iPod Boombox DIY Help- Audio problems

[chrispknight]

I am just starting to get into audio work, and started by taking apart a standard crummy boombox and trying to input an audio signal from my iPod. I'm trying to prevent having to buy one of those 200 dollar ipod stereos (ripoff). What I did was to take the tape deck out, cut the audio wires from it, and then to splice in a signal from a 1/8th inch stereo jack. Everything went fairly well, and I got it all working, except as soon as I heard the sound coming out, it was terribly distorted, fuzzy, and bad. By turning down the volume on the ipod, it helped slightly but there are still tremendous problems with the sound

1. The highs and middle are soft and small
2. The bass is VERY loud and blown out
3. Overall bad quality sound for a direct in

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions to make this hack work. I really have very little experience with this kind of work, but I was thinking maybe if I put in a resistor to make the signal less, it would not cut off the highs and lows. I put pictures up so you could understand more of what I was doing. the link is below. Any help would be much appreciated.








more info at www.ghettomod.blogspot.com

Thanks for any help availalbe

[Al_Dodge_Bundy]

That's cool, I did exactly the same when starting with electronics, altough there wasn't an Ipod in those day's
I wanted to connect an external tapedeck to my crapy portable fm radio!!!


You probably connected the I-Pod to the connector of the tape-drive pickup head!

The signals from these tape-heads, are very low.

The signals coming from the earphone-jack on the I pod is, in contrast to the tape-head, very high!

There are two way's to connect the I pod:

- Lower the signal coming from the Ipod to a level, which is the same as
the tapehead's signal. Try to use a variable resistor (e.g. 0 to 10KOhm)!
(Because the tapehead's signal is very low, it is also very sensitive to noise!!!)

A better way would be:

- Find the pre-amplifier circuit, to which the tape-head's signal is going (just follow the wires/print board).
And connect the Ipod's signal to the output of the pre amplifier.

(Just a tip, before you blow up the output circuit on your Ipod, use an old walkman to first test your cicruit!! It's output is basic the same!!)

Good Luck,

Mark

[absorbentgnome]

Lol, I remember doing this as well. I'd crank the volume up, lick my finger and touch the pcb around the audio chip to find the channel inputs with 50Hz mains hum!

[chrispknight]

Thanks so much for the help. As soon as I get a chance I"m gonna run down to radio shack and pick up the stuff I need. I already have a direct line going into the audio input (the tape deck was cut out), so I think I will follow your advice and put in a resistor. I'll tell you all how it goes after I finish the soldering. Perhaps I will have saved myself from having to spend 200 bucks on a crappy altec lansic ipod thing.

[Al_Dodge_Bundy]

[absorbentgnome]

[Al_Dodge_Bundy]