Anyone tried installing LC575 speaker in Color Classic?

[Marconelly]

I've seen a video where someone briefly touched on this subject, saying that you can take the speaker out of LC575 and put it very easily into Color Classic. There's even a factory built spot for this speaker, with perforations, clips and everything. He says the LC575 speaker sounds much better in CC than the stock speaker, and wonder why Apple didn't go through with this, clearly originally planned design, and instead placed a smaller speaker at the back of the computer.

As I have an LC575 that I can strip for parts, I was thinking of doing this. Only thing is, I can see that Apple's possible reason for not placing this speaker in CC was that in such a location it maybe could interfere with the CRT beam? But speakers are in that same location in LC575 also, and they don't seem to interfere.

One thing about this video is that it doesn't really show many steps for doing this, just broad strokes for what needs to be done, and it completely skips showing how to get the speakers out of LC575. Maybe a nice idea for @JDW video, assuming this has any advantages over doing the stereo mod he already did a video on (I believe this would be easier to do, and maybe the bigger speaker just sounds better than even two smaller speakers?)

Here's a video timestamped to where he talks about this (8:34):

 

[JDW]

Fascinating.

So basically he removed a speaker from his 575 and put that into the front UNDERSIDE of the Color Classic like this...

If you have only the single stock speaker, that is a really neat idea.

Of course, I have Stereo Mod which uses another one of the stock speakers to make the stereo pair. So if you use two speakers from the LC575 and put them in the bottom front, you'd likely need to do some literal "plastic surgery" (ha ha) to make them fit right. Even so, you may not get the best stereo separation with them both firing downward onto your desk. With the normal stereo mod, the speakers aren't great , but each fires out their respective sides, so you can hear some stereo separation.

But thank you for sharing because I would have never suspected that mod would be inside a video entitled "Building a POWER Mystic Color Classic with a Daystar 601 PPC Upgrade Card".

 

[Marconelly]

Fascinating.

So basically he removed a speaker from his 575 and put that into the front UNDERSIDE of the Color Classic like this...

Right - and there are perforations on the bottom side of the case, right under that spot, which I always assumed was for cooling air intake.
I was at first thinking that the speaker electromagnet being pointed upwards like that towards the CRT might cause image distortion, but now I'm thinking there is a metal plate shield from the analog board between this speaker and the screen, so it probably wouldn't affect it. Also, the author of this video seems very perceptive to the CRT video interference, as he talks about the Noctua 1800rpm fan causing some small interference on his screen, so I'd think he would have spotted it, if this speaker caused some distortions on the screen.

 

[JDW]

...he talks about the Noctua 1800rpm fan causing some small interference on his screen

I have that Noctua fan in my machine and never found it to cause any issues with the Standard VGA mod. I later switched to the 84V mod, and while I do notice very faint and hard to see screen instability, that happens even with the read case removed, which means no fan is connected at all.

Anyway, one person who commented under his video said they did the speaker mod and found it louder than the stock speaker, but they didn't offer any raves beyond that. So it's a mod that basically gives you more volume, rather than noticeably better audio fidelity. And while the stereo mod doesn't offer you better fidelity than the stock speaker, you get a tad more volume because you have two speakers rather than one, AND you get the benefit of stereo too. So to get the best of both worlds, you would need to install two speakers into the bottom, front of the case rather than one, and because there's no EASY way to do it, it would be a lot more work.

 

[Marconelly]

I have that Noctua fan in my machine and never found it to cause any issues with the Standard VGA mod. I later switched to the 84V mod, and while I do notice very faint and hard to see screen instability, that happens even with the read case removed, which means no fan is connected at all.

Anyway, one person who commented under his video said they did the speaker mod and found it louder than the stock speaker, but they didn't offer any raves beyond that. So it's a mod that basically gives you more volume, rather than noticeably better audio fidelity. And while the stereo mod doesn't offer you better fidelity than the stock speaker, you get a tad more volume because you have two speakers rather than one, AND you get the benefit of stereo too. So to get the best of both worlds, you would need to install two speakers into the bottom, front of the case rather than one, and because there's no EASY way to do it, it would be a lot more work.

Note that he mentions the 1800rpm Noctua fan. The one you installed (and the same one I got) is NF-A8. which is 2200rpm, but can be slowed down to 1750rmp using the supplied cable. Maybe he's using a different fan, or has slowed that one down.

As for the speaker, the LC575 does indeed sound better to me than CC - better in a way that you get from a bigger speaker - but LC does have two such speakers so I'm not sure how much better it would sound with just one. I will give it a try as I've now removed speakers from my 575, and since there are two, I can even put one into each of my CCs.

I am a bit afraid of breaking the large clips that are on CC, which are holding that chassis harness assembly that you have to pull out to install the speaker. You really have to move those clips a lot in order to unlatch the chassis harness, and while my CC case plastic is nowhere near as bad and brittle as the LC575, it still seems questionable if I should try this.

 

[Marconelly]

I tried this just now, and it turned out more tricky than it would seem. Taking the cassis out and snapping the speaker into place went without problem, but routing cables so that they don’t collide with anything was a bit of a puzzle at first. Real problem is that with the speaker in place, I could no longer snap back logic board connector in place perfectly. It was hitting into the speaker just a bit, so it was under pressure and sitting on a slight angle. It will need just a bit of plastic dremelling so the speaker moves 2mm away from the connector.

 

[JDW]

@Marconelly
Before cutting anything, I strongly suggest you reach out to that YouTuber (video in your opening post) to tell him your experience and ask him how he was able to reassemble it without using a dremel. Because if he did use a dremel, that wasn't in his video, so he might want to provide an update for his viewers to make that clear. At least, as a video creator myself, that is the kind of thing I would hope viewers of my videos would do for me. Prod me for info!

 

[Marconelly]

I will try,, but it’s possible that he didn’t even notice it since the connector does snap in place, just harder than it normally should - and the logic board can still be plugged in even though connector is at a bit of an angle. Could be also that my LC575 speaker is just a tiny bit thicker than his was.

 

[Marconelly]

Turns out it was just a silly goof on my part, as I was installing the speaker facing upwards, rather than downwards, as it should be. When I flipped it over, it all snaps into place perfectly, with nothing being strained

 

[JDW]

Great ot hear!

So I guess it is then a decision that boils down to this: Do you want more volume, or do you want stereo? Because it's unlikely someone would hack their plastic case to fit two of those LC575 speakers into the front/bottom area. And if you therefore want stereo, you'd need to use the standard stereo mod with two of the standard speakers mounted in back.

 

[Piszigri]

Hi!
I actually made a post a couple years back about this - on another forum - and, really, the speaker the Color Classic frame is designed to accept is the one from the 650, which I then believe is the same the 575 uses. However, after a lot of digging, it turns out that the magnet of the loudspeaker sits just millimeters away from the floppy drive and being “magnetic” it actually could interfere with the operation of that drive, which is why Apple decided not to use that location and reused - bodged, actually - the same loudspeaker that is found in the LC 630.
I actually did some testing and really found that the floppy drive works perfectly even with the loudspeaker placed where Apple originally intended, but who knows?

 

[JDW]

...the magnet of the loudspeaker sits just millimeters away from the floppy drive... I actually did some testing and really found that the floppy drive works perfectly even with the loudspeaker placed where Apple originally intended, but who knows?

I guess @Marconelly needs to do some testing of 400K, 800K and 1.44MB floppies now to find out!