Squeezebox Bose Duet

The Bose Acoustic Wave System (AWS) has been one of my favorite outdoor music systems for a long time. Mostly used for summertime garden parties it has remained a top sound engine, while lacking some of the latest music source capabilities. Actually the original Bose AWS has just two options: a CD player (no MP3...) and an FM-tuner. Ah and there is - as with all Bose systems - an AUX port, so I used to connect my iPod to it. iPod is fine, but it has one drawback - the music is static, you will never hear or discover new music, as iPod can play only what you store on it.

Pandora (my favorite music discovery service) is different. It keeps on playing exactly the music you like, but most of it you do not know, hearing it for the first time. The primary device to play Pandora on is a computer, but that is not as easy as turning on radio. And to be honest I hate computers (in their usual form, with screens and keyboards). That is why I have a house full of various products from SlimDevices, especially loving the Duets, as they decouple the music receiver (essentially a black box) from the control remote, with its rich experience and easiness.

Since the first Duet arrived at my home, I have been thinking of embedding one inside the Bose AWS, as they seemed to be the perfect match. I just have not been sure the Duet receiver would fit inside the AWE, but willing to try I've been prepared to sacrifice the built-in CD Player.

What was my surprise, after opening the AWS, there seemed to be a special place reserved just for the Duet receiver - see the photos.





























As the project ended with full success, here is the small step - by step how-to, should you have the desire to repeat what I did :).

• Opening the AWE. There are two steps to it. First is removing the top part with the twitters, CD drive and touch buttons. The second is to play with the power supply accessible from the bottom, but let us leave that for later.
• So start unscrewing the five screws on the left / right / back side of the AWS. The fifth holds the antenna, take it out and remove the antenna. Then detach the top part from the AWS.
• Remove the board with five micro switches on it. Then using wire cutters or similar tool, cut the plastic frame below it to allow comfortable placement of the Duet board.
• The Duet board needs one of the corners to be trimmed. See the attached pictures. Do it carefully, and after the cut clean the edge with a file. Otherwise you may short circuit the board with the remains of copper on both sides.
• I placed a small piece of rubber between the Duet board and the micro switch Bose board, so they keep nicely together. Ah and you may use one of the micro switches to double as the Duet micro switch - solder two pieces of wire between the two, I decided to sacrifice the "CD Mode" switch.
• Connect the Duet audio output terminals to the aux in terminals of the AWS. Make sure the shield is connected only on one side (I soldered it to the AWS terminal). Otherwise you will get some extra unwanted hissing sound effects.
• Now the power supply. The AWS power supply delivers somewhere between 12 and 15 volts. The Duet board requires 9 volts. I used an L7809 regulator to take care of that. First I was not sure if I wanted the Duet part to be permanently ON, but it proved to be the right decision. You can always turn it off using the remote. The wiring and the placement of the L7809 are shown on the pictures. The left terminal (input) is connected by the red wire to the (+) terminal of the AWS power supply. The middle terminal is the ground, and so is the radiator, so I did not bother there, connecting the middle and the right terminals to the angled power plug, plugged into the Duet board.

The end result is something I think Bose should look into. They have phenomenal audio, but they really lack the latest digital connectivity options. Sure there is the new Logitech Boom, but it is more suited towards indoor, small room operation. The Bose AWS excels on the sound scale, has perfect outdoor accessories (integrated carry bag and battery compartment) plus it can do karaoke too. I am very happy with the modification and I think some of my fellow readers will try to follow :). Recommended!

Making Powerline Ethernet HomePlugAV interoperable

A few weeks ago I posted an overview on the ZyXEL NBG-318S Powerline Ethernet switch / router with WiFi. After several weeks using the ZyXEL as my main entertainment room hub (both the PlayStation 3 and my set-top satellite box are connected to it, and it also serves as an access point), I can say the only thing I can give it a thumb down is the name. NBG-318S... who invents things like that? Nevermind... I can live with the name as long as the product shines.

So... the NBG-318S is a HomePlug AV device. That means, at least in theory it should work in tandem with any other HomePlug AV device. That includes for instance the PLE200 from Linksys. But that is the theory. In practice when I did a simple test plugging both the ZyXEL and the Linksys to the wall, they did not see each other. Digging here and there I found the PLE200 with factory installed firmware was not fully HomePlug AV compliant. Upgrading it to the latest firmware ultimately did the trick. The upgrade process was not as straightforward as it should be. First, there are different versions of PLE200 firmware on different Linksys.COM servers. I succeeded using the one from the US site. Here is the link. Version 3.3, with release date May 23rd, 2008. The upgrade process is done via the PLE200 client utility, but it has problems with Windows Vista, so I had to find a Windows XP machine, and disable the firewall on it (the Windows firewall prevented the upgrade too). And that is all the PLE200 utility can be used for, as I did not succeed linking to the ZyXEL using it.

On the other hand the ZyXEL web-based management interface allowed me to add the upgraded PLE200 to the Powerline Ethernet network. You do that simply by entering a MAC address and a device password, both printed on the back of the PLE200. Once the Linksys adapters were upgraded to the 3.3 firmware, the HomePlug AV network runs without any glitch. The average link speed exceeds 100mbps (see the side picture) and I have already watched a ton of movies streamed from my NAS server to the DLNA - enabled Sony PlayStation via the power line.