larebz

Hi there, this is probably a really stupid question and bearing in mind i know very little about car stereo's and the way they work please go easy on me :beam:

Basically i want to be able to play my mp3 player through my car speakers, now i've tried the fm transmitter things but they have been dodgy in the past to say the least. So i've now tried using a RCA To 3.5mm cable however in the back of my stereo i have 2 sets of RCA female ports (2 for the back and 2 for the front)

I can get the music playing but obviously only in either the front or the rear and very very faintly, can hardly hear it at all and when i try turning the sound up on the stereo the buzz of the speakers just blocks out the sound that you could hear faintly.

What can i do to solve my problem please? any help is appreciated.

P.S. There is 1 more alternative i think and that is getting a cd changer to rca female cable and then plugging the rca to 3.5mm cable into that, maybe that would work better i don't know.

v8 scimitar

Are you sure those are line ins and not line outs?

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pancit175

Never ever, ever, EVER plug in a source signal into anything you havent yet identified other than a dedicated input. Most, if not all, rca plugs on the back of headunits are designated for pre-"OUTS" unless otherwise stated as an input or AUX. In all likely hood you may damage your device and/or the unit you are plugging it into.

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larebz

Well like i said i know very 'little' about car stereos, if you don't mind could you explain the difference between line-in and line-out please and what they look like?

Basically on the back of the stereo there is a cable coming out the back of it that looks like this: but without the black bit on the left hand side. And then there's 2 ports built in.

One thing to say is that i used to have a fusion sub that plugged into the unit using a rca to rca cable and that worked fine, played through all the speakers. That's why i thought it would work the same sort of way with my mp3.

v8 scimitar

They look the same but line out is for going to amps and a line in is for external equipment to play through the head unit. I would put money on it your unit has line outs so you have just tried to play your head unit through your MP3 player. If your lucky you wont have broken anything but as pancit said don't go plugging stuff in unless you know what your plugging into.

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larebz

alright well everything's working fine so i think i've escaped that, thanks for the heads up though.

So back to my main question then, what's the best way to play my mp3 player in my car then?


Is that an option do you think? The way i see it is that this way the stereo will recognize the mp3 player as a cd changer and play the music that way, i may be wrong though.

froalskiner

It sounds like the rca connectors are outputs for an amp. Your options are somewhat limited...either get a new head unit with a built in aux input, use a better FM transmitter, or get an AUX kit for your radio/car (if available).

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Bugbyte

What kind of car stereo is it?

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pancit175

Are there any other type of connectors on the back of your headunit, besides the front and rear preouts. If not you may be forced to get a new headunit that has the capability of an AUX input.

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StereoInstaller

X2.

There are lots of decks out there that allow a conversion of CD changer ports to AUX inputs...post an exact model number, if you can find it, generally on the face somewhere.

RF modulators do suck. The ones that are wired in suck less, but still suck.

larebz

Sorry but i started another thread thinking forgetting about this one, i thought i had subscribed to this before but obviously i hadn't. Anyway the other thread is here: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/newb...ml#post1210894


No not realy all there are is the front and rear rca connections, the speaker wires setup, the aerial cable and a din/cd changer connection. And basically getting a new headunit isn't really an option as my cars a mess as it is so it's pretty pointless to tell you the truth.

pancit175

What kind of headunit do you have, you may have the option to get a cable that converts the cd changer to and aux input.

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larebz

Its a Clarion

JimmyFitz

What model of Clarion? Or is that a secret?

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