Improved sound for the BBC micro

EE July/August 1986 68 Despite the many laudable qualities of the BBC microcomputer as to speed and ease of peripheral inter- facing, many users are slightly disap- pointed with the sound quality of the standard version as manufactured by the Acorn company. An investigation into this matter has revealed that Acorn have disregarded the optional connection of an external audio amplifier to the computer; this is the more surprising since special holes have been provided to this purpose on the main PCB. The result of this omission manifests itself in a very poor sound quality, caused by the small loudspeaker in the cabinet, the high noise level of the improperly driven audio amplifier chip, and the rather coarse volume setting. How- ever, a minor modification to the BBC computer is sufficient to boost its sound production by means of an ex- ternal, more powerful audio amplifier which may be connected to a sound output socket on the computer. Pro- ceed as follows: 1.Open up the compute...