[Voodoochili]

So I used to be a member of this forum 3-5 years ago, but I guess my account was deleted for lack of activity.. Regardless.. My 77 year old father is a bit of an artist, and a car lover. He grew up with a father that was sales manager at a Buick dealership.. He has owned and owns several rare cars. Currently owned are a 1941 Buick Limited(think limo) with late model corvette suspension and LT-1 corvette motor. He also owns a 1946 Buick Roadmaster, which will probably become a ratrod of some sort. Lastly he has a 1979 Corvette Daytona with a 650+ hp small block chevy in it.. GM runs in our family pretty heavily.. I DIGRESS!!

So my dad bought a 1946 buick grill several years(centuries) ago, and he has decided to turn it into a up on the shoulder 1980's jam box. Including shoulder strap and everything.. Functionality wise, who knows, but he does have a desire to make it work and look nice...

Here's the dilemma. So my dad would like to get the internal guts for his jambox. He has an ipod and ipad he uses. He's a big radio guy(sports, races, talk radio, etc). So I am trying to piece meal out a system for him to put in.. I would think he doesn't want to spend over 1k, and truth be told it would probably be me buying whatever for him... Ideally we would like something remote controlled, and that we can keep hidden.

Any thoughts, recommendations, questions, etc?

I am attaching some of his other hand crafted wood/metal items.. He makes pretty much everything by hand(except the grill in this case).

 

[RayDunzl]

May as well go all the way...

 

[lovinthehd]

Sounds more like a DIY subforum thread...

 

[Voodoochili]

Isn't that for speakers and subs only? I toiled with trying to figure out where to put this...

 

[lovinthehd]

Won't the bigger part be integrating speakers into the box? That's my thinking at least. Just a lot more experience there with diy things in general, too....

 

[usc1995]

I would look into building a raspberry pi based internet radio out of this. A raspberry pi, usb dac, class t mini amp and some speakers would be all that you would need for this. There are lots of cool raspberry pi based internet radio projects on the web. I hope to build a squeezeplug based project someday. Be sure and post some pics of the completed project as that grill looks like it would make for an awesome radio.

 

[Greg121986]

I would suggest a raspberry pi or similar system as well, running Linux and MPD. You could even put a hard drive or SSD inside the unit and store music right on the system. You could even integrate a tablet that runs the MPDroid app to control your playlist right on the unit. There are several fantastic guides for making these, notably from a computeraudiophile website.

I've used some Class D amps from Parts-Express for some simple setups and they're very good for the price. They're very tiny and potent. You can definitely find better equipment, but these are easily obtainable and effective given their price point.