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Car Charger - Interference with Audio?

I got one of these yesterday:
http://www.amazon.com/Google-Nexus-One-Retractable-Charger/dp/B002W52DVK/
I was playing some audio through the aux jack connected to my car's speakers. As soon as I plugged in the charger, the audio was distorted. It sounded very electronic/mechanical; hard to explain. As soon as I unplugged, the audio went back to normal.
Is this how all car chargers operate? Or is this one defective?
Does anyone know of a similarly priced car charger that doesn't have this issue?

your car audio system and charger are sharing ground. I don't recall the exact solution...so search forum... solution is on the forum.
EDIT: I just remembered... change the ground on your car stereo.... just attach it to some other metal piece.

arkavat said:
change the ground on your car stereo.... just attach it to some other metal piece.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, attach what?
Not too knowledgeable about car stuff.

Paul22000 said:
Sorry, attach what?
Not too knowledgeable about car stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
your car audio system should have bunch of wires in the back. Look in the user manual, one of them will be "ground wire". It is either attached to the "ground" wire coming from your car or just attached to nearest metal piece. usually a screw etc... in the vicinity of the audio system. Just remove the wire and attach it to some other metal.
If you don't want to mess with your car audio, do the same thing to charger outlet. try to locate the wires coming into the charger outlet. One of them is ground. change it's location.
If you are not too comfortable with this, just as your car mechanic to do it. it is fairly easy if you already know which wire is what... so it should be an easy task for him.

So all car chargers with the N1 will behave this way?

Paul22000 said:
So all car chargers with the N1 will behave this way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lord I hope not, I was in the market for a good car charger too..

ChillRays said:
Lord I hope not, I was in the market for a good car charger too..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the problem is not with N1 but rather with the electrical arrangement in a particular car. I do not have this problem,but, unfortunately for paul, all chargers will cause this interference.

Isolate the Ground!!! It's not rocket science, and it sure as hell ain't the n1....

So there's definitely 0% chance that it's the charger and getting a different one wouldn't make a difference?
I tried just plugging in the power, without any audio playing, and the speakers play a lot of metallic interference garbage. Unplug/plug in, plays weird sounds every time.

Paul22000 said:
So there's definitely 0% chance that it's the charger and getting a different one wouldn't make a difference?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this to know for sure:
1) don't connect charger, and play music through car speakers
2) use charger and play music through battery powered speakers
Both should turn out ok.
For information about ground loops see this pdf:
www.ebtechaudio.com/findloop.pdf
I tried just plugging in the power, without any audio playing, and the speakers play a lot of metallic interference garbage. Unplug/plug in, plays weird sounds every time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A ground loop is simply an antenna formed by the cable from ground, to your phone (charger), to your radio, and back to ground. The noise you're hearing when you don't play music is random noise from any and all radio waves that might pass through this giant loop antenna.
Think of all the stuff that emits RF noise: ignition/sparks, power supplies, phones, BT, wifi, electrical mains and poor connections. All these faint signals are picked up by your giant ground loop and amplified by your radio.
There are also some audio ground loop isolators, but I don't know how well they work.
www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062214

I know this thread is old and dead, but I just wanted to thank arkavat and xdZKu7 for their answers. I've had interference since I got my car and plugged my DHD into the aux in, and it's been driving me mad for ages. The sound is crystal clear until I plug the charger in and then I get some nasty alternator whining. I searched and found this thread last night, today I went with arkavat's answer and I found the cigarette lighter's ground wire and earthed it nearer by, now the alternator noise is gone almost entirely. I'm going to look into what I can do to reduce ground loop antenna noise also, although it's bearable for now. Thanks guys.

I bought the "official" OEM HTC micro USB CC C200 at amazon.
And it works fine. No problems with audio and navigation so far.

Fix For Audible Whine From Car Stereo

If you're like me, you use your Fascinate as an audio source for your car stereo. I have done a LOT of research into the whine sound and know it is from the alternator and I have seen things to go inline with the audio, but this degrades sound, which I definitely did not want. So, without further delay, here is the link:
http://n4maa.us/alternator.htm
It is from a HAM radio guy and this puts an inductor (which causes frequencies only below a certain point to pass through) and a capacitor (which smooths out the electrical current in this case - many that have built speakers before know that this is a high pass filter as well - which means that in this "kit" it takes frequencies above a certain point and they go to ground if my electrical schematic reading is correct (If I'm wrong, lemme know!)).
To sum it up - this gets rid of the whine you get when trying to charge or cradle your phone in your car while it is hooked to the aux in of your stereo.
You'll have to find a way to put this inline with the electrical supply to your device (like get an extension cord for a cigarette lighter plug with male on one end, female on the other and splice this in the middle. NOTE: the red wire attaches to the wire that feeds the tip of the cigarette adapter. the clips or outside of it is the ground, which is the line the black wire goes to. That said, if you have issues, just reply to this thread.

when I get a little extra time I'm gonna give this a try, that whining drives me absolutely crazy.

mlarma said:
If you're like me, you use your Fascinate as an audio source for your car stereo. I have done a LOT of research into the whine sound and know it is from the alternator and I have seen things to go inline with the audio, but this degrades sound, which I definitely did not want. So, without further delay, here is the link:
http://n4maa.us/alternator.htm
It is from a HAM radio guy and this puts an inductor (which causes frequencies only below a certain point to pass through) and a capacitor (which smooths out the electrical current in this case - many that have built speakers before know that this is a high pass filter as well - which means that in this "kit" it takes frequencies above a certain point and they go to ground if my electrical schematic reading is correct (If I'm wrong, lemme know!)).
To sum it up - this gets rid of the whine you get when trying to charge or cradle your phone in your car while it is hooked to the aux in of your stereo.
You'll have to find a way to put this inline with the electrical supply to your device (like get an extension cord for a cigarette lighter plug with male on one end, female on the other and splice this in the middle. NOTE: the red wire attaches to the wire that feeds the tip of the cigarette adapter. the clips or outside of it is the ground, which is the line the black wire goes to. That said, if you have issues, just reply to this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wowsers! That's a BIG filter - probably overkill for your phone or other music player. Not that it won't work, but you could probably experiment with smaller (cheaper, stealthier) components and still get rid of the wine. Might be interesting to build one in an Altoids box or something, maybe ...
For reference, my 100-watt ham radio draws slightly less than 20A when transmitting at full power.

I heard the whine sound comes from the wires current (the Power and RCA cables) running side by side ...I got rid of it just by running power on left side of car (cuz my batt is located in front left) to the amp then RCA on right side ...got rid of it and haven't heard it since...
2 Kicker CVRs 12'
Monoblock 750.1 Kicker amp
Custom sealed box tuned
Sony deck
Yellow Cap batt
5 Ferad Massive cap
Sent from my GB MIUI Fascinate

[HELP] headphones jack output burned out

While I was trying my car radio mods for a jack input, I probably make for error a short citcuit to some cable at 12v with my phone jack output
My phone crashed and restarted itself. All seems ok, but now when I try to use my jack output (for example with normal headphones) I have a lot of background noise, and when I try to turn up the volume above a certain treshold, I get a lot of distortion and the music is not "listenable" (simply horrible, only strange sounds distorted and so on..).
I have another photon Q (FAIL sim mod but working) and I was trying to see the resistence values from the jack output to the components near the output, but I can't se any differences with my headphone-broken-board.
The music works well if I use the internal speaker, the problem is only with headphone, jack output.
Someone can help me? Someone have the circuit of the board near the jack out to understand what I have burned out?
I hope so

Try replacing the jack from your other only held in with double sided tape
Sent from my XT897 using Tapatalk

You might want to use a bluetooth headset with a headphone jack in the future. Just to make sure that the actual expensive thing won't get hurt.
With such bluetooth headset you don't even need the jack at your Photon Q
I assume that some resistor or fuse has been blown up.
But I don't have experience in such things.

thanks for your replies!
bluetooth is good idea, I was considering also a microUSB to jack out, so I don't waste energy for bluetooth connection.. do you know if photon q can handle jack out from microUSB or microHDMI out?
I have replaced the back cover with the other one of the 'good working' phone, but the problem is here.. I think some resistors or capacitor is broken, it seems a filtering issue or a output impedance issue.
I could remove resistors from the other board and solder in my board, but I don't know what is broken and I don't know the circuit logic.
would love to repair circuit, otherwise I could solder a micro hdmi/usb to jack out in the phone to replace the standard jack out.. ahah! But is not so easy

Over microHDMI it can but only digital, not analog. Useless for a car radio.
Never tried over microUSB. But I think it's also digital.
The energy which is lost because of bluetooth is not really more than the analog sound over the headphone jack.
Listening music for about 6 hours (with sometimes texting/surfing for about 50 minutes) I get nearly 40% battery used.
Bluetooth is on, day and night. As long as it is not connected to anything, the energy usage is nearly zero.

Loader009 said:
Over microHDMI it can but only digital, not analog. Useless for a car radio.
Never tried over microUSB. But I think it's also digital.
The energy which is lost because of bluetooth is not really more than the analog sound over the headphone jack.
Listening music for about 6 hours (with sometimes texting/surfing for about 50 minutes) I get nearly 40% battery used.
Bluetooth is on, day and night. As long as it is not connected to anything, the energy usage is nearly zero.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for your info. I have never used bluetooth so much
But what about similar cables: http://it.aliexpress.com/item/Micro...er-For-Nokia-E52-E72-N900-8600/547805050.html
Perhaps some phone can handle analog output from microusb?
If photon q is able to do this, and if in that cable is not present some type of circuit, i can solder the correct cables from microusb to standard jack out. I could lose mic input, but I don't use it..
I'll try to find similar cables in my zone for testing, before buy it
edit: this thread is great http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1321491
i think that soldering similar things in my phone I could never use my usb port for data again
for now I'll buy similar cable. I hope to find a way to repair my board anyway

If you have a microUSB cable, you could theoretically cut it and try it out.
But you need to know the correct colorcode for this cable, maybe wikipedia is useful.
Still, I think the audio over microUSB is only for the docking station.
(Never tried that, pure theory.)

This cable should do what you need: http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Audio-Power-SKN6394A-Bionic/dp/B00H8YATYI
It comes with the original Photon Q car dock and when it's connected, the phone switches to EMU audio output - analogue audio output on USB pins.
I've done the coding work so this cable is supported in CM 10.2/11 (changes to kernel, audio HAL and framework).
I haven't tried to figure out how it's actually wired and what resistor values are used between what pins so the connection of this cable is recognized by the phone as there was no need for me - the cable I have works just fine. I can try to measure it if you need it, but I unfortunately can't promise when I actually find the time for it - I would need to make some preparation with usb female connectors I don't have handy currently.
Your issue sounds like you've damaged some part of the headphone amplifier. I don't know the hardware details of how it's exactly wired in the case of Photon Q. I suppose it's using a separate Speaker amplifier TPA2015D1 (as used in Atrix HD), but the headphone output may be coming almost directly from the WCD9310 headphone output. Not sure.

kabaldan said:
This cable should do what you need: http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Audio-Power-SKN6394A-Bionic/dp/B00H8YATYI
It comes with the original Photon Q car dock and when it's connected, the phone switches to EMU audio output - analogue audio output on USB pins.
I've done the coding work so this cable is supported in CM 10.2/11 (changes to kernel, audio HAL and framework).
I haven't tried to figure out how it's actually wired and what resistor values are used between what pins so the connection of this cable is recognized by the phone as there was no need for me - the cable I have works just fine. I can try to measure it if you need it, but I unfortunately can't promise when I actually find the time for it - I would need to make some preparation with usb female connectors I don't have handy currently.
Your issue sounds like you've damaged some part of the headphone amplifier. I don't know the hardware details of how it's exactly wired in the case of Photon Q. I suppose it's using a separate Speaker amplifier TPA2015D1 (as used in Atrix HD), but the headphone output may be coming almost directly from the WCD9310 headphone output. Not sure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your help.
I'll buy one of these cable for now, but I would like to repair anyway my photon Q headphone output.
I could find this WCD9310 in the board: I have a rework station so I could swap that chip from my other photon Q hoping to solve the issue..
But the output signal in headphones seems disturbed, usually I know that the digital electronics either works or it does not work .. it seems a problem of analog electronics, filtering or output impedance. I'm wrong? Or maybe within the WCD9310 there is some analog circuit?

nagash91 said:
Thanks for your help.
I'll buy one of these cable for now, but I would like to repair anyway my photon Q headphone output.
I could find this WCD9310 in the board: I have a rework station so I could swap that chip from my other photon Q hoping to solve the issue..
But the output signal in headphones seems disturbed, usually I know that the digital electronics either works or it does not work .. it seems a problem of analog electronics, filtering or output impedance. I'm wrong? Or maybe within the WCD9310 there is some analog circuit?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Qualcomm proprietary audio hub WCD9310 contains also integrated headphone amplifier.
See the MSM8960/PM8921/WCD9310 reference design schematics:
http://d-h.st/xJ9
Sheets 28 and 29.
You can see that there are only resistors and transient voltage suppressors between the headphone jack and WCD9310 HPH outputs.

kabaldan said:
The Qualcomm proprietary audio hub WCD9310 contains also integrated headphone amplifier.
See the MSM8960/PM8921/WCD9310 reference design schematics:
http://d-h.st/xJ9
Sheets 28 and 29.
You can see that there are only resistors and transient voltage suppressors between the headphone jack and WCD9310 HPH outputs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're giving me a great help, thank you.
Unfortunately I'm not so good with integrated circuit or similar.
What I can understand from the sheets:
- J6 JA13331-SW38-4F at top-right of sheet 29 is the jack output socket.
- Pin 1 and 4 are right and left headphone signals.
- As you said, the pin 1 and 4 goes to the WCD9310: HPH_LP pin 12, HPH_RM pin 17, and HPH_REF pin 18 (i think is the headset "gnd")
- As you said, between pin 1 and pin 4 of jack input and the WCD9310, there are only resistors, capacitors, and voltage suppressors.
So I understand: the problem are these voltage suppressors or capacitors or resistors or WCD9310 ! :laugh:
You said that probably is WCD9310.. you are more expert than me of coures, and I hope the only problem is the WCD9310 because is the easier component to locate and replace!
I could try to swap the WCD9310, but I don't know where is locate in photon Q, and all IC in the board are covered from metal cases.
I can remove all the metal covers from my 2nd photon Q until I find WCD9310.. but I'll destroy that board definitively.
It is possible that there is so little information on the photon q on the internet? I would like to find a circuit schematics, or at least an info about how the IC are placed in the board.

Good news!!!!!!
I have found WCD9310 in my broken board!!
I'll remove also the other two "capsule" and I'll make a detailed photo, it could be usefull for other problems :laugh:
back with SanDisk 8gb "ssd":

SNT-210 connecting to OEM amp

I picked this head unit up on ebay a while back and I've never gotten it to work, and I gave up trying to communicate with the seller. I've been trying to get this to work in my car - I replaced the existing Kenwood double DIN unit with this one. The Kenwood had been connected ot the factory amps using third party harnesses, triggering OEM Bose amps off the standard remote out wire of the Kenwood. Thing is, there's a blue 'remote out' wire on the SNT-210, as well as a brown "amplifier" wire. I have tried plugging in both of these wires, individually, to the receiving blue remote wire, to no avail. No audio out of this head unit. I can swap the Kenwood back in using it's existing wiring harness, and it's just fine - using factory amps. At first, the seller didn't even acknowledge that the 'amplifier' wire existed, and then finally told me to use that instead of 'remote out'. Well, as I mentioned, that didn't work.
I haven't even tried using the built in amplifier in the SNT-210 as the wiring simply doesn't exist in the car (due to oem amps). I suppose I could take this into a stereo shop locally and see if they can get output from it - I'm not even sure if the unit works, to be honest. I've been so far extremely underwhelmed with it's (lack of) performance. Not having functional audio just adds some ironic humor to the mix.
Does anyone actually have this in a car with the factory amplifiers?

Enabling RCA Audio outputs?

Hello everyone
I tried to use the RCA Line-Level audio outputs of my Dasaita MTCD-PX5 unit to connect an external amplifier, but discovered that there's no signal coming out of them.
Do I need to enable them somewhere on the SW?
Thanks in advance
Max

Hi Max,
I am having the same issue, with Seicane PX30. I have temporarily spliced into the speaker wires since my amp can take high voltage input, however I have static/ clipping noise with high volume.
Please let me know if you figure this out!

SoakedCardinal said:
Hi Max,
I am having the same issue, with Seicane PX30. I have temporarily spliced into the speaker wires since my amp can take high voltage input, however I have static/ clipping noise with high volume.
Please let me know if you figure this out!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What did the reseller suggest.

currently in communication with support, sent them this:
I have purchased 2014 2015 2016 Subaru WRX Forester 9 inch Android 10.0 Head Unit.
There is no signal coming from the following RCA jacks:
• SUBWOOFER
• FL OUT
• FR OUT
• RL OUT
• RR OUT
They all register 0 volts using 40hz 0db test tone ¾ volume from bluetooth or auxiliary input.
Connecting AUX IN L/R to FL/FR OUT makes the cars 3.5mm aux jack work but there is still no output from the RCA jacks.
My unit has the DSP Sound System. I have seated the connector properly. All other functions are working normally.
How can I make it work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
they completely misunderstood my issue first go round . . will report back

SoakedCardinal said:
currently in communication with support, sent them this:
they completely misunderstood my issue first go round . . will report back
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On my side, I never found a solution. Played around with several settings, but nothing...
Could this be a ROM issue?
Let me know if they ever reply back

marchnz said:
What did the reseller suggest.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maxiauer said:
On my side, I never found a solution. Played around with several settings, but nothing...
Could this be a ROM issue?
Let me know if they ever reply back
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so . . they basically tried to bribe me $50 to stop bothering them.
I think I might be able to fix the crackliing by using my amp to sum the L + R speaker outputs instead of my homade y splitter from the stock speaker cables at the headunit . .

Sorry for the resurrection, but I just fixed this issue on my PX5 for anyone else running into this problem. TL;DR is that the harness does not have the RCA for Rear speaker outputs wired in but the PX5 DOES have the pins for it. The solution is to wire them into the harness.
SOLVED: Rear RCA Outputs for MTCE PX5
Edit: TL;DR The wiring harness does not have Rear RCA outputs (only front and subwoofer). I had to splice in the RCA for the rear because there are pins outputting signal. (See solution below for details) I'm running Hal9K Mod with Android 10...
forum.xda-developers.com

Hey guys!
I've just bought a PX5 Android head unit to Skoda Octavia 3, instead of MIB1 Bolero. Everything works fine, it's fast, but I have 2x2ch amps in car.
RCAs don't give any signal at all..... Nor rear or front, neither sub RCA-s. Wiring is perfect.
In Factory menu i could find a Power Amplifier Settings menu, but it's gray, can't be opened.
In the scroll down menu, no possibility to activate AMP.
Remote switches both amps, connecting a phone via 3,5mm jack to amplifiers, it works fine. When I connect back to the head unit, it stops working. I can only hear it working like 5% of the sound it should...
We measured if there is rupture with multimeter, we measured 0... no beep. Moreover we tried to measure the outcoming signal, but nothing. it's 0,00. On every RCA. Anyone any tips?

kukoladam said:
Hey guys!
I've just bought a PX5 Android head unit to Skoda Octavia 3, instead of MIB1 Bolero. Everything works fine, it's fast, but I have 2x2ch amps in car.
RCAs don't give any signal at all..... Nor rear or front, neither sub RCA-s. Wiring is perfect.
In Factory menu i could find a Power Amplifier Settings menu, but it's gray, can't be opened.
In the scroll down menu, no possibility to activate AMP.
Remote switches both amps, connecting a phone via 3,5mm jack to amplifiers, it works fine. When I connect back to the head unit, it stops working. I can only hear it working like 5% of the sound it should...
We measured if there is rupture with multimeter, we measured 0... no beep. Moreover we tried to measure the outcoming signal, but nothing. it's 0,00. On every RCA. Anyone any tips?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Send it back under warranty.

marchnz said:
Send it back under warranty.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is, that is another week of waiting. I am in connection with the supplier, he asks the manufacturer about the problem. The way is good, since when I plug Front left to the Front left of the amplifier, I head very very weak sound from the front left speakers. But the outcoming signal is unmeasurable. In addition, in the Factory menu there is an option "Power Amplifier Settings", which is gray. Can't be reached..
Maybe somehow it is disabled in the menu, but I could not find in 3 hrs where.

kukoladam said:
Hey guys!
I've just bought a PX5 Android head unit to Skoda Octavia 3, instead of MIB1 Bolero. Everything works fine, it's fast, but I have 2x2ch amps in car.
RCAs don't give any signal at all..... Nor rear or front, neither sub RCA-s. Wiring is perfect.
In Factory menu i could find a Power Amplifier Settings menu, but it's gray, can't be opened.
In the scroll down menu, no possibility to activate AMP.
Remote switches both amps, connecting a phone via 3,5mm jack to amplifiers, it works fine. When I connect back to the head unit, it stops working. I can only hear it working like 5% of the sound it should...
We measured if there is rupture with multimeter, we measured 0... no beep. Moreover we tried to measure the outcoming signal, but nothing. it's 0,00. On every RCA. Anyone any tips?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As @marchnz .... send it back under warranty.
Every head unit I have ever had, there is no turn-on for the RCA's because they are already on. That includes my old px5 and new px6.... and I have been using RCA outs only for probably the last 40 years
What you could do is check the pins directly on the head unit plug to see if there is anything there. When you probe it with the multimeter try using a ground inside the machine instead of the ground on the plug.

Bob_Sanders said:
As @marchnz .... send it back under warranty.
Every head unit I have ever had, there is no turn-on for the RCA's because they are already on. That includes my old px5 and new px6.... and I have been using RCA outs only for probably the last 40 years
What you could do is check the pins directly on the head unit plug to see if there is anything there. When you probe it with the multimeter try using a ground inside the machine instead of the ground on the plug.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Optical toslink between audio equipment is highly preferred.
Even with a common grounding point for -all- connected equipment the chance of an unsnubbed high frequency feedback loop is real.
If so it will likely blow all your twitters and possibly the power amp in seconds*.
If the amp's big enough you'll see smoke and fire
At the very least use a common grounding point for all pieces of equipment. Use heavy gauge wire and keep the wire length as short as possible.
*A high frequency typically 40hz or higher feedback loop when fed into and/or through a power amp will result in a huge wattage output at that frequency. It will cause the speaker bypass to shunt all of it through your tweeters and effectively short out the power amp

You probably know much more about this than I do, but a few things don't make sense to me. You said high frequency feedback loop, but then referenced 40hz. Did you mean 40khz? 40hz is a pretty low frequency and I would think would be cut out by both integrated HPFs and amp level HPFs. I am very familiar with toslink as I use them between my PC and home audio amplifier, but I've never heard of them used between a head unit and amp. Every head unit and amp I've ever owned have used RCA outputs. I'm not saying the risk isn't there but why would both head unit and amp manufacturers not use them if RCA is so dangerous? It really is an honest question, so please don't take offense.

blackhawk said:
Optical toslink between audio equipment is highly preferred.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well... toslink is preferred in high end equipment (bandwidth suffers in the cheap stuff).... and I would not describe these head units as "high end"
blackhawk said:
Even with a common grounding point for -all- connected equipment the chance of an unsnubbed high frequency feedback loop is real.
If so it will likely blow all your twitters and possibly the power amp in seconds*.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you misunderstand. I'm asking OP to look for a common ground FOR TESTING with his multimeter. If all the rca's are not working then there is a chance that something common (like the ground on the rca jacks) is broken.

objecttothis said:
You probably know much more about this than I do, but a few things don't make sense to me. You said high frequency feedback loop, but then referenced 40hz. Did you mean 40khz? 40hz is a pretty low frequency and I would think would be cut out by both integrated HPFs and amp level HPFs. I am very familiar with toslink as I use them between my PC and home audio amplifier, but I've never heard of them used between a head unit and amp. Every head unit and amp I've ever owned have used RCA outputs. I'm not saying the risk isn't there but why would both head unit and amp manufacturers not use them if RCA is so dangerous? It really is an honest question, so please don't take offense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
RCA's are mostly used on automotive head units. They have been around for decades. toslink is the new kid on the block and there are a lot of problems with it... frequency issues, sample matching issues, select few apps to use toslink with... yadda yadda. Personally speaking, I wouldn't use toslink instead of rca in a million years. Now it does have the advantage of less noise pickup on long runs of cable, but manucacturers like pioneer, alpine, kenwood... etc have combatted the noise issues with high voltage output from the rca's (pioneers are now 4 volts peak to peak on the rca's while android is still something like 1.4 volt PtoP). Then on the other hand with toslink you need HIGH QUALITY dac's to avoid sample and frequncy issues... and these android head units are NOT what I would describe as anywhere NEAR "high end"+
toslink.... not me thank you... not at this low price level anyway.
As for blowing tweets with stray "40hz" signals.... hasn't happened to me in 40 years of using rca's

Bob_Sanders said:
Well... toslink is preferred in high end equipment (bandwidth suffers in the cheap stuff).... and I would not describe these head units as "high end"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just a friendly old school warning so peeps never learn what driver coils smell like...
Cheap stuff will likely have less design fedback safeguards than high end equipment.
Regardless of the amp's frequency response the fed back will be on the high end. 10khz would still behave like 60khz as far as the crossover is concerned.
Regardless its best to wire/ground it proper for best performance and minimal voltage drops... wire is cheap.
I have a friend that saw this happen on a high end system. All they heard was a static like noise and in less than a second the tweeters were smoking. A couple hundred down the drain. It can get real expensive fast and by the time you realize it's happening, it's already done.

Yeah, I don't think anyone sees these as high end in the audio production department. I think they have become somewhat popular because a lot of the main players in audio head units have been a little slow in the freedoms that Android provides in terms of apps, navigation, etc. They are too busy pushing their proprietary interface crap.

blackhawk said:
Just a friendly old school warning so peeps never learn what driver coils smell like...
Cheap stuff will likely have less design fedback safeguards than high end equipment.
Regardless of the amp's frequency response the fed back will be on the high end. 10khz would still behave like 60khz as far as the crossover is concerned.
Regardless its best to wire/ground it proper for best performance and minimal voltage drops... wire is cheap.
I have a friend that saw this happen on a high end system. All they heard was a static like noise and in less than a second the tweeters were smoking. A couple hundred down the drain. It can get real expensive fast and by the time you realize it's happening, it's already done.
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You can blow a simple ic chip with static so we shouldn't use them? Freak things happen. That's life.

Bob_Sanders said:
You can blow a simple ic chip with static so we shouldn't use them? Freak things happen. That's life.
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No that's ignorance and ineptitude.
I handled thousands of IC's and flat packs without damaging them by heat or ESD.
On a high end system with 7 mains blowing them out alone would be over $2G in replacement parts.
Anything worth doing is worth doing right.

objecttothis said:
Yeah, I don't think anyone sees these as high end in the audio production department. I think they have become somewhat popular because a lot of the main players in audio head units have been a little slow in the freedoms that Android provides in terms of apps, navigation, etc. They are too busy pushing their proprietary interface crap.
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Well... as far as I know the higher end units are still going RCA..... and if there is ever a change I suspect toslink will be passed over in favor of the MUCH BETTER hdmi standard anyway.