Sparkfun Mp3 Player Shield vs Adafruit Audio Wave Shield?

Using Arduino Audio
1

Hello!

To make it easier to understand what I'm going for, I'll break up my question into several chunks...

My Goal / Project: I'm currently working on a project where I will have 3-4 RGB Anode LED's changing colors together, depending on the track that is playing (Track 1 = All Shine Yellow, Track 2 = All Shine Purple, etc [8 tracks total]). With that said I'm planning on connecting everything to my arduino.

Dilemma: I recently bought an MP3 Player Shield from Sparkfun, but now I'm having second thoughts because the Adafruit Audio Wave Shield is not only cheaper, but comes with a speaker and other stuff.

Why Do I Need Audio?: To play tracks that I will sync with the leds. I was planning on connecting my sparkfun shield with my own bluetooth speaker (using its line-in) so that I can play sound out loud. I have a Veho VSS-009-360BT. Is this possible? Or should I return the sparkfun one and purchase the adafruit kit?

Has anyone used either or both? Which would you recommend for what I want to do? Which one requires less pins? Thanks so much!!!

2

To start off I don't think that the Adafruit Wave Shield actually comes with a speaker. I purchased the Wave Shield over a year ago and it didn't come with one. I use it as a Doorbell at my house to play random sound clips/songs.

One of the limitations to the Adafruit Wave Shield is that it requires you to convert the audio files into .wav format and a low quality. Quote from their site: "Can play any uncompressed 22KHz, 16bit, mono Wave (.wav) files of any size."

I hope this helps you a little.

3

I agree..

I dont believe the Adafruit Waveshield comes with a speaker.. (But I do think they offer a kit of sorts that 'does')

I found the Waveshield a bit 'low' in volume upon initial use.. (I think I read there is a resistor 'hack' you can do to increase this)..

outside of that I like the Waveshield... but have never used the MP3 shield you refer to. :frowning:

I used a 'customized' version of it here in this project:

and here is a quick sample of the Waveshield by itself..

the audio sample isnt that great was just text to speech generated file to thank my local makerspace member for borrowing his kit.