers. Today mono speakers use transformers in a mall or store. All modern solid state amplifiers have an extremely low output impedance (their damping factor) to damp resonances of modern speakers. The L-pad allows a speaker to resonate like a bongo drum.

 

Why bother feeding the low power speaker outputs of the USB board to the inputs of the low power PAM8403 amplifier??

 

I did not make myself clear when I asked about pictures of the board. I should have said USB to speaker board. (NOT the board with the volume control and amplifier.) I am hoping one part does the USB to low level audio and another is just an audio amplifier. The idea is to insert the volume control in this low level audio path. There is also a possibility that the anplifier part may have a built in voltage controlled attenuator. If it did you would only need a single gang potentiometer.

Les.

 

I have tried them and got the audio to come out of the usb speaker on my raspberry pi zero. They sound great for price and size.
There's gotta be some way to Jerry rig this

No there doesn’t.

 

Do you think they even have L-pads small enough and work with the 4ohm 3 w speakers? Cuz I'm wanting it as small as possible

L-Pads are not small, for the power their expected to control. The one I posted needs a little smaller than a 2.5” cube... Big...

Since they are designed to work on the output of an amplifier, they must be able to handle the rated output power of the amplifier.

 

I did not make myself clear when I asked about pictures of the board. I should have said USB to speaker board. (NOT the board with the volume control and amplifier.) I am hoping one part does the USB to low level audio and another is just an audio amplifier. The idea is to insert the volume control in this low level audio path.

The first post shows the tiny speakers connected to the USB/amplifier board. Its spec's say its output power is a whopping 0.5W x2 which is probably very distorted peak power which would be about 0.2W x2 of real undistorted power.

The max undistorted power of the PAM8403 amplifier (that has a stereo volume control) is a whopping 1.5W into each 4 ohms speaker.

 

Why bother feeding the low power speaker outputs of the USB board to the inputs of the low power PAM8403 amplifier??

Because the TS doesn’t know better. Sorry, nothing personal to the TS.

The TS is actively trying to solve his/her problem. And we are all over the place suggesting inappropriate solutions. He needs to identify the low-level line inputs to the amp on his USB board. But the inputs are digital, not analog. So all he has is speaker output.

He had an idea to add an amp which has a volume control. We said it won’t work because it’s a speaker output to a low level input. Which is correct, but doesn’t solve his problem.

One solution is to use the USB Amp to a high level to line level converter to an amp with a volume control. Such a converter is the one in the link. It has RCA outputs, but the jacks can be cut off and the wires soldered onto the amp he posted.

There may be some loss in audio quality, but IMHO he would be comfortable with that. It is a hack, but it solves his problem. The ideal would be to find an USBZ audio interface with line level outputs and use an amp with a volume control. But, that may be hard to find. Given what he has, this might be a solution.