Hi Bill, Thanks for the message. This has been very illuminating for me. What we have here is a Chinese-designed circuit that includes an encoder for FM radio (sorry...no AM decoders are available in this style), an encoder for MP3 files (be they from a USB thumb drive memory stick) or a Micro SD card...or you can it seems use a stereo plug input from maybe an Ipod or something similar. And you can send BlueTooth signals to it (like a podcast)...it is happy to receive those. And if your cell phone is mated with it (assuming your cell phone has BlueTooth ability), then if you receive a phone call you can push the Mode button until BT appears and press the Pause button quickly and answer that phone call and talk hands-free. The board has a BT antenna built in and the maker claims it has a range of something like 20 feet. I'm still learning about how to operate these and will write some instructions at a point. I have the boards sent in from China but there are no instructions and communication isn't always the best. I am comfortable with several languages, but in Mandarin I only know about 15 words and most of those are things like "hello, thank you, chicken, not spicy, etc"...restaurant Chinese. Bottom line is you can listen to FM radio, music or speech MP3 files, podcasts, phone calls...a pretty nice range of options.
The sound out of this is pretty impressive in my opinion. I have so far only used it in the house but it seems to have plenty of volume, the sound is clear and while it won't be concert-quality, it will be better than an early 60s transistor. It reminds me of listening to audio through a computer or maybe a tv. As for the speakers, we'll need 2 (this is an amplified stereo board). There does not seem to be a balance setting...seems like they just split right and left 50/50. I've chosen some German speakers from Mouser. They're $7.62 each plus cost of postage. I just received them this morning (original shipment was damaged so they sent replacements). I'll see how they do. You can see them attached. They're 4" diameter with decent sized magnets. You can spend a lot for speakers but unless you're building a special cabinet designed for them, I'm not certain that's money well spent. In the AD, they just mount behind the speaker grille in an open fashion, so I think a really expensive set of speakers might be overkill.
Please stay tuned. More will follow as time passes. So far, making the blank-out plate has been the most challenging, but I did get some new fiberglass resin, so I'll try that soon.
~ Jon 1952 1/2 ton with 1959 235 | T5 with 3.07 rear end
