Very soft tsunami sound

Sensors Sound & Audio
1

My new super wav trigger tsunami does seem to work but it is definitely not a sound ‘tsunami’ ! The board is now hooked up like the hook up guide with a headphone (standard iphone ear plugs) directly on the output. In the middle of the night, when everyone is sleeping and it’s dead silent I can hear the triggered voice mumbling 1 to 16 (test voices from the guide) in the far distance.

I tried a few things. Usb powered pc speakers (no sound at all), max sound level 10 for all the triggers in the ini file (made the voice hearable at least), high-end headphone with integrated volume turned up to the max (also a hearable voice, but still very soft). 12v power to the trigger board instead of 5v (no difference, as expected)…

I cannot find anything about the correct way to use the outputs except to hook up a headphone. Also there seems to be topic about the problem.

• Do I really need an amplifier in any case?

• Does the tsunami not have an onboard amp?

• What am I doing wrong?

• Why does everyone else seem to have decent sound?

• Or is it perhaps the board that has an issue? Yes it does have an issue with the sd card slot… it keeps spitting my card out. It won’t stay in place but that’s just a minor issue…

• Does anyone at some point experienced the same issue?

Hope so, because at the moment my board is unusable :frowning:

2

An SD slot not holding the card in place sounds like a defect. Have you contacted sparkfun about a replacement?

How are you connecting to the audio outputs? Can you send photos showing your connections?

Looking at the schematic, there is no amplifier on the board. If you have anything smaller than a pair of earbuds you’re going to need some sort of external audio amplification.

3

Thanks for the reply!

Sparkfun already told me there were a bunch of defect card holders… I should be able to send it back but with header in place I decided to removed the spring. Now it stays put.

No photo, sorry. I rewired everything last night with a different jack and it was already a lot better. The high end headphone now has a decent volume. I still need an amplifier. It’s on the way for testing.