"The release of Baidu wireless music box without warning makes a large number of people feel that integrity is broken. Now, in the wave of Internet companies stepping on hardware products, baidu is undoubtedly at the forefront of the team. Small WiFi, small router, baidu video stick, and now Baidu wireless music box have directly gathered together the "four piece set" of family multimedia interconnection. The four seemingly different products are actually based on WiFi technology to expand different hardware functions. Baidu wireless music box, literally, mainly has two aspects: wireless and music, but these two functions are very common and common, which makes people crazy. What does Baidu want? What is the difference of Baidu wireless music box? With these questions, we begin our exploration journey today.
Baidu wireless music box appearance and easy to use
Opening the packaging box of Baidu wireless music box is really amazing. The white rounded inverted triangle looks like the logo on Superman's return clothes. It just replaces the letter "s" with Du Niang's claws. In addition, it also brings a trace of the shadow of Apple products, which gives people a first feeling of dazzle and cool.
Open Baidu wireless music box
Open the box and see all the accessories. A Baidu wireless music box, a 5V / 1A power adapter, a micro USB cable, a user guide and a product certificate.
Baidu wireless music box accessories
The small hole directly below the logo of Baidu wireless music box is the position of the indicator light, which displays different colors according to different working states (for example, blue indicates that it is powered on; Blue purple indicates WiFi connection (OK). The back of the box is marked with the specific model M-100 of the product and the parameters set by the wireless network. In addition, a function key is placed at the indicator light position of the fixed foot of the base. It can control the playback and pause of music expanded through USB storage. As long as you press the indicator light position in a flat state, the operation can be realized. It is a very interesting design.
Baidu wireless music box interface
Behind the wireless music box are some common interfaces, including:
1 3.5mm audio interface, additional left and right channel interfaces
1 Ethernet WAN interface and 1 LAN interface
USB storage expansion interface and a micro USB power supply interface
A reset button (press and hold for 5S to initialize the wireless music box)
Even if you haven't known about Baidu wireless music box before, after reading these interfaces, you can basically infer some of its simple functions, no nonsense, and directly start to experience its router and music playback functions.
The router setting of Baidu wireless music box is very simple. Connect the WAN port to the network that can access the Internet, connect the mobile phone or computer to the wireless or wired network of Baidu wireless music box, and enter the IP address configured by the router: 192.168.169.1 in the browser for setting.
Baidu wireless music box router setting interface
The setting interface of Baidu wireless music box router is relatively simple and clear. If you have to describe it specifically, it is between the setting interface of ordinary router and intelligent router. For specific steps, please refer to the setting method of ordinary router, which is not described here.
But I have to complain about one thing. Once Baidu wireless music box is plugged into the Internet cable, the buckle of the network cable head is just against the shell on the top of the wireless music box, which is very, very inconvenient to plug and unplug. This may also be an unusual and humanized shape designed by the engineer without considering the actual situation.
Once the wireless routing is set up, the implementation of music playback on this basis is relatively simple. First, you must install apps that support Baidu wireless music box product protocols (airplay, DLNA, qplay) on IOS or Android phones, and recommend Baidu music and QQ music. Then connect the wireless SSID of Baidu wireless music box through mobile phone, and then push and play through Baidu music or QQ music app. The specific operation process can be shown in the figure below.
Android system mobile phone Baidu Music App push operation process
If Baidu wireless music box does not have wireless routing settings in advance, playing music needs another step. After connecting the wireless SSID of Baidu wireless music box through mobile phone, first input 192.168.169.1 with mobile browser for network settings. The specific process can refer to the following figure.
Connect Baidu wireless music box to the Internet
Baidu wireless music box also has a very good function, which is to play music without networking through USB storage expansion. But it's strange that this is not explained in the user guide. It's a small "surprise" given by Baidu to users. As shown in the following figure, insert the USB flash disk loaded with songs into the USB storage port, press the position of the indicator light to play the songs in the USB flash disk, press again to pause, and press again to restart playing at the point of pause. It feels like a large MP3.
Play music via USB storage expansion
Through the simple use of Baidu wireless music box, in addition to the surprise brought by the appearance at the beginning, the actual experience effect is careless, and many problems have been found at the same time:
Music cannot be pushed normally. This is actually the second Baidu wireless music box that the author got. The first is to apply for replacement due to the problem of unable to push
Playing music is noisy. It is not recommended to use headphones to listen to music. As a major music product, this performance is really unsatisfactory
The left and right channels are reversed, which is 100% certain after many left and right channel tests. For music enthusiasts, this may be the most unbearable thing
However, although Baidu wireless music box has many shortcomings, the price of 99rmb and Baidu brand still attract the majority of users. We think it is worth more. We don't tangle on this issue, let it be and go directly into the disassembly link.
Disassembly of Baidu wireless music box
The disassembly of Baidu wireless music box is quite convenient. The box cover can be opened by screwing off the three screws at the bottom. The connection part is fixed by buckle, and it is easy to restore.
Internal structure of Baidu wireless music box (click the picture to enlarge)
After unpacking the box cover, I saw that the internal workmanship was obviously rough and fake. Although it was not as bad as gold and jade, it was not much better. The routing function of Baidu wireless music box is to use the design of dual antennas. When it comes to antennas, the author found a "Oh, my God!" A big event.
Take a closer look at the welding position of the antenna on the right side of the figure. Originally, the three welding spots should be welded with the RF test seat. Finally, after the product enters mass production, the RF test seat is removed, but the welding spot is retained and the antenna is welded directly, which is beyond reproach. However, the problem is that the antenna is welded at GND, and the product has passed the inspection and reached the user, In the words of the author, we can only "Rejoice" that this scheme uses the design of dual antennas, and it happens that the other antenna is welded correctly.
OK, continue not to tangle, continue to disassemble.
Complete disassembly drawing of Baidu wireless music box
Unscrew the other nine screws and remove the shielding cover on the core board, you can decompose the baidu wireless music box almost (as shown in the figure above). The whole product design is roughly divided into three parts, the core board, the peripheral interface board and an FPC small board (including the indicator light and the control button for playing music on the USB memory expansion). Let's take a closer look at each part.
Core board
The core board of Baidu wireless music box is very small. Both sides of the board are covered with shielding covers, but only two fixed welding spots are welded, which is very easy to remove, which is convenient for the author to disassemble.
MediaTek mt7620a of core board
It is obvious from the core board that Baidu wireless music box adopts the single-chip routing solution of MediaTek mt7620a, with very few external components. Next to it is etrontech 64MB DDR2. This memory capacity is sufficient for ordinary routers, which uses the same size of memory as a previously disassembled router, Let's focus on the characteristics of MediaTek mt7620a chip.
Mt7620a system block diagram of MediaTek
Based on MIPS 24K core and 580mhz main frequency, MediaTek mt7620a integrates a Mac supporting 802.11n protocol and a 300mps PHY, and supports 2T2R, 11 * 11mm and tfbga256ball in 2.4G band. It can be seen that MediaTek has a high degree of integration, and MediaTek is really superior in chip integration. Some people may have questions, what is 2T2R?
In a simple explanation, 2T2R refers to having two transmitting units and two receiving units, which is one of MIMO (multiple input multiple output) technologies. Compared with 1t1r, 2T2R adopts dual antenna technology, and the two antennas are responsible for receiving and transmitting at the same time, which can be understood as dual channel transmission. When the bandwidth remains unchanged, The transmission efficiency of LAN will be about twice that of 1t1r.
In low-end routers, the single-chip solution of ar9331 accounts for almost half of the country, and the emergence of mt7620a may change this pattern. Especially for domestic local design manufacturers, MediaTek's complete solution can greatly shorten the product R & D cycle.
There is an obvious example. Jiyi adopts the ar9331 scheme, while the 2.4G band scheme in JIII adopts the mt7620a chip. The emergence of MediaTek mt7620a has pushed the design scheme of the router to the extreme and greatly simplified the peripheral circuit. In addition to the necessary functions of the router, it also includes common interfaces such as USB, SD and PCIe, which can be applied to router products with more functional requirements. For more information, please refer to the above figure - MediaTek mt7620a system block diagram.
The reverse side of the core board is another important functional module - audio circuit. Baidu wireless music box adopts the British ousheng wm8960g codec single-chip audio solution. Eurovision is a world-famous IC design company with audio and image technology. Its audio product wm8960g was launched in March 2006. After several years of market test, its stability and reliability are beyond words.
Core board ousheng wm8960g
Ousheng wm8960g is a stereo codec focusing on low power consumption. It integrates class D Speaker Driver and has a maximum output power of 1W; In addition, the earphone driver is also integrated on the chip. The output power is 40mW with 16 ohm load and 3.3V power supply, which is very suitable for portable digital audio design. At present, there are many successful application designs in the market, such as the smart phone Cowon Z2 of eodi and the tablet novo7 of Eno, which all use this audio codec.
For portable devices, the wm8960g may be an ideal solution, but for a major music product, the wm8960g is exaggerated. It only supports a sampling rate of 48Khz at most. At present, products selling music support a sampling rate of 192Khz, which is also a threshold for entry, such as the music mobile phone vivo x1, High end cs4398 DAC + cs8422 ADC audio solution is adopted. As we all know, the two extremely important functional units ADC and DAC in the audio circuit determine the sound quality. For details, please refer to the following figure - hardware block diagram of ousheng wm8960g.
Hardware block diagram of ousheng wm8960g
The performance of AD and Da determines two very important parameters to measure sound quality, sex noise ratio and total harmonic distortion.
The higher the signal-to-noise ratio, the smaller the noise mixed in the signal and the higher the quality of the corresponding sound
The total harmonic distortion reflects the harmonic components of the output signal compared with the input signal. The smaller the total harmonic distortion, the more accurate the timbre restoration and the purer the sound
After reading the table below and comparing Baidu wireless music box with vivo X1 audio scheme, I believe you have a clearer understanding of wm8960:
Comparison between Baidu wireless music box and vivo X1 audio scheme
In a broad sense, baidu wireless music box, as a product with the main music as the selling point, if you choose a high-end audio solution, even if the price increases, I believe it will be more able to win the hearts of users. However, the actual situation is that only the low-end single-chip solution is adopted, and what's more unbearable is that an unforgivable mistake is made in the design, which is also the opposite event of the left and right channels mentioned in the test. It's unimaginable that such a product can be sent to users through inspection.
Peripheral interface board
The peripheral interface has been introduced at the beginning of the product and is not repeated. The whole peripheral interface board does not have too many complex contents and designs, and the board workmanship is really rough.
Front of peripheral interface board
It is worth knowing about the PCB routing of audio. Experienced layout engineers know that audio signals are sensitive signals. The PCB routing of analog audio signals and differential lines can effectively suppress common mode interference, and it is best to cover the ground from left to right, up and down. It can be seen that since the peripheral interface board is a simple two-layer board, the processing in this regard is not perfect.
Back of peripheral interface board
Music playing and pause key board
Due to the structure, the music play and pause buttons are connected with the peripheral interface board through the FPC line of 6pin. In addition to the play button, there are two working status indicators on the back of the small board.
Baidu wireless music box play and pause button
Relying on MediaTek mt7620a single-chip routing solution, the design of Baidu wireless music box becomes extremely simple. It is not difficult to get its basic hardware block diagram through disassembly, as shown in the figure below.
Hardware block diagram of Baidu wireless music box
Finally, it is necessary to be wordy, "star like brand and cottage like quality", which is the conclusion reached by the author after using and dismantling Baidu wireless music box. Although the price of 99rmb and Baidu brand can produce good sales, the lack of product quality leads to the author's complete loss of interest in this product, and it is also necessary to re-examine this brand. We expect Internet companies like Baidu to innovate in hardware products, but we also hope to check the quality behind innovation, rather than rush to bring defective products to the market. Otherwise, it will undoubtedly be playing with fire“
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