Retro radio speaker: Handcrafted with Vintage Nixie tubes. A tribute to the precious moments in the past.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
MCU on the Way! Retio Approaching Mass Production
over 3 years ago
– Fri, Aug 06, 2021 at 11:47:50 PM
Dear backers,
Great news! The microcontrollers we managed to source are currently on the way to us while you are reading this. They should arrive in our hands within a week! Finally!
This update will mainly focus on the functional Retio assembled with all mass-production components.
With the samples of a few key parts, including wood enclosure, all circuit boards, and the speaker cavity, we assembled a functional Retio and loaded up the latest software to it. Here is what it looks like.
A few notes:
- We have all the electronics components in stock except the microcontroller(MCU), which will be arriving in a week.
- The metal parts are being manufactured in the M.A.R.'s Engineering Company Inc. in San Leandro.
- The speaker cavity is undergoing final tests and should be ready for mass production very soon.
- We found a few issues while testing out the electronics as well as the software. Hardware issues have been pinpointed and corrected, and one more revision PCB board was sent to a fab and is being made. It is very close to the final version.
- Software is being updated with bugs fixed. It will be ready before the SMT process.
- We have been making wood enclosures non stop in our shop in San Jose.
Although the global IC shortage is still ongoing(and the price is going up even higher), it's not an obstacle for us anymore. Thanks again for all your patience and support. Delivering products as promised is always important to us. We sincerely apologize to not be able to deliver Retio as originally scheduled. Now please bear withus forthe final steps that we have to make - quality tests and refinements. We want to deliver a flawless product you can enjoy more than decades ahead, and that's the essence in Retio itself. We will keep you updated with all the processes along the journey and hope you enjoy a nice weekend!
IC Shortage Conquered; The Final Production Resuming
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Jul 14, 2021 at 03:41:07 AM
Dear backers,
We have some good news about the availability of the microcontroller(MCU) used in Retio.
Microcontrollers
After a couple of months‘ tough time of searching for MCU sources, we’ve tentatively secured a batch of the microcontrollers from our networks, which is expected to be delivered in mid August! Although the price will be ~3.8 times higher than its normal price, we are willing to sacrifice our balance sheet to push the project forward. If the MCU can be delivered on time as expected, all productions will be arranged moving forward and we are expecting to deliver the first batch of Retio by late September-October.
At this stage, there are still risks for MCU delivery due to the complex and quickly changing IC shortage situations globally. We have been in close contact with our IC suppliers to make sure we are at the higher position as we can in the waiting list.
Software Development
Most of the features have been successfully implemented in software. To name a few:
Radio station auto-tuning
By default, rotating the “Tuner” knob will manually change the radio frequency in Radio mode. One can also simply press the “Tuner” in order to quickly jump to the next available station.
FM localization
In terms of the FM range, the FM/AM model of Retio supports 65-108MHz, and the FM/DAB model supports 76-108MHz. Since different countries and continents use various FM frequency ranges, we programmed four popular ranges to suit the backers' countries. Your Retio will be set to the one which fits your country the most before it’s shipped. In case you take Retio to another country, you are given a way to set up the FM frequency range as you wish.
Firmware upgrade
We also added the firmware upgrade feature so that our backers can perform the upgrade when necessary to get more software features or fix software issues.
Software is ready
Other Progresses
Wood case While waiting for the ICs, we’ve produced enough wood cases for a large batch and it’s still counting while you are reading this.
First production version As the Retio is gradually taking shapes, we are putting up a set of complete Retio with the latest components. There are still detailed tweaks and tests we need to work on. We will update you next time.
Thanks again for your patience and support. Quality and timely deliveries are always our first priorities. We are super excited that the final production will be resumed soon!
Production progress: Circuit board, Speaker Cavity and Wood cases
over 3 years ago
– Mon, Jun 21, 2021 at 01:31:07 AM
Dear Backers,
Thanks again for the understanding and support in the last update! Although the global IC shortage and inflation have been affecting us significantly, we still devote all we have to move the project forward, trying to deliver the product as early as possible. In this update, we will focus on the progress of the electronic design, as well as the production of speaker cavity and wood case.
Circuit Board Design
The circuit boards were designed and revised five times before being finalized into the satisfying state. Now the design is final and ready for mass production. And we are waiting for the IC prices to drop to a reasonable range. Once we can procure the IC chips, we will initiate the mass production of the circuit boards immediately. It will take around two weeks for manufacturing as well as the surface mount process.
Here we present three critical components for our Retio in order to achieve excellent sound quality and to accommodate the rich feature design.
Bluetooth Module
In order to achieve high quality bluetooth audio, we choose Qualcomm QCC3020 for our Retio products. The QCC3020 is a high performance BT 5.0 bluetooth chip with 24 bit stereo audio interface, supporting 120MHz Qualcomm audio DSPs, aptX mono, SBC and AAC audio codec. Combined with its 32MHz processor, advanced audio algorithms, and low power consumption, QCC3020 is widely used in numerous stereo headphones, Qualcomm TrueWireless earbuds and USB to BT dongles. It will deliver the optimal sound quality for our Retio backers.
Radio Tuner Module
After a lot of research on radio tuner chips on the market, we picked the TEF6686 from NXP as the radio tuner for the Retio FM/AM version. TEF6686 is a low IF tuner high performance one-chip radio solution, providing stereo audio in digital format, ranging from 87.5MHz to 108MHz for FM and 522kHz to 1,620 kHz for AM. It offers outstanding radio performance with the widest range of features and state of the art software algorithms at optimized system costs, which has been proven by the automobile industry over the years. Retio will benefit from this tuner for its rich features, including tuning synthesizer, channel filtering, channel equalization, weak signal processing, noise blanking etc.
Audio Power Amplifier
As Retio has both radio and bluetooth speaker features, we have to take this into consideration when selecting the audio power amplifier. CS83702E is an R-class mono audio power amplifier, providing AB/D switching, mute function, and built-in boost module, perfectly suitable for our needs. When it works in AB mode, its design minimizes the interference of the power amplifier itself to achieve better FM reception and signal quality. While switched to class D mode, it can meet the high requirements of bluetooth audios. Besides, this chip was designed with single-cell lithium battery power supply in mind. It can drive speakers as low as 2Ω, with a maximum output of 18W constant power.
Retio main PCB board
Retio PCB board for powering up Nixie tubes
Speaker Cavity
To get the best sound quality out of this little case, we carefully designed the speaker cavity that fits the entire exterior and interior design very well. It holds all five circuit boards in the front and back, for powering up nixie tubes and radio/bluetooth/amplifier respectively.
Wood Cases Production
We’ve secured zebrawood lumber in our wood shop. And are still waiting for wenge imported from Africa.
Zebrawood for Retio
The wood case production has already been started for walnut and white oak. We have fabricated 500+ cases to date.
Estimated deliver time
Now the MCU IC is still unavailable. We are still waiting for good news from our vendors. In the meantime, we have more time to test and tune the speaker, improve the wood case and metal frame production process, as well as the packaging design and shipping facilitation. Once we get the MCU IC, we are confident to start shipping within 1-2 months. Thanks for your patience and support!
Our Proud Partners; Production Updates & Emerging Challenges
over 3 years ago
– Sat, May 29, 2021 at 05:27:44 AM
Dear backers,
In this update, we will focus on the local suppliers in the SF Bay Area we have been collaborating with for our Retio project.
Founded in 2006, Moore Newton is a wholesale distributor of high quality hardwood lumber, hardwood plywood, and softwood lumber products. Based in centrally-located San Leandro, CA, they distribute material throughout the greater Bay Area.
When their owner Jack heard about Retio, he was as excited as we were, provided many valuable suggestions and hand-picked the most optimal board for our Retio. We have spent a lot of time with him in the warehouse, bringing down stack after stack of Walnut while flipping through hundreds of boards just to pick the ones that best suit our needs. With their professional experience and support, we are confident that we will get the quality wood on time to fulfill this project.
In 1964, Manuel and Reine Ambrosio founded M.A.R.'s Engineering Company Inc. in San Leandro,CA, and it has remained a family-run business ever since.
They own and operate some of the very unique multi spindle lathe in the country. Their 6 spindle lathe can do up to 12 ops in a single rotation. It’s the flexible and unique design that gives their machine the efficiency and quality.
We were super impressed by the passion of this family business. Unlike some others, they support small businesses like us, and have been tirelessly helping us to improve the design of the metal parts with their 70+ years of experience in metal manufacturing. They have been actively meeting with us to achieve a perfect design we are happy with. And we think you’ll be happy too ;)
Project Update
Speaker cavity - mould in production (ETA end of June)
The mould of the speaker cavity is now in the final revision. Once the design is confirmed, a small batch of 50 pieces will be manufactured for further verification. There will likely be minor changes necessary to polish the mould, which will take around 2 to 3 weeks. After that, mass production will begin with an estimated 15-day completion time. Currently we are expecting to receive the speaker cavities around the end of June at our assembly line.
Cable & adapter - in production (ETA July)
High quality DC power adapters as well as the USB Type-C cables have been chosen, and are currently in mass production. Due to the shortage of adapter IC(please see details in the next section), the estimated arrival time is in July.
PCB - design&test done, software in progress (ETA end of June)
The schematics and the layout of the circuit boards were accomplished at the end of Apr. We then ordered a small batch of PCBs from our fab, hand-soldered the components and performed hardware testing and software development. Due to the confined space in the Retio, some of the circuit boards had to be carefully tweaked a couple of times. In the meantime, Retio’s software is under development and most of the features have been completed except the radio related ones. We are expecting to finish all the software by Jun 10 and tweak the circuit boards one last time before finalizing the circuit design by the end of June. We will provide more details in our next update.
Emerging Challenges
The global IC shortage
Impact of the ongoing global IC shortage has drawn a lot of attention in the past few months. It mainly affected the automotive market initially (causing production lines shutting down in certain automakers lately), and then has been extending quickly beyond into electrical equipment and IT hardware. Unfortunately we, with no exception, are hardly hit by the chip shortage as well. Let's take TEF6686, the FM/AM radio chip used in our Retio AM version, as an example. This feature-rich radio chip from NXP offers outstanding radio performance both in hardware and algorithm, and has been proven by the automotive industry over the years. The price has gone up by a whopping 500% to 2000% due to the IC shortage, and most critically, they are very difficult to find even if we are willing to pay this crazy price. Similar situation is happening to ALL of the ICs used in our Retio, including Bluetooth IC, MCU, RTC, AMP. Even the most “plain” shift register 74HC595 has increased by 2 to 3 times in price. The cost of Retio has been significantly bumped up by an extensive amount.
While we are hardworking developing Retio, we have to spare our efforts to source these components using our resources in every possible way. There is the possibility that the actual shipping time may be delayed due to the IC shortage. We will do whatever we can to keep the original shipping plan.
Recent large price increases for a wide range of basic commodities have also added up to our overall manufacturing cost and impacted us negatively. Among them, brass and lumber prices have jumped through the roof in the US. Looking at the brighter side: the supplies of brass and lumber are still normal. Therefore we have secured sufficient stock for our Retio manufacturing. And we can confirm they are not the factors holding off our plan.
International shipping cost is another factor we are trying to manage in this difficult time. For US backers, we will be shipping out the orders from our warehouse in the SF Bay Area in California. For the EU and other regions, we are planning to ship large cargoes to the destination area to manage the duty and taxes in bulk. And then your packages will be taken over by your local dispatchers and delivered to your doorsteps. (although the international shipping cost of large cargoes increases 2x-3x). We are still working on this. More to come.
As you may be aware, almost all the consumer goods are getting more expensive. Retio's original MSRP $399 won't sustain a business based on the up-to-date cost structure. It's a huge challenge for us in this drastically changing market. But this won't hit us down, forcing us to compromise on product quality. All the core members in the Retio team are on the same page to work on this project unpaid, so that all the collected funds are spent to secure the high-quality materials, hefty ICs, pay our proud partners fairly, and the necessity cost like shipping and packaging. That’s the only way we could approach breaking even point to make an uncompromised delivery. As we stated at the beginning, we want to make Retio a product that lasts for years to come, and your satisfaction is our top priority. When the challenges come along, we will stay stronger together and remember where we came from - all the support from our backers.
Last call for order updates!
over 3 years ago
– Sat, May 01, 2021 at 05:10:47 AM
Up until now, 78% backers have already completed their surveys. Thanks so much for getting back to us in a timely manner! Please note, the last day to update your survey is 5/1/2021. After the date, we will lock your selections. But you can still update your shipping address up until we lock addresses for shipping.
If you complete your BackerKit survey after 5/1, we can still process the information you submit, but your shipment may be delayed. We will place orders for parts and materials next week.
If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://retio.backerkit.com/.
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FAQ
Walnut sap color
A few backers asked if the sap (golden grain) on walnut can be avoided. Sap is a beautiful natural wood variation. But for the backers who want more consistent wood grains, we will make the walnut without sap by default (no action required). If you like a little sap on the edge, please send us a message, we will try our best to accommodate. However due to the limited amount of sap, we can't guarantee to fulfill this request.
Power adapter
We will include a USB-C cable and power adapter in the package(both for Retio and Retio Lite). The power adapter type will be determined by the country listed on your shipping address. If you have a specific request, please send us a message.
Apple ID Backers
Backers who have pledged the campaign using their AppleID but haven't completely set up their Apple Pay account (linking their email address to their Apple Wallet) will have issues receiving their emails from BackerKit. So if you haven't received your backer's survey yet (Please also check spam folder), please send us a message with your correct email address.
DAB+
A few backers asked about FM/DAB+ selection. It's a radio standard mainly used by EU countries. It is not available in the US. You can find if DAB+ is available in your country here.
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Fun facts:
More than 60% backers choose brass feet.
More than 18% backers get Retio Lite.
More than 37% backers select DAB+.
Why are these facts? Because all the selections above wouldn't be here without your suggestion! Now we can't wait to deliver Retio to all of you. Thank you!
