Thread: My Sony XA-300 Fix

(ADVISORY: Any modifications you make to your equipment are done at your own risk. Please don't blame me if it all goes wrong!)

OK, so after a while of the Sony XA-300 giving me a hard time by powering off the USB connection everytime I select a different input from my head unit, I decided I would not be beaten.

The design of the XA-300 allows the USB chip in the unit to be powered only when it is selected as an input from the head unit. It's not a problem if you are not using the USB port but if you intend to have digital quality sound most of the way to the head unit then USB is the way.

So why is powering off the chip a problem? Well, Winamp just does not like it and results in you needing to restart it to re-establish a link to the USB device. It would also give poor reliability when going to and from hibernation. (NOTE: going to and from standby is still an issue but personally I can get away with hibernation for now).

THE FIX. From some simple modificaitons I have changed the power supply to the USB chip in the XA-300 to be from the computer rather than the head unit and XA-300. This means that the chip will always be on whenever the computer is on. As it is always there Winamp and other software never get's upset when you change input.

So here is the XA-300.....


Here is the top side of the circuit board. You need to cut the track which heads under and to the right of capacitor C102 as circled. This stops the Sony unit from supplying 5 volts to the USB chip.


And here is the underside of the board. You need to solder a wire from the 5v supply from the USB connection from the PC to the centre pin of Q301 which is a transistor normally used for turning the USB chip on and off by the XA-300. There is a track leading to a dead end near the USB chip so it's an easy job to connect here.


I'm sure you will have questions, so feel free to ask. It is also possible to change which of the inputs is used to feed out of the headphone socket. I was going to wire this at a later date so that I can listen to GPS route information from a small speaker while I have a differnt input selected from the head unit. Let me know if you require that info also.

ADVISORY: Any modifications you make to your equipment are done at your own risk. These changes worked for me and so I share my findings. Please do not blame me if you break your XA-300, head unit or PC or invalidate your warranty by opening them up.

Have fun