Converting passive speakers to active

[pdes]

I recently came across a couple of lovely speakers in my loft which many years ago worked as part of an early surround system. They are only around 10 inches high but beautifully built and very heavy. I would like to use them again to receive wifi streaming to a couple of rooms in the house. I have found some "gadgets" that do what I want but need to make the speakers "active" so that the receivers have someting to connect to. So, I am looking for a very simple mono amp that, hopefully, would be small enough to fit into the casings. The quality of sound only needs to be reasonable as they will only be used for background music.

Any ideas as to how I can achieve this?

Thanks

 

[formbypc]

There's a whole brace of miniature amps to be found on UK eBay...

 

[James Evans]

You're probably looking at "powered" as opposed to "active" speakers, in that the amp comes before the existing passive crossover. If you're looking at putting the amps inside the speaker cases you'll have to provide power and signal input somehow, and then wire the amp output to the existing crossover board. So don't connect anything to the speaker binding posts externally in other words. If the amps are small enough it may be better to put them on the outside of the rear panel, a bit like the pmc db1a.

 

[JemHayward]

I use a Raspberry Pi as streamer and the HiFiBerry Amp+ as poweramp. It runs all day of a small sealed lead acid 12v battery.

 

[Bemused]

I use a Raspberry Pi as streamer and the HiFiBerry Amp+ as poweramp. It runs all day of a small sealed lead acid 12v battery.

Out of interest how many amp hours on your battery?
Tony

 

[JemHayward]

Out of interest how many amp hours on your battery?
Tony

I've just covered it in gaffer tape...

Ah, found it in my emails - 2.2Ah - it ran for 8 hours the other day, so not drawing much... see my Garden Blaster thread...

 

[pdes]

You're probably looking at "powered" as opposed to "active" speakers, in that the amp comes before the existing passive crossover. If you're looking at putting the amps inside the speaker cases you'll have to provide power and signal input somehow, and then wire the amp output to the existing crossover board. So don't connect anything to the speaker binding posts externally in other words. If the amps are small enough it may be better to put them on the outside of the rear panel, a bit like the pmc db1a.

Thanks for the advice. Just need to find a simple small amp. Everything I have looked at seems overkill and too large.

Cheers

 

[pdes]

I use a Raspberry Pi as streamer and the HiFiBerry Amp+ as poweramp. It runs all day of a small sealed lead acid 12v battery.

Thanks for this. The HiFiberry looks perfect.