Product Review

Adafruit "Music Maker" Arduino MP3 Shield for with 3W Stereo Amp

All this functionality is implemented in a light-weight SPI interface so that any Arduino can play audio from an SD card. There's also a special MIDI mode that you can boot the chip into that will read 'classic' 31250Kbaud MIDI data from an Arduino pin and act like a synth/drum machine - there are dozens of built-in drum and sample effects! But the chip is a pain to solder, and needs a lot of extras. That's why we spun up the best shield, perfect for use with any Arduino Uno, Leonardo or Mega.

This version of the shield includes an onboard 3W/channel stereo audio amplifier that can drive 4 or 8 ohm speakers. It's the same amplifier as in our TS2012 breakout, a great class D amplifier that sounds good and is power-conscious for portable/battery usage. Volume control is handled by the VS1053 chip.

Each order comes with one fully-assembled and tested shield, 2 2-pin terminal blocks, a stick of 0.1" male header and 2x3 female header for the ICSP connection. Some light soldering is required to attach the through-hole headers to the PCB for plugging into the Arduino as well as the terminal blocks for the speakers. Speakers, $1 headphones, SD card and Arduino not included!

Specifications:
Features the VS1053B codec chip - decodes Ogg Vorbis, MP3/MP2/MP1, MP4, AAC, WMA, FLAC, WAV/PCM, MIDI. Encodes Ogg or WAV/PCM
Stereo audio out with proper audio filter caps and ground reference so it can be safely