wondom bru5 pc dsp configurable TPA 3255 "300w x 2" mini amplifier

[Mark185]

Can anyone recommend an amp about this size that runs mono, or is bridgeable? It would be great if the PSU is built in but I realize that's highly unlikely. BT is not necessary, will be using wired connection

Aiyima A07 Max. Can be bridged mono. Frequently goes on sale for $60-70 on Amazon and Aliexpress. Aiyima has very good customer service and the quality of the amplifier is far superior to BRU5. I own one and use it for subwoofer amp in small bedroom system. Can be purchased with or without power supply. Works well with 36 or 48 volt supply. Does not get nearly as hot as BRU5 on 48 volt supply. This little amp is very good value on sale. At the $100 price point, there are other amps to consider but this is still a good performer.

 

[Wolf11Man]

I can understand your rant bashing Wondom. They are a brand that started making noise generators for vending machines and POS. Somehow they steped into DIYS HIFI, by mistake. Anyway, you miss a very important part. There is no product made by Wondom, they buy all kind of stuff and print their name on it. They got hardly useable junk and some very usefull, inexpensive stuff. It is your turn to pick the pearls, one of the better products, something that matches your application, or not.
The awfull software of the DSP is what some Asian "technicians" where able and allowed to put together for public use. It is made to adjust a whole family of cheap, non Western DSP's. It got basic functions, enough to use two of those amps for an active, stereo speaker system for example. It is a very much restricted GUI, not compareable to Sigma Studio. You must understand, you will not get any schematic for any Asian product, they have a habit of declaring anything a secret, even the most silly things. Same is with this DSP, they don't want you to have too many options, because you may discover something . What? Who knows? I once wanted to buy custom brake parts from an Asian company, I asked them for a sketch showing dimensions of parts that could fit my task. They told me those where trade secrets, not given to customers. Dimensions of their products. They simply didn't understand the stupidity, keeping "secrets" was more important than sales.
The input selection process of the BRU5 is anoying, you got to ask them directly on their Internet page, not through Aliexpress. On Ali there is just some lazy agent that doesn't see it as his job to answer the technical questions stupid customers ask. You can see that in almost any Aliexpress ad, you will hardly ever find an answer to customer questions.

 

[Mark185]

@Wolf11Man I understand. Was not aware they just rebranded products. In the end result; my time has a value. I am disappointed that I wasted the number of hours I did trying to get the BRU5 to work. I had a similar experience with one of their little preamps with DSP active filters that also used ACPWorkbench. The DSP programming in that one was corrupted and the output for high and low pass was not as they described it to be. Fortunately the preamp was an Amazon purchase so it was easy to return as defective. My BRU5 is a paperweight. It would not save changes I made in ACPWorkbench and has no output even when I successfully connect it to my phone or computer via Bluetooth.

I will add that I have purchased several ADAU1452 based DSP boards on Aliexpress and they did come with schematics and baseline Sigma Studio designs. The Sigma Studio files were not well documented but there is good thread on Diyaudio that explains a lot. I did not have to waste a lot of time getting them up and running. The same goes for the Tinysine products and they are comparable in cost to the Wondom products.

Conclusion for me is Wondom DSP products were an experiment and I will not waste further time buying their products to figure out if they are pearls or junk. There are good alternatives. I do want to thank you for your insight.

 

[Wolf11Man]

I understand your point. Time get's more and more expensive for us. Even most of the Aliex ADAU boards are not worth to play with. Just fixing the wires already is a pita. If you only want to finish one or two projects, it is often better to use some well made, cased low cost DSP like this one: https://www.thomann.de/de/the_t.racks_dsp_4x4_mini.htm
No hum, matched power supply and a well done user interface with any option you may need.You can not even get the basic parts for this price.

I own two BRU5 of the second generation, they work just fine for me. The GUI is OK, because I know exactly what I want, but will be a nighmare for someone new to this and not used to the Chinese way of finishing some constructions and selling them without instructions and customer service. Buy cheap, get cheap. I once had similar problem to yours. The cause was the USB connection, a new cable solved the problem. The problematic cable worked perfectly with other stuff!
I also use 2 Wondom "BDM-8 TPA3255 amp boards". They are very well made for 25$. They even have a CNC made copper heat spreader between the D-chip and the heat sink. A detail you need for full power, but is not see very often with the TPA3255. Just avoid the version with DSP and/ or Bluetooth.
In DIYS forums (this isn't even one!) there is always the problem of different people doing the same things with varying results. For very different reasons. Some have great tollerance to problems, others not so. What works for Bill may not go well with Billy.

 

[somebodyelse]

I will add that I have purchased several ADAU1452 based DSP boards on Aliexpress and they did come with schematics and baseline Sigma Studio designs. The Sigma Studio files were not well documented but there is good thread on Diyaudio that explains a lot. I did not have to waste a lot of time getting them up and running. The same goes for the Tinysine products and they are comparable in cost to the Wondom products.

Much of that applies to Wondom's JAB line of amps (now in their 5th generation), APM2 bare board and a couple of more recent boxed 2 in/4 out DSPs, although they have the ADAU1701 not the 1452. I don't think I've spotted schematics, but the same applies to Tinysine. Wondom's Miumax Windows app for the ADAU-based DSP is a relatively new development - before that it was SigmaStudio and/or your own code.

Conclusion for me is Wondom DSP products were an experiment and I will not waste further time buying their products to figure out if they are pearls or junk. There are good alternatives. I do want to thank you for your insight.

That may be fair for the recent non-ADAU DSP products.

 

[Mark185]

I understand your point. Time get's more and more expensive for us. Even most of the Aliex ADAU boards are not worth to play with. Just fixing the wires already is a pita. If you only want to finish one or two projects, it is often better to use some well made, cased low cost DSP like this one: https://www.thomann.de/de/the_t.racks_dsp_4x4_mini.htm
No hum, matched power supply and a well done user interface with any option you may need.You can not even get the basic parts for this price.

I own two BRU5 of the second generation, they work just fine for me. The GUI is OK, because I know exactly what I want, but will be a nighmare for someone new to this and not used to the Chinese way of finishing some constructions and selling them without instructions and customer service. Buy cheap, get cheap. I once had similar problem to yours. The cause was the USB connection, a new cable solved the problem. The problematic cable worked perfectly with other stuff!
I also use 2 Wondom "BDM-8 TPA3255 amp boards". They are very well made for 25$. They even have a CNC made copper heat spreader between the D-chip and the heat sink. A detail you need for full power, but is not see very often with the TPA3255. Just avoid the version with DSP and/ or Bluetooth.
In DIYS forums (this isn't even one!) there is always the problem of different people doing the same things with varying results. For very different reasons. Some have great tollerance to problems, others not so. What works for Bill may not go well with Billy.

That low cost DSP does look like a bargain for what it offers. What I did not say up front is I started playing around with the BRU5 and Aliexpress ADAU boards because I wanted to learn more about the DSP programming that is 'under the covers'. I am an electrical engineer but I have not done design work or coding in many years. I wanted to challenge myself to learn something new. Sigma Studio is great for that. There are useful tutorial videos and user videos out there and the program itself is well documented on Analog Devices' web site. Wondom was the wrong choice for what I wanted to accomplish but I did not know that when I purchased their products. I did buy their ADAU1701 APM board and their USBi programming interface. I was able to get it to work but it never connected to my PC reliably. I tried different USB cables (also did that with BRU5).

With the Tinysine ADAU1701 board and the USBi interface they sell, it worked first time and has been totally reliable with repeated use. That allowed me to spend more time learning what I wanted to learn instead of troubleshooting the Wondom stuff. That in turn, gave me good preparation to start experimenting with the Aliexpress ADAU1452 boards.

Thanks to @Wolf11Man and @somebodyelse for your responses. It is always useful to hear different points of view.

 

[Wolf11Man]

The USBi interface you need for the Wondom is a nightmare to install, as it needs different layers of drivers. You got to use a very special sequence to make it work reliable. It worked for me when I found a very detailed tutorial. Nothing logical in the installation process and even the Windows version is important. A pita...
Anyway, the first popular, cheap DSP with the DIYS crowd was the SURE which is now Wondom.

 

[CedarX]

Anyway, the first popular, cheap DSP with the DIYS crowd was the SURE which is now Wondom.

Or is it the other way around: Wondom is a brand of Sure-Electronics (a Malaysian company)?

WONDOM OFFICIAL SHOP - Bluetooth Amplifier Board - Sure Electronics - BCPB - 18650 charger - T-AMP - Volume Control

Sure Electronics is a professional audio amplifier supplier that provides electronics hobbyists and business partners the middleware which can help reduce customers' development difficulties and save their precious time-to-market by making the products directly released in the market.

store.sure-electronics.com

 

[somebodyelse]

The USBi interface you need for the Wondom is a nightmare to install, as it needs different layers of drivers. You got to use a very special sequence to make it work reliable. It worked for me when I found a very detailed tutorial. Nothing logical in the installation process and even the Windows version is important. A pita...

Is that specific to the Wondom USB adapter, or generally for SigmaStudio-compatible USB adapters? I've only ever used sigmatcp on a Pi, so over the network not USB. I guess if you're not familiar with linux, the Pi and i2c connections that's another brand of nightmare.

 

[Mark185]

That is specific to the Wondom USB adapters. There is more than one version but all have same issues. The USBi adapter that shipped with Tinysine worked with no issues and no need to configure or install drivers on Windows 11. Same goes for the USBi adapter that Analog Devices sells with their evaluation boards and also sells separately. It is expensive at ~$100 shipped but it is well documented and it worked with all the Aliexpress ADAU145x boards I purchased.

 

[aerosnack]

Did anyone ever get EQ working on seperate outputs for their BDM8 or otherwise? Bought the board to use it as an active XO too, but gutted there is no crossover functionality.

Quite surprised as there seems a rich feature set, and missing the obvious??

Thanks in advance

 

[Mark185]

Did anyone ever get EQ working on seperate outputs for their BDM8 or otherwise? Bought the board to use it as an active XO too, but gutted there is no crossover functionality.

Quite surprised as there seems a rich feature set, and missing the obvious??

Thanks in advance

The software for this board (ACPWorkbench) does not provide that functionality. If you want active XO, buy the Tinysine DSP board and learn to use Sigma Studio to program it. That is what I did after getting discouraged with Wondom Bru5. This board linked below can be purchased with optional Bluetooth or SPDIF input adapters that plug in. I can help you if you have questions or need help. You will have to buy a USBi adapter from Tinysine to go with this board.

TSA1701 Audio DSP Board

The TSA1701 is a complete audio digital signal processing module. The main DSP chip on this module is ADAU1701. The application range is active loudspeaker concepts (digital 3 way 3 unit, 2 way 2 unit crossover, bass enhancement, etc.) and transformation from 2.0 to 2.1 is realized. It also has...

www.tinysineaudio.com

This is what I was able to do in Sigma Studio. Inputs are on the left in this diagram. First block after input is the crossover. Next 4 blocks are level meters for verifying operation. They do not communicate with an external display. Top branch is low pass and bottom branch is high pass. Each branch has a 4 band parametric equalizer. Top branch also has a 4th order high pass filter at 50 Hz to protect the small woofers I am using in this build. Everything is adjustable. Last block before outputs is volume control with an external potentiometer. To get this working, I had to modify the stock software load that comes on the Tinysine board and there was a learning curve to figure that out.

 

[Naturlyd]

Bought a quartet BRU-5s and immediately hated the software. Had a few weeks holliday in february and discovered vibecoding. Ended up making a tool for STVs Port Optimizer that spits out STLs, a speaker placement optimizer, a skin for the Hypex FA plateamp DSP designer and lots more. Also had a quick look at the BRU-5. Saw action in this thread yesterday and remembered that I did something, but not what. Found a beta version of an interface.

The BRU5 DSP Controller makes it much easier to access and use the controls. I made it public at: freespeakertools.com

There is an explanation of why you will need a "bridge" (some code thingy - dont ask me, Im vibecoding) to connect the browser to the USB of BRU5. Its something about the implementation of USB used for audio stuff like the BRU5. I have tried it out on two other PCs and everything works fine.

Here are screenshots of easy parametric EQ and the sort of advanced filters:

Have a look if you want.

What needs looking into that I remember:

• The way the DSP is run there is no "0" dB value on some settings just an approx. Someone should verify the dB settings. Not totally convinced +3dB is exactly that.
• The same goes for Q values and frequencies. (all might be fine but should be verified).
• The same goes for all other gain settings. Need to verify 0dB gain is exactly that. Hooking the thing up to REW and measuring should give peace of mind
• On the hardware side, there is som whining from the tweeter on my testspeaker. But thats a high sensivity horn-design. I find it totally acceptable for background listening.
• I also made a version for running two BRU5 controlling the crossover on both at the same time. Need to check it up before publishing. It worked well as I can remember.

 

[Naturlyd]

It doesnt exactly write itself but its close. But you shouldnt trust these things. Fun little exchange now:

Me: verified working is not verified 100% correct and then verified again.

Claude code: Right. "Verified working" was sloppy on my part — it conflated "the code appears to do something" with "the value semantics are empirically correct." Fixing both plans to match the stricter epistemology.

Its mirrors my sense of humor at least. People DO buy parrots and dogs to mirror them - why not AI.

 

[NotInYourHead]

Bought a quartet BRU-5s and immediately hated the software. Had a few weeks holliday in february and discovered vibecoding. Ended up making a tool for STVs Port Optimizer that spits out STLs, a speaker placement optimizer, a skin for the Hypex FA plateamp DSP designer and lots more. Also had a quick look at the BRU-5. Saw action in this thread yesterday and remembered that I did something, but not what. Found a beta version of an interface.

The BRU5 DSP Controller makes it much easier to access and use the controls. I made it public at: freespeakertools.com

There is an explanation of why you will need a "bridge" (some code thingy - dont ask me, Im vibecoding) to connect the browser to the USB of BRU5. Its something about the implementation of USB used for audio stuff like the BRU5. I have tried it out on two other PCs and everything works fine.

Here are screenshots of easy parametric EQ and the sort of advanced filters:

View attachment 532239

View attachment 532240


Have a look if you want.

What needs looking into that I remember:

• The way the DSP is run there is no "0" dB value on some settings just an approx. Someone should verify the dB settings. Not totally convinced +3dB is exactly that.
• The same goes for Q values and frequencies. (all might be fine but should be verified).
• The same goes for all other gain settings. Need to verify 0dB gain is exactly that. Hooking the thing up to REW and measuring should give peace of mind
• On the hardware side, there is som whining from the tweeter on my testspeaker. But thats a high sensivity horn-design. I find it totally acceptable for background listening.
• I also made a version for running two BRU5 controlling the crossover on both at the same time. Need to check it up before publishing. It worked well as I can remember.

This is interesting. I'm aware of DIYers in Vietnam who also develop webapps for easier tuning of these MVSilicon chips, available for both PC and mobile devices. These apps can connect via webHID/Bluetooth LE or USB. Unfortunately they work only on a small number of custom DSP/amplifier boards and Sure BDM3P (TPA3116-based with BP1048B2 chipset), the reason being different GPIO pin implementations I believe. You'll need to flash a custom firmware for compatibility, which in addition strips out most of the useless karaoke effects.

Here's a link if you're interested:

GitHub - nvmaudio/BDM3P: FW cho BDM3P

FW cho BDM3P. Contribute to nvmaudio/BDM3P development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[CedarX]

This is interesting. I'm aware of DIYers in Vietnam who also develop webapps for easier tuning of these MVSilicon chips, available for both PC and mobile devices.

Anecdotal comment: Sure Electronics, Wondom’s parent company (https://store.sure-electronics.com), is Malaysian…

 

[Mark185]

@aerosnack I have to correct my comment about the Wondom BRU5 and DSP boards. IF you can get their USBi interface working AND the BRU5 is not locked up in Bluetooth mode, you could reprogram it for crossover and PEQ functions using Sigma Studio just like I did with the Tinysine DSP board. You can't do crossovers with the standard software Wondom provides but you can using Sigma Studio. I gave up trying to do this due to wasting many hours trying to get their USBi interface and faulty BRU5 to work. I got the USBi working but BRU5 was defective and pretty much impossible to return via Aliexpress.