Acer sound modification / Hack

I couldn't really find a better place for this but thought I would share something with you guys I have done. But please no flamers, if you don't like what I've done and think it's silly please don't carry on reading about it. I know I've voided the warantee and could have damaged the laptop, but luckily, this came out better than I could have imagined so I'm happy with it If your interested, read on

After selling my M1710 XPS and deciding to go for a larger screened more multimedia type system this time, I opted for the ACER 8920. Crazy you might think going from a robust workhorse and powerhouse like the XPS to an ACER! However, for the £1370 it cost me, the spec and features it had swayed it, for 640gb worth of storage, blue ray, true HD 16:9 19" screen, 2.6ghz dual core and 4gb ram etc etc I thought it was worth it.

I've had the machine now for around 6-7 months, and I've been very happy with it as a multimedia machine as I primarily use it for music editing, listening to music and watching blueray etc. It was hard to find reviews for the machine on release, and no where had the 64BG model I wanted, so in some ways I did take a chance basing it on the spec alone. One thing though that I was disapointed with from the outset was the sound, the advertised 5.1 with cinebass TUBE bass system (that aparantly deliveres 'earth shattering sound' ) was a total let down, no low notes, just tin-e rubish, and if you try and enhance the bass at any point, the machine just made farting noises. I wouldn't have been so bothered, as it is a laptop at the end of the day, but it was so much less punchy and full sounding than my m1710 was, it seemed like I had taken a giant step back in that area.

I put this to the back of my mind for a while as most of the time it's true though that when I watch blue ray, I hook it in through HDMI and use my surround sound system anyway, but I travel with work a lot, and stay in hotels a fair bit, and taking my music / video collection with me on MP3 / divx and blueray to listen to / watch when getting ready or settling down is a good thing. And I don't want to sit the other side of the room with headphones in all the time (I do that enough at work!).

I struggled with the sound since I had it, tweaking it endlessly to try and get a full and powerful sound from it, but to no avail. The bass tube at the back produced no low notes, did not fill the sound in, in any way, and really, just farted / ratled if you had the volume over 20% so it quickly became redundant, and I was left with tin-e ear pearcing sound for a long time that grated on me more than anything.

I was so anoyed that this otherwise brilliant multimedia / entertainment laptop had such poor sound, that I decided enough was enough and took action. One thing the Acer did seem to have going for it, was a powerful amp. I couldn't find the specs anywhere, but, it powers the five in built speakers flawlessly without signal distortion even maxed out at +10db with many enhancements on, it's very-very loud, but tiny with no bass or mid range at all, so isn't pleasent on the ears.

I proceded to purchase an MP3 set of speakers from Maplin, which had 48mm 'neodymium magnet micro drivers' - the Genius SP-i200's. I'd used a set of these before on my mp3 player, with great success they reproduced high but more importantly low notes with ease, and were very clear / punchy. The size of the drivers were about right for my project and gave the sound I wanted. So I thought that I would try to replace the sub with a new 48mm driver. Upon taking the machine apart, the only place aparant to make this modification, was the place that is pretty much redundant on any machine I buy, the PCMIA / Express card slot. The existing bass speaker was mounted in the back hinge in a tube about 20mm in diameter, so it couldn't go there.

After a lot of head scratching and initial concepts, I settled on the following and executed it at my own risk over the next few days, measuring everything out to make sure it didn't over hang or go any lower that the feet etc, I wired the speaker in to the existing wiring before commencing the chopping to make sure it would power it!:











The photos make it look rather simplistic, I had to take the whole top of the case apart too to get the old crappy ‘bass tube’ out and splice the wires and solder / re-route them. Also had to create some new channels for the wires inside the case to run to the new location with no fouling or disturbing of other components.

Last night I finally padded the mobo on that corner with foam, and the whole inside part where it’s mounted with acoustic foam (there are no components that genrate heat or use that to expel hot air or breathe in at that point), it dampened all vibration and increased the acoustics a huge amount, I also ported the front of the box, as I tested it over various hours to see what set up sounded best (totally sealed, more air space / channeling for more air space, or ported) also attaching it properly to the side so that small gap is sealed.

The end result? Well for a lap top, it gives the best sound I have ever heard I am over the moon with it! With the 3watt driver tuned soley as a sub, it fills out the sound and makes it sound better than most portable speakers I have ever heard. I’ve made it totally removable as well, that was part of my plan, even the wire connectors – as I’ve got to fibreglass a new express card slot port up at some point to make them interchangeable.

The initial design is made with 3mm MDF with acoustic foam for a good sound, I have toyed with the idea of fibreglassing a speaker pod up, but I think the acoustics of the MDF is better for now, so I will just use the fibreglass to make the new card port. With the port and foam in place it does the trick very well.

I guess I was lucky in a way, as this could have came out worse and sounded rubbish, but lucky for me it worked, and exceeded my expectations.

I'm looking forward to a good few years of movie watching and music listening on it now, the dolby bass enhancement is wound right up and oh it sounds nice

 

P.S. Sorry for the crappy photos, my phone takes the poorest pictures on the planet!

 

well done - looks good and i bet it sounds fantastic!!

congrats!

fattail95

 

Very nice.. My zepto could really need something like this because the sound quality is horrible

 

Thanks guys, what I really should have done was buy an old case and try it on that first, but I couldn't find any around at all, so decided to bite the bullet and go for it.

Being that close to the mobo with a cutting wheel you have to be very careful! I decided to put clear tape and a pad on the back to protect the board, and then use a square steel washer to stop me from going through it!

Where I work we have tons of machines and chasis that we throw out, I've looked at all of them and the only place on nearly all machines to do a mod like this with this sort of size woofer is the pcmia area.

I originally was going to mount near the back and relocate one of the inside speakers, but it was too close to a heat pipe and actually pressed against it.

The good thing is I removed the second speaker from the now redundant MP3 speaker system, and I'm making up another case for it and connectors, so that if and when I sell the laptop in the future, the owner will have a replacement speaker in case anything goes wrong!


Cheers,

 

nice mod for sure +1 i wanna do that to my AW m17

EDIT gave out to much rep sorry