New Amped Esparagus is here

I’m genuinely excited; I really am. Here is the new Amped Esparagus

It doesn’t look that much different from the old one, apart from the TFT screen, which is hard to miss. So what’s so important?

I had a mental splinter with ‘old’ Esparagus devices pretty much since I created the first one – I want to have physical control, as I used to have at least a volume knob with every audio device I ever used. Simple enough, right? Turns out, not many manufacturers produce angled rotaries with (a) a 6-mm shaft, so you can find a decent knob for it, (b) having button function, and (c) the right pinout scheme with two GPIO outputs (so-called A/B). In fact, there were none, until recently.

There was always an option to have an auxiliary front-facing PCB, but then you have additional mechanics to handle (and to break eventually), extra cost, extra assembly, extra inconvenience, to sum it up.

After 2 years of searching, I found it 🙂 I also found a more roomy case to host the new device, so now there is a space not only for line-out, but also for a line-in (it cuts out the DAC when you use it, so you can have out on one jack, and amp playing the input from the second jack, if you even had that need).

And considering the new Sendspin image-handling capability, I had to put a colorful LCD as an option. You don’t have to use it, and there is an LED bar as standard.

You may get one at  Tindie and Lectronz, although this is only the first prototype batch. More stock will be ordered this fall.

P.S. It is hard to miss how close it is to the final design @tmuWolverine posted in his video, although done completely independently