Right, thought it was about time I replaced the old stereo (cos, tbh, who listens to cassettes nowadays?:rollin). So, I now have a nice Sony one that does MP3 play via an aux jack point. The problem is that when I play my MP3 player through it, the speakers start to rattle and distort, especially the rear passenger side one. I can make it better by fiddling with the volume on the MP3 player as opposed to the headunit, and the graphic equaliser settings can make it better, but it never completely goes away.
I realise the obvious answer is "change the speakers", but this doesn\'t happen when playing CDs either using the headunits drive or the CD changer in the boot?
Why?
Does the MP3 player act like a pre-amp because its trying to power headphones and this overloads the headunits output? I wouldn\'t have thought this would happen, but I cant think of anything else. All the equipment is Sony, so you\'d expect it to all work together. Any help greatly appreciated, I\'m an electronics cretin, so its hopefully something really obvious
is ur aux jack a 3.5mm one? (normal headphones jack)
i would agree that the mp3 player would act as a pre-amp to the headunit but this should not cause it to rattle bad as u say as the jack should be designed to allow for the mp3 player havine an amp for headphones.
best to have both headuniot and mp3 player at quite low volumes as if either is on max then the distorted sound would be amplified.
withinout playing with the unit its hard to solve, u should of said when at london run.
maybe there is a setting u can change to vary the gain from the jack?!
failing that maybe u can use the RC input on the back of the headunit to plug in ur mp3.
oh.. also do u have a \'LOUD\' feature on ur headunit? that might help if u have it off.
Cheers for the ideas there, Liam. I meant to mention it on the tunnel run, but kept getting distracted! I\'d only had it fitted a couple of days before, so wasn\'t really up to speed then (clearly I\'m still not!). Don\'t know if there\'s a way of plugging it into an "RC" input in the rear of the unit. Dunno even what an RC input is! :confused: I\'m so embarassingly stupid with these things!
Doesn\'t seem to be a way of reducing the gain as such, though theres a setting for "tuning" the unit to the MP3, which didnt seem to make a lot of difference tbh. I thought there may be an option to switch the MP3 player to "line out" instead of headphones, so as to avoid the pre-amp problem, but there doesnt seem to be one of them either.
Maybe I\'m best off taking it back to the shop that fitted it and getting them to sort it, I just hoped there may be an easy quick answer that someone would know. It just seems bizarre that it doesnt do it with CDs, which implies to me that it definitey aint the speakers, which obviously arent the best, but if they were knackered, it\'d happen all the time :confused: Confused!
RC input is the red and white plugs at the back but make sure its plugged into the one saying input lol
if there is an aux rc input then u can also plug ur mp3 into that also but that will give u a fixed gain and u cant control the volume on the headunit (thats was what ahppen with my pioneer headunit)
u can get a lead with a 3.5mm jack on one end and a red and white plug on the other end.
looks like this but without the yellow plug.
http://www.alphacaraudio.co.uk/images/OLDSITE/CA-C3AV.jpg
worst come to worst then go back to shop (dunt know if they will charge u) otherwise if u ever come london then i dont mind having a look for u =)
fingers crossed it works. enjoy =)
Well, if it\'s using the headphone output on the stereo, and that\'s turned up nice and loud, and then the stereo is turned up nice and loud (or even not that loud at all) it\'s likely the amp is \'clipping\' - the frequency and amplitude of the signal is being clipped by the headunit.
there\'s more info here (http://caraudioelectronics.automotive.com/70515/caep-0207-subwoofer-troubleshooting/index.html) about it, but that\'s where I\'d start. Generally if you have the volume of the MP3 player turned up, the car stereo shouldn\'t need to be, and you\'ll get less interference being amplified by the stereo. However, if you play with both volume controls you should get it settled down...
Good link, that, ta! The problem is, it seems to happen pretty much irrespective of which volume is set where. In fact, its at its least bad (if that\'s the right expression) when the MP3 volume is turned right down and the headunit turned up to compensate, which is what led me to think it might be pre-amplification causing the prob. Its not strictly speaking a headphone socket on the stereo, its an "Aux in".
This is p!ss!ng me off a bit, actually. I thought the whole point is that electronics are supposed to make our lives easier and more pleasnat, not the reverse. I cant believe that Sony have such little confidence in and support for their own products. If I had a bloody iPod, I could plug it in using a USB and control it via the headunit. Because I\'m loyal to Sony and have one of their own MP3 players, they reward me by giving me no way of interfacing it to the head unit properly, and the one way I have of doing it results in unlistenable distortion. There\'s a lesson here; balls to Sony!
*Rant mode off*
its how there recorded or converted to mp3 nik i have seen the problem before you need to make the recording with all the levels at flat .its not acting like a pre amp its just bass boosted in the recording then boosted again on the headunit making the bass in the door woofer to much ....
i got a sony cdx ca900 headunit.. or sth like that n i got a 3.5mm jack plugged into the ipod and the other end is in the rc aux input of the headunit and it runs fine.
maybe its the settings on ur mp3 player, like if u have the eq turned on in ur mp3 then this can cuase the music to go all poo like.
best is to turn the eq off on the mp3.
is ur aux input hole on ur headunit on the front of ur unit or the back?
might be worth trying to plug a cd player (or md or cassette lol) instead of ur mp3 player n see if the sound is any better.. that way u will know if its the headunit or the mp3 player.
Quote from: batman;536626its how there recorded or converted to mp3 nik i have seen the problem before you need to make the recording with all the levels at flat .its not acting like a pre amp its just bass boosted in the recording then boosted again on the headunit making the bass in the door woofer to much ....
So if it is this that\'s causing the problem, is there no way round it beyond re-converting the entire catalogue? The trouble is, using Sonic Stage, it tends to automatically convert stuff to its own Sony format, ATRAC is it? or something. I dont recall ever finding a graphic equaliser function in the MP3 player itself, maybe time to RTFM and wade through the instructions! I cant fiddle about with it atm cos the cars away for paint just now, which is annoying. I guess trying it with proper MP3 format tracks instead of the Sony format may eliminate one possible cause, too, but I just dont have the damn thing here to experiment with!
yes sorry mate best to reformat you could adjust the levels in the car but for every song may get annoying
@rse!!!!!!!
You can get similar problems if the quality of the mp3 is too low as well (gets noisy, which can cause speaker issues). If you\'re ripping your own tracks, they want to be at least 128kbps (pref higher) - probably \'mid\' or better if your software doesn\'t show bitrates.
Old man! :rollin... Right, does it distort only when the mp3 players volume is \'high\', or does it just distort regardless?
I would assume the prior, unfortunately such is the way sound electronics are designed (no amount of brand-matching will help you here!). You\'ll just have to deal with it by matching the volume of the mp3 player to play within the clipping band of the headunit-
Imagine a typical scenario of preouts into amps- preouts have a pre-specified voltage, amps do not- they have \'gains\' which are used to match the source for the best output possible when paired with the users choice of preamp, without clipping, distortion etc.
Essentially your mp3 player is an amp, and your volume control is your gain. A good way to match it is to play a cd, then switch to aux & adjust the volume till its roughly the same as when a cd is playing. I bet it won\'t distort after that :D.
Peash!
Thanks guys! I\'ll have a good play with it when I get the car back then. I did try different ratios of MP3 volume to head unit, but it still seemed to distort no matter what. The trouble is that some MP3 tracks are from CDs, some from records via USB turntable, some snaffled from mates cos I couldn\'t be arsed to convert them myself etc. They all seem to be at different, and it would be annoying if I had to reset the volume ratios for every track! Maybe I should just give in and buy a bloody iPod, but I just really hate their stupid touch-wheel controller thing. I thought the whole point was that MP3 was supposed to be a universal sort of medium, but it seems like the oppostie is true!
Maybe I should just put the old cassette player back in, never had any problems with that :Giggle