Reviews

I review only the important things.

Addendum to the Pandora's Box 4 Review.

After I made this video I had some time to take a closer look at this PCB. Aside from the "quality optimization" setting which makes a huge difference, there are some other features that aren't documented with enough detail to really call them out. That volume switch controls the built in 10W amp. Yes 10 watts! But it's mono output. But who cares, that's a nice added value. If we take a closer look at the PCB, and focus on that amp...

The marking on the amp is "TDA2003". A quick search returns this is a basic car radio amp. Cool. 

Some background info. I was also confused by the Pandora's Box supply voltage markings: 5V/12V 5A/3A. You wouldn't be the first to call bs that this linux board running an ARM Cortex8 needs 5amps. I did some tracing on the pcb + some testing. The board is powered by 5V only. The amp takes 12V. If you do not supply 12V to the JAMMA edge, then the amp is OFF. Simple. If we look further into the datasheet of this amp, the nominal supply voltage is 8-18 volts. Perfect, that backs up our findings even more.

Speaker Connection...

The rest of the datasheet tells us what speaker (load) can be connected. If you use a 4 ohm speaker, expect a typical power out of 6watts. 

Hope this is helpful info!