Sun
22
Jan
2017
PURE Pop Midi modification -Tivoli Audio upgrade
A while ago I purchased a PURE Pop Midi Bluetooth as an alarm, kitchen radio and take anywhere mobile radio. It has been great feature wise and I like it's design and ability to take rechargeable batteries (although an optional battery pack is also available). The one big issue I had with it was the sound quality. Most notably the lack of bass and treble. Once unscrewed, it becomes clear why the sound quality is so poor. The speaker it houses is ridiculously cheap. It is a 2 ohm 2 watt cheaply constructed brandless speaker. In a search to find a replacement speaker on Ebay I stumbled upon a Tivoli Audio Music System (full range) 4 ohm 5 watt speaker that has the exact same diameter and sinked screw holes. The only problem was that the Tivoli speaker's depth was double that of the original speaker. I ordered it anyway for EUR 22 including shipping from China. See the Ebay description below.
I am not mistaken, the 4 ohm speaker will not hurt the amplifier in the PURE Pop Midi. it does mean that you have to turn up the volume somewhat more to get the same volume as with the original 2 ohm speaker. I would say that with the Tivoli speaker I need to crank the volume up to 20-22 to get the volume I had with the original speaker at 15 (which was my sweet spot). The quality of the sound, however, is much better than with the original speaker. Noticeably more bass and treble. If the amplifier in the PURE Pop Midi was a bit more powerful, I am sure the sound quality would have been even better. The somewhat plastic sound is also reduced but still noticeable. I have considered stuffing the housing with polyfill to further reduce the plastic sound hints, but there is so little room left in the housing with the Tivoli speaker in it that I reconsidered. See the images below of the modification. It took me an hour and a half, but that was mostly due to the fact that I had to modify the housing to fit the much larger magnet of the Tivoli speaker.
The screw holes of the Tivoli and the original speaker are practically identical resulting in a perfect fit of the Tivoli speaker. The much bigger magnet and depth of the Tivoli speaker, however, is a problem. You cannot close the housing without modifying it a bit. I used a soldering iron to make a hole in the battery pack housing. It is not very pretty, but good enough for me. I also cut the battery pack connector bracket in half to make more space but still allow a battery pack if needed (I do not use a battery pack, I prefer 4 rechargeable Eneloop Pro's which seem to last forever in this little radio).
As you can see, the Tivoli speaker fits perfectly.
Is the sound quality now perfect? Nope. Is is better? Yes, noticeably. You will lose some volume with the new speaker (due to the 2 ohm versus 4 ohm and differences in watts) but the volume you get has more bass and treble - just more full range than the original speaker. Even the maximum volume level of 32 is acceptable, although if you crank up the volume to 32 and set audio bass to +5 you can hear some resonance and distortion. My sweet spot now is the volume at 20 to 22, bass +0 and treble +5.
Feel free to leave a comment if you have questions.