Finding Cheap Sound Decoder IC for Human Voice

[taupune]

Hi,
I am thinking on working on a project where I would make use of a speaker and sound decoder chip , to transmit digital signal into audio.

I am at a problem at part selection. I can't seem to find the right part for the job. I just need the part to be cheap, less than $5 and work on human voice only, no music. I have been searching on mouser and digikey but no luck. The data sheets say the parts are used as multiplexer and/or amplifier.

I don't have much knowledge at this subject, voice thingy and I don't think I have enough time to study graduate level books all by myself. Any crash course or VERY useful introduction book from the experts in the field?


I have had some people buy some boards and a sound chip and they could listen to their speech, but it was only for 30 sec recording, and the quality was horrible. I don't have any limited memory. The design would be an embedded system.

Thank you.

 

[berkeman]

44.1kHz is a standard sampling rate for audio CDs, so you just need to build a DAC circuit (8-bit should be fine) to take in recorded bytes at that frequency from memory, and drive them out to the analog speaker preamplifier. I've done it before, and it can be a pretty simple circuit, especially if you have as much memory as you say you have.

You can use a laptop to record the 44.1kHz audio of your voice and store it as 8-bit data. Then transfer that data to your embedded memory via a USB stick or whatever, and use your embedded circuit to play back whichever voice phrases you choose. I build such an embedded circuit one time for an elevator speaker system -- the standard phrases announced which floor the elevator car was arriving at. It could also have been used for standard emergency announcements if needed.