HiLetgo VS1053 MP3 Audio Player Module Audio Decoder Board Onboard Recording Microphone SPI Interface OGG Output Port Line-in 12.288Mhz

You can get seemingly identical units for less money, but despite appearances they are NOT identical. I use these to do real-time MIDI over SPI, which eliminates the need for some incredibly delicate board rework to make MIDI over UART functional. These boards correctly use a 1.8V LDO, and other (cheaper) ones incorrectly use a 2.5V LDO instead. Any boards I've bought with the 2.5V LDO's do not work in SPI-MIDI mode. These have the correct LDO's and work fine.

The VS1053B chip is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Unfortunately, this board has a slight glitch on it. I'm not sure if it was just my board, or all the board, but I will share my solution so others don't waste their time like I did.If you have a situation where SCI commands work, but SDI does not (i.e. MP3 is not being decoded, and SDI tests are not working), then the problem is possibly pin #34 which on my board is floating. According to the datasheet, this pin should be pulled low via 100kOhm resistor. When this pin is high (or i suppose, when its floating), the chip actually boots into MIDI mode, and will not decode any audio file. To test if your symptoms are being caused for the same reason, follow what I did in the attached photo. Short pins 34 and 33 together with a multimeter probe or something similar. Note: its important that you do a hard reset of the device (or power reboot) once the pins are shorted together, this will ensure the chip boots into mp3 decode mode. Once an mp3 starts playing, you can release the pins, it will just keep playing the MP3.Hope this helps!

For some reason on reset the SCI_MODE register doen't reset to 0x00 but 0x90 (SM_DCLK and SM_SDINEW). This may work for some devices but you may want to clear this register before writting to it. SM_SDINEW is usually expected to be 1.

I have used a lot of VS1053 modules in the past for various audio projects. I saw this one for an inexpensive price so I thought I would try it out. What a waste of money. I connected it up to a known good ESP32 loaded with known working software and I could talk to it (via SPI) without issue but I couldn't get any audio out of it. In reading the reviews of this module a lot of people said there was a floating pin that prevents the module from working so as directed I tried to short pins 31 and 32 together and this seemed to work but in the process I must have damaged the chip somehow because the audio now produced was accompanied with serious static noise making the module unusable and again a waste of money. I'll never buy another module again from this manufacturer.My question is, since this is a known issue with a trivial fix why doesn't the manufacture fix this known problem? It would prevent them from getting bad reviews like this one. I would have liked to have an inexpensive source of VS1053 modules but this isn't it.

I too had to short pins 34 and 33 together, to get it to boot into mp3 mode. Needs no configuration. Starts with max volume. Just send mp3 data over SPI. Works great.

Works really well for the internet radio I'm making. For people saying you need to do a hardware fix to turn on mp3 mode, this is incorrect. mp3 mode can easily be enabled through software.

Appears to be made of high quality components and it works perfectly. The price is better than that of most other sellers, plus it had free Prime shipping. Highly recommended.

It works ok.Did not use mic so I can't comment on that.