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google car dock - headphone jack noise

I just got my official car dock the other day. It works fine, but one problem I have with it, is when my phone is in the dock, it causes noise/feedback on the auxiliary in to my stereo(which is hooked up to the n1). If I pop it out of the dock, it's fine, no noise.
Anyone else experiencing this problem? Any fix? It's pretty much at the point where I don't want to listen to music on the phone if it's plugged into the dock....

kyleroden said:
I just got my official car dock the other day. It works fine, but one problem I have with it, is when my phone is in the dock, it causes noise/feedback on the auxiliary in to my stereo(which is hooked up to the n1). If I pop it out of the dock, it's fine, no noise.
Anyone else experiencing this problem? Any fix? It's pretty much at the point where I don't want to listen to music on the phone if it's plugged into the dock....
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Click to collapse
A friend of mine (@gIMpSTa) told me it's caused by the car-dock power supply (cigarette lighter) sharing the same ground with your car-stereo...Which makes sense..... Change the ground wire on your stereo or cigarette lighter and you should be good to go!!

yep, its alternator noise caused by a poor ground, could be the lighter port or could be in the engine bay. I would suggest just hard wiring the charger which is what im gonna do when i get the car dock.

I should be able to hardwire it anywhere I can find 5v? It only draws 2 amps if I recall, so that shouldn't be much of an issue...

Hey guys, would this solve my problem?
http://us.kensington.com/html/14484.html
I wouldn't think so, since it's still being plugged into the same adapter, but just thought I'd check

Car Dock disassembly - adding a LINE OUT

So I got my car dock, I knew it didn't come with a line out, but figured I could add one. You all know how aewsome it would be to have a line out jack on this thing rather than the stock "speakers". Well good news, I am going to make myself a line out and will post pictures about how I am doing it.
I have the thing taken apart right now, and just need to go buy a 3.5mm audio jack.
So, my plan will be to still use the cardock for phone and stereo profiles, just using my car stereo's aux in rather than the dock's weak speakers. I'll leave the microphones on the dock intact, just not the speakers. The good news is the speakers are removable, making room for a 3.5mm audio jack. the bad news? the jack will have to be on the dock body, not base. I'm sure if you try hard enough, one of yoiu will find a place in the base for a jack, but for now, I'm going to add one to the body, on the bottom (in portrait mode).
There you have it, I'll be able to make the dock a semi-permanent fixture in my car and never have to plug in an audio cable to get my music through my car speakers.
Pictures to follow soon, I just couldn't wait to start this project, and get some reactions / moral support.

Someone else looked at doing the same thing a while back. I seem to recall they came up against several hurdles. It is not as clear cut as it seems.
On the face of it- it would seem the approach you are taking will necessitate you having your car stereo ON and AUX selected any time you need to take a phone call. Might be a bit of a pain when you are for example, listening to the car radio and your phone rings. Or if the phone rings and your stereo happens to be turned off.
I find the inbuilt speakers totally adequate for Phone Audio. This arrangement has the benefit it being standalone and means N1 Phone Audio works regardless of current car stereo state. I send the Media Audio to my car stereo via BT though, as it sure benefits from the better speakers quality and auto pauses the Media when the phone is in use.
Good luck with it and do a search for the other thread as there is some good info info in there.
PS take a look through this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6427057&postcount=39
Might save you some heart ache

I only found that thread, after i had my dock quite disassembled and did a google search for the chipset under the RF shield. :/
I don't use my car's head unit for anything but aux audio, radio is dead to me, so I shouldn't have any problems. The hurdle is the audio being fed to the speakers do NOT share a common ground. They utilize an active-balanced system. both leads are hot, common to themselves.
Now it seems as I will have to choose which channel gets full audio and just bum 'common' from the dominant channel. or i come up with some way to convert two independent balanced audio feeds to a common ground.
I have had no luck looking up the NF2301 daughter board. I was hoping to find a schematic detailing the line level outputs, but no go. I did think it was interesting that the car dock and desktop dock share the same PCB, too bad there is no detailed schematic yet...

FAILURE - giving up
So, after creatively placing some resistors and whatnot, I got a decent line level with common ground, that won't blow up the built-in amp. However, as pointed out in that other thread, there is some BS DSP that notches the lower frequencies out of the signal to the speakers. I got it all setup in my car, plugged in to my aux-out, and it sounded like i was using the voice profile. I took the aux cable and plugged into my headphone jack on the phone, and all the bass came through just fine.
So, for now? The audio out on the car dock is meant for the crappy on-board speakers. not real ones. Sad...
Now, it seems the only way to get an aux out of the cardock would be to swap the board with a desktop dock, and cut a hole for the aux jack, or just do some more soldering to not modify the casing of the cardock.
Too bad, I had it working, but the damn DSP chip/amp puts out ****ty audio quality

Alternatively, at the point you have a desktop dock.... Instead of butchering it for the board, Just install it somewhere out of site in your car and connect it to your cars Aux-in with a 3.5mm lead. Thats what I have done. Works well. Only downside is I still have to manually connect the desktop. It does not autoconnect to deskdock when N1 is placed in cardock obviously.
Too bad your set up did not work for now.

kajer said:
So, after creatively placing some resistors and whatnot, I got a decent line level with common ground, that won't blow up the built-in amp. However, as pointed out in that other thread, there is some BS DSP that notches the lower frequencies out of the signal to the speakers. I got it all setup in my car, plugged in to my aux-out, and it sounded like i was using the voice profile. I took the aux cable and plugged into my headphone jack on the phone, and all the bass came through just fine.
So, for now? The audio out on the car dock is meant for the crappy on-board speakers. not real ones. Sad...
Now, it seems the only way to get an aux out of the cardock would be to swap the board with a desktop dock, and cut a hole for the aux jack, or just do some more soldering to not modify the casing of the cardock.
Too bad, I had it working, but the damn DSP chip/amp puts out ****ty audio quality
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it's using a low bitrate A2DP bluetooth transfer. Either way, bluetooth will be lower quality than a direct plug.

khaytsus said:
Either way, bluetooth will be lower quality than a direct plug.
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Click to collapse
I believe this is the likely reason why Google didn't include an audio out port on the dock. Yes, it's on the desktop dock, but that's really all the desktop dock handles, whereas the car dock has a mic as well, etc.

I would be interested in detailed disassembly instructions if you wouldn't mind.

wonkotron said:
I would be interested in detailed disassembly instructions if you wouldn't mind.
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Click to collapse
detail isn't really necessary, it's pretty straightforward.
-get a knife and use it to peel off the black rectangular sticker on the front of the dock. it's right where the battery on the phone is when it's docked.
-undo the 4 screws behind the sticker
-pop the two halves of the phone-holder part of the dock apart. if you can't get them apart with a bit of pulling get your thumb nail or a knife in between the two halves.
that's about as far as you need to go to get to the useful bits.

jamezracer said:
Stuff
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Click to collapse
Thanks! I'll see if I can figure anything out.

I had this same idea when I first got my car dock, but I couldn't convince myself to hack my new dock. Instead I hacked an old stereo Bluetooth headset with the same mod and it works perfectly.

Don't ignore this post...
Ok So I took a dive in to it. I disassembled my dock (yes even after reading all that I could find on the internet, including this thread), but in disbelief I wanted to find out for my self. I soldered a head phone jack to the speaker wires, and thought I had something good when connected to my computer speakers. (it worked and I was surprised). But after hooking it all up in the car and actually hearing the quality, I was sorrily disappointed.
Major failure, the sound is terrible. Not tolerable at all. Comparable to scratching fingernails across a chalk board and trying to listen to some good tunes at the same time from an FM radio with very poor reception.
Heed my warning, do not attempt to mod the dock for an FM out, it will not work.

Car charger causes audio whizzing

Anyone know how to relieve the whizzing I hear when playing audio through the headphone jack while charging through the cig lighter? You know, its kind of a high pitch whine that goes up and down in pitch with rpms. Is there a filter? My jack is connected through the back of the head unit via USA spec pa12.
Sent from Tapatalk 2.

74Eldo said:
Anyone know how to relieve the whizzing I hear when playing audio through the headphone jack while charging through the cig lighter? You know, its kind of a high pitch whine that goes up and down in pitch with rpms. Is there a filter? My jack is connected through the back of the head unit via USA spec pa12..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Buy one of these to cut out the electrical interference.

Thanks. Yeah I actually took the big leap and googled it after I posted this. Guess i was just bored initially. I ordered something similar. Its called a ground loop isolator and they generally run $10-20.
Sent from Tapatalk 2.

Ground loop isolators are kind of a bandaid fix for a larger problem with installation and actually slightly lowers the output of your input device. The noise is actually caused by a difference in voltage between your audio system and the lighter port you plug your charger in to. It can usually be fixed by changing the cigarette lighter ports ground and power wires to the same power and ground wires the radio uses (If the noise is only heard when listening to audio from the phone, and not when listening to AM or FM). External amplifiers complicate maters significantly, but generally, ground all audio devices at the same point, and keep power and signal wires separated by at least 6"

[Q] please recommend a Car Bluetooth adapter that is very loud

I need more volume from my phones bluetooth music streaming so I can hear it in my car. My new car is much noiser and using a samsung hs3000 to the aux , songs on the phone are only about 50% as loud as cd's or the xm radio from the car reciever.
I've tried modding the phone with several ICS roms and JB mods and had some success with 4.04 and kingbeatz, but not enough.
I'm currently running pac rom with kingbeats and volume + but that only effects the headphone jack. It sounds fantastic though.
Anyone have a bluetooth receiver suggestion? I can't find output specs on any of them.

I'm using the GROM-USB2 + the BT thing from grom audio.
But I have to ask, why do you need one if your stereo already has an AUX entry? Just plug directly your phone to the AUX.

My car's aux connection is located in a compartment where you rest your arm in between the seats, not on the front of the radio's head unit. You can't close the compartment if you have the wire coming out and its not conveniently placed. Bluetooth takes care of that.

betterthan74 said:
My car's aux connection is located in a compartment where you rest your arm in between the seats, not on the front of the radio's head unit. You can't close the compartment if you have the wire coming out and its not conveniently placed. Bluetooth takes care of that.
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Click to collapse
Sounds like a diy mod is in order lol.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

mtdew said:
Sounds like a diy mod is in order lol.
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Click to collapse
Yep. A drill, some cable and some time. Without knowing the layout of the car it's hard to tell if that's long enough. Or better yet a new deck. lol

hechoen said:
Yep. A drill, some cable and some time. Without knowing the layout of the car it's hard to tell if that's long enough. Or better yet a new deck. lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was thinking split or reroute the adapter and put it towards the front
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

mtdew said:
I was thinking split or reroute the adapter and put it towards the front
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Splitting it would most likely require more time and patience than the average audiophile is will to commit. Rerouting is easy enough as long as your OK with taking the in and tracing it back. If it's another 3.5 male at the deck then just unplug and replug. If the out is hardwired you are still going to have a lot of teardown to get the in released. That just leaves a hole that is pretty obvious to any potential owner in the future. With a male to male cable and a drill you can put it anywhere you want with minimal fuss. All the original components are left intact except for a 1/4" hole or two.

hechoen said:
Splitting it would most likely require more time and patience than the average audiophile is will to commit. Rerouting is easy enough as long as your OK with taking the in and tracing it back. If it's another 3.5 male at the deck then just unplug and replug. If the out is hardwired you are still going to have a lot of teardown to get the in released. That just leaves a hole that is pretty obvious to any potential owner in the future. With a male to male cable and a drill you can put it anywhere you want with minimal fuss. All the original components are left intact except for a 1/4" hole or two.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not known for halfway on my car audio. I'm good at creative solutions and love a good teardown install lol. I tinker with everything I can get my hands on.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

I appreciate the suggestions but that leaves me having to plug in when I get into the car. I'd rather stick with blue tooth. I just tested it and my Bluetooth is about half the volume of a direct connect. There has to be an adapter that is better then what I have.. The car is a 2011 Camaro with the stock radio.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 2

Yeah a better amp.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

betterthan74 said:
The car is a 2011 Camaro with the stock radio.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lift up a little on the right foot...
But seriously, if you don't have Bluetooth built into the radio, in my experience, you will have a bad time.

Bluetooth volume issue solved.
I was able to solve my problem with fiio E11 portable headphone amp. No buzz and it actually warms up the sound I am getting from my phone with the built in amp and EQ settings.
The only downside is can't change while being in use and my car's cigarette ports turn off with the car, so I can't listen and charge while driving. I'm looking for battery pack to keep in the car to remedy that so I don't have constantly take it out of the car.

Faulty unit - no sound?

I have an Xtrons PF75ATTAR and it has developed a fault. It boots up fine and everything works as it should however there is no sound.
I have reinstalled the original Audi head unit and this works fine so the fault seems to lie with the Xtrons unit.
I contacted Xtrons and as I am not the original purchaser they can offer no support at all and suggested I buy a new unit. It is just still within 12-months warranty so I am trying to get hold of the guy I bought it from to see if he can arrange an RMA, however I need to try other options just in case I can't get hold of him or he won't cooperate.
I am not much of an electronics person (I have a soldering iron and a multimeter....) so I am not sure how to troubleshoot this.
The unit has a 'dongle' between the audio out on the rear of the head unit. This is encased in heat-shrink and I am not sure what it does, but is inline with the audio outs so I am wondering whether it might be this that is at fault?
Any help is appreciated
Andy

ADB100 said:
I have an Xtrons PF75ATTAR and it has developed a fault. It boots up fine and everything works as it should however there is no sound.
I have reinstalled the original Audi head unit and this works fine so the fault seems to lie with the Xtrons unit.
I contacted Xtrons and as I am not the original purchaser they can offer no support at all and suggested I buy a new unit. It is just still within 12-months warranty so I am trying to get hold of the guy I bought it from to see if he can arrange an RMA, however I need to try other options just in case I can't get hold of him or he won't cooperate.
I am not much of an electronics person (I have a soldering iron and a multimeter....) so I am not sure how to troubleshoot this.
The unit has a 'dongle' between the audio out on the rear of the head unit. This is encased in heat-shrink and I am not sure what it does, but is inline with the audio outs so I am wondering whether it might be this that is at fault?
Any help is appreciated
Andy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi there, do you have any pics of this "dongle"?
I'm just wondering if the speaker outputs have been converted to a low level output so they can be used as a line-in on an amp. If this is the case then the speaker outputs will have been spliced and effectively diverted from the loom which would result in no sound until you either use the converted outputs into a separate amp or reconnect them to the original wires so that you use the standard speaker outputs from the head unit.
I may be well of the mark here but seeing as I have just completed an install in my friends van with this same "spliced" setup, its worth checking out.

sirleeofroy said:
Hi there, do you have any pics of this "dongle"?
I'm just wondering if the speaker outputs have been converted to a low level output so they can be used as a line-in on an amp. If this is the case then the speaker outputs will have been spliced and effectively diverted from the loom which would result in no sound until you either use the converted outputs into a separate amp or reconnect them to the original wires so that you use the standard speaker outputs from the head unit.
I may be well of the mark here but seeing as I have just completed an install in my friends van with this same "spliced" setup, its worth checking out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't take these pictures myself, however this is the dongle.
It was working fine for about 6-months and I haven't changed anything. I got in the car one day and there was no sound. After about 20 minutes I started to hear some pops and feint audio. I stopped the car and turned the ignition off for a minute or so and then started it back up and the sound returned. The next time I got in the car there was no audio and stopping and starting didn't fix it.

ADB100 said:
I didn't take these pictures myself, however this is the dongle.
It was working fine for about 6-months and I haven't changed anything. I got in the car one day and there was no sound. After about 20 minutes I started to hear some pops and feint audio. I stopped the car and turned the ignition off for a minute or so and then started it back up and the sound returned. The next time I got in the car there was no audio and stopping and starting didn't fix it.
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Click to collapse
Ok, that's not what I was thinking....
That looks like the breakout for your line-out, do you run an amp with your head unit or just use the internal amp?
Your description of pops and feint audio with eventual lack of audio sounds like something has blown

sirleeofroy said:
Ok, that's not what I was thinking....
That looks like the breakout for your line-out, do you run an amp with your head unit or just use the internal amp?
Your description of pops and feint audio with eventual lack of audio sounds like something has blown
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My car has a Bose amp (factory fit).
Any ideas how to troubleshoot?

ADB100 said:
My car has a Bose amp (factory fit).
Any ideas how to troubleshoot?
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Click to collapse
Ok, I'm not familiar with Audi setups but I'm guessing the Bose amp still requires a 12v remote to switch it on, usually a blue wire from the head unit. Could be worth checking that for 12v on ignition.
My PX5 unit effectively has 2 blue remote wires, one called "ANT" and one called "AMP SWITCH" or something like that..... might be worth swapping those over if you have two like I do.
How is audio supplied to the amp? Is it via the line out RCA's or via the loom/harness?
Another thing to look at, and I know this will sound super silly but on my unit a couple of the connections on the rear are similar to one another and it could be relatively easy to plug something into the wrong port. I did it and wondered why my USB didn't work! I'm sure this is not the case but still worth checking.

sirleeofroy said:
Ok, I'm not familiar with Audi setups but I'm guessing the Bose amp still requires a 12v remote to switch it on, usually a blue wire from the head unit. Could be worth checking that for 12v on ignition.
My PX5 unit effectively has 2 blue remote wires, one called "ANT" and one called "AMP SWITCH" or something like that..... might be worth swapping those over if you have two like I do.
How is audio supplied to the amp? Is it via the line out RCA's or via the loom/harness?
Another thing to look at, and I know this will sound super silly but on my unit a couple of the connections on the rear are similar to one another and it could be relatively easy to plug something into the wrong port. I did it and wondered why my USB didn't work! I'm sure this is not the case but still worth checking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The audio is supplied to the amp via a quad-lock connector. So the audio from the rear of the unit connects to this dongle on one side, out the other side of the dongle are four female RCA's. These are connected to four male RCA's that connect to the quad-lock connector. There are two blue wires labelled 'AMP-CON' that have male/female push-fit connectors and these are connected together - I am guessing this is the 12v to switch the amp on? There is also another blue wire labelled 'ANT' with a push-fit connector. This is connected to a green wire coming out of the antenna facra cable.
It was working and nothing has been disturbed so I am fairly sure its not been wired up incorrectly. I think something has broken...
I'll check with a multimeter that I am getting 12v on the AMP-CON cable from the back of the amp first.
Andy

OK, so armed with multimeter I decided to have a play with this earlier. It does appear that the AMP-CON wire is not delivering 12V and therefore not turning the Bose amp on.
If I disconnect the 12v wire from the dual fakra antenna adapter the sound kicks in, however the radio reception is dreadful. I believe the 12V wire is there to power an antenna signal booster integral to the car. If I measure the voltage with the 12v wire disconnected from the fakra adapter its 10.something volts, if I measure it with the 12v wire connected its 0.something volts. Is it likely this fakra adapter is faulty? It looks like a passive component?
Cheers
Andy

ADB100 said:
OK, so armed with multimeter I decided to have a play with this earlier. It does appear that the AMP-CON wire is not delivering 12V and therefore not turning the Bose amp on.
If I disconnect the 12v wire from the dual fakra antenna adapter the sound kicks in, however the radio reception is dreadful. I believe the 12V wire is there to power an antenna signal booster integral to the car. If I measure the voltage with the 12v wire disconnected from the fakra adapter its 10.something volts, if I measure it with the 12v wire connected its 0.something volts. Is it likely this fakra adapter is faulty? It looks like a passive component?
Cheers
Andy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah good, I'm glad that you've narrowed it down! As far as I'm aware, these wires are 12v switched and are there simply to provide the signal for whatever device to turn on. If the AMP-CON wire has no voltage, you may just be able to use the same wire you use for your Antenna. I have done this before where I used the 12v switched wire from an antenna in the boot instead of running a remote wire the full length of the car.
I would be curious to find out why the AMP-CON wire does not supply voltage, it could be down to a broken wire somewhere or even a dodgy solder within the unit.

sirleeofroy said:
Ah good, I'm glad that you've narrowed it down! As far as I'm aware, these wires are 12v switched and are there simply to provide the signal for whatever device to turn on. If the AMP-CON wire has no voltage, you may just be able to use the same wire you use for your Antenna. I have done this before where I used the 12v switched wire from an antenna in the boot instead of running a remote wire the full length of the car.
I would be curious to find out why the AMP-CON wire does not supply voltage, it could be down to a broken wire somewhere or even a dodgy solder within the unit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thanks for taking the time to help out. I don't think I described the cabling correctly. The AMP-CON and the ANT come from the same pin in the connector that plugs into the rear of the head unit (one wire comes out and then it splits into two and there is a bit of heat-shrink around the join. If I disconnect the ANT cable from the green wire that comes from the fakra adapter there is sound and the cable goes +10v. If I connect it back up there is a low 'thud' as it makes contact, the sound stops and the voltage drops to 0.something. It seems the fakra adapter is dragging the voltage down, hence why I think this adapter might be faulty.
Andy

I have the same issue now. We’re you able to resolve this?

I am also having this issue.. My HU turns on. Everything works perfectly... Just no sound. None at all. No factory amp. In a 2002 Silverado. I don't know if its the internal amp or what. Ideas?