mikey@trsvax (06/28/85)
I have a Chrysler radio in my new Omni that has AM/FM Stereo and auto-reverse cassette. It only has the two door speakers on it. I want to add a haedphone tap and possibly a power amp that I already have. The Radio Shack headphone adapter box will work on non-common ground radios, but the amplifier won't. I got the service manual for the car, but it doesn't say anything about what is in the radio itself. Since the system was designed for a possible option of a power amp to be plugged in by the factory, the speaker harness obviously doesn't have a common ground for the speakers. There is no way to tell from the schematic if the radio can handle a common ground. They do warn in the service manual against using no load on the radio. I ohmed the speaker returns leads but it's over 100 ohms resistance between the channels. This really isn't that indicative, as I THINK the the output feeds the speaker hot side and the returns go into a fader control for front to back. I took the radio apart but the area I need to get to is sandwiched between two circuit boards and I would have to start unsoldering, which I don't want to do. At this point I'm tempted to just put load resistors on the radio outputs and feed it to a booster that I already have and leave it on all the time. What I need to know is what does the radio care about. Can I use a common ground? Can I operate it with a high impedance load (ie. headphones only)? Any ideas at all or should I just wait for the new SAMS photofacts? If it weren't for the fact that I like the radio to begin with and can't really budget a replacement now, I might be tempted to just get a new radio. mikey at trsvax