Simple & Cheap Speaker Upgrade

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The Gale Centre Speaker

This will be a very brief post but I thought it too good not to share.  For some time now I’ve had my FT847 in a less than ideal position meaning I’ve either had muffled audio from the internal speaker or poor/thin audio from a cheap external ‘CB’ type speaker.

Many years ago I tried using a standard hifi speaker for communications but found the frequency response to be less than ideal for voice; boomy bass and great treble but an apparent total lack of mid range ‘voice’ frequency.

Recently, I was given a cheap (when new, even cheaper to me being free!) Gale centre speaker from an old surround sound setup.  It took a couple of days of this speaker sat on a shelf before the brain gears started whirring.  A centre speaker is *designed* for speech, it’s job is to make vocal passages stand out in amongst the booming noise of the other 4 speakers and ground shaking sub.

5 Minutes later, a 3.5mm jack soldered to a cable and the difference is incredible.  This is being driven directly from the 847 output with no external amplifier.  The output is incredibly crisp with plenty of clarity-giving mid range, whilst also having the wider frequency response for that ‘BBC’ broadcast sound.  It’s fantastic – don’t throw that old centre speaker away, it’s probably just as good (if not better) than an expensive dedicated communications speaker!

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1 Response to Simple & Cheap Speaker Upgrade

  1. Nick says:

    Interesting read as always, Steve. I’m surprised no amplifier would be required but if it works without one, so much the better 🙂

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