Color Classic Mystic Stereo Mod for #MARCHintosh

[rikerjoe]

For #MARCHintosh 2023 I performed the stereo mod to the analog board of my Color Classic Mystic.

James Wages @JDW has an excellent tutorial on his YouTube channel. I salvaged the amplifier chip from a donor CC analog board and ordered the passives from Mouser. I also salvaged a matching 16 ohm speaker from another Color Classic and replaced the salvaged speaker with a new 8 ohm speaker I purchased from Newark, along with a 3D printed speaker enclosure from here.

The mod was straight forward and was done in an afternoon. Here is a pic of the amplifier chip salvaged from a donor CC analog board.


Here are the matching speakers, before installation and after.


Here is a close-up of the analog board. showing the region for the stereo mod.

Before:


and after the amplifier chip, CS1, RS1, CS5, and RS2 relocated from RS7 were installed. I followed up with installing a cap at CS3 on the top side of the board and the second set of speaker wires.


A quick test yielded left channel sound from the left speaker, and right channel sound from the right speaker. All in all, it was a quick mod done in an afternoon. Happy #MARCHintosh!

 

[JDW]

It's wonderful to see that someone other than myself and @Kay K.M.Mods have done the Stereo Mod! Surely, there must be others out there too, but not many people talk about it. Unfortunate, because it makes the CC so much better. Okay, well, not as good as adding a pair of Apple Powered Speakers, of course. But those external speakers eat up too much desk space. The Stereo mod keeps the compactness of the CC, while adding a bit better sound.

Congrats, @rikerjoe!