km@emory.UUCP (Ken Mandelberg) (05/22/86)
I want to use a Sony D-7 portable CD player in my Toyota
Camry. I posted a note about this a while back, and want
to report on my progress and solicit any new suggestions.
First, there was never any problem using any of the standard
cigarette lighter power adaptors, say from Radio Shack. This
allows you to use the player with headphones. If the player
is positioned carefully on a seat, there is no skipping on
reasonably smooth roads.
What, I really want is to play the unit through the speakers.
Although, I anticipated mediocre results, I bought a
Sparkomatic converter from K-Mart. This costs about $23 and
is easy to install and should "work" on any FM car radio.
It intercepts the antenna on the way to the radio, and when
enabled broadcasts the CD ouput on a fixed frequency. It
comes with the right cables to attach the CD player, and
simultaneously provides power to the CD. You can use all the
controls on the car radio to control volume,balance, tone, etc.
Well, again I expected mediocre results. I was wrong. The results
are terrible. There is a LOT of addtional noise added, to the
point that it is really not viable. AM stations are much clearer
and noise free. Thinking the unit was defective, I tried another
one and it did the same thing. Keep away from this unit.
I did get some other suggestion in my original posting. The
Toyota radio in my car has provisions for adding an external
cassete player, and some others have adapted it to the CD.
Unforturnately, I lost the original mail on this. If you
have done this, please write to me. In particular I would
appreciate an address to write to for a wiring diagram for
the Toyota radio.
--
Ken Mandelberg
Emory University
Dept of Math and CS
Atlanta, Ga 30322
{akgua,sb1,gatech,decvax}!emory!km USENET
km@emory CSNET
km.emory@csnet-relay ARPANEThsgj@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Dan Green) (05/28/86)
This may be off on a bit of a tangent, but have you considered getting
an auxilliary amp and hooking the CD player up to that? A few years
ago, I hooked a Walkman-style cassette player up to a power booster/equ
through the connections that usually go to the output of a car deck.
It turned out that this setup sounded better than any car system that
I've ever heard. Granted, I haven't heard the Delco/Bose system or
other really good systems, but the system sounded really good.
I also built my own amp using commercial chips, the basic 5w chips
used as replacements for car decks. anyway, this amp sounded good
(even though it only was good for 5w rms), but, I'd recommend hooking
up a commercial amp, it's a hassle building the noise filters to
cut out engine emissions.
Since you're using a CD, you'll probably want to use a fairly powerful
amp. I think you'll definitely want a direct connection to the amp,
otherwise, you're going to gain nothing over a normal tape. Additionally,
Be careful about the power supply to the player, the analog amplifiers
pick up noise from the engine like crazy. However, this noise can come
though the air as well as through the power supply.
In any case, there are a number of considerations you have to make, try
different things out and eventually you'll get something that sounds
good.
good luck....
Ted Inoue.
--
Dan Green ARPA: hsgj@vax2.ccs.cornell.edu <== Preferred
~~~~~~~~~ BITNET: hsgj@cornella
UUCP: {decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!cornell!batcomputer!hsgjgary@think.COM (Gary Sabot) (06/02/86)
I wired my Sony D7 Discman directly into the Toyota radio in my '83 Supra. Inside the dash, there was a 9 pin din connector between the radio/cassete player and the equalizer. (This is in addition to the 3 pairs of molex connectors.) It turns out that the cable caries two pairs of stereo signals to the equalizer (flat and tone-controlled) and 1 back from the equalizer. I put a DPDT switch in that selectively fed my discplayers line out signal as the flat input, instead of the radio. The switch, the disc player, and some padding, fit into the glove compartment. It was easy to do and it sounds fine, except that I have to pop in a blank tape (really an empty cassette shell) to turn off the receiver portion of the radio. Even though the switch disconnects the radio's output, somehow the radio bleeds through at a low but annoying level. I couldn't find a less kludgy way of keeping the amplifier on but the radio off, since they are so well "integrated". You can get schematics for Toyota Radios (or at least for Fujitsu Ten radios) from United Radio in New York, (315) 446-5570. If you happen to have the same one as me (on the front panel it says tuner 1622, graphic equalizer 1701), I can give you the pinouts you need.
ronc@fai.UUCP (06/04/86)
*** I have a CD player in my car. It wasn't all that hard to hook up but the results are not quite good enough yet. When I added a power amp to my present system I let the phono connections between deck (which had phono out) and amp hang out a little on one side of the center console. I can then unplug the deck and plug in the D7 without too much trouble. The other side of the Discman cable I plug into the headphone jack. You can't use the line out, unless you like your music full blast all the time. :-) This system gives you absolutly no tone control. With most of my disks this is not a disadvantage, but some of them sound way too bright. So, the next step is either finding some way to put tone controls in line after the D7. (Perhaps one of those small equalizers. Ick.) Failing that, I may dive into the deck and see if I can install a line in. If *that* doesn't work, well, you can get a deck now that has a 'cd in' built right in... Ron Discman and D7 are probably trademarked by Sony Corp. -- -- Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calif.) seismo!amdahl!fai!ronc -or- ihnp4!pesnta!fai!ronc Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: "If you are seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it."
tardis@ihu1n.UUCP (Golkosky) (06/08/86)
> *** > > I have a CD player in my car. It wasn't all that hard > to hook up but the results are not quite good enough > yet. > > When I added a power amp to my present system I let > the phono connections between deck (which had phono > out) and amp hang out a little on one side of the center > console. I can then unplug the deck and plug in the D7 > without too much trouble. The other side of the Discman > cable I plug into the headphone jack. You can't use > the line out, unless you like your music full blast all > the time. :-) > > > Discman and D7 are probably trademarked by Sony Corp. I also have managed to use my portable CDP in my car. It has it's advantages : 1. Easily comes out of the car. (To avoid theft) 2. Relatively clean sound. 3. Can be placed on the passengers seat instead of being bolted to the frame. (To avoid skipping when finding potholes) But unfortunately it has it's drawbacks: 1. No balance control. (probably coming soon on new portables) 2. Need for power adapter. (I don't have a Sony. My unit runs on +/- 6 V) 3. Being careful with the discs is a bit difficult when driving. 4. Not being part of an integrated system, it does have a small amount of distortion. (Although it's probably attributable to my $50 equalizer) To hook it up in my car, I installed an equalizer with AUX inputs (aside from the direct speaker inputs). I encountered two problems: The output of the radio was made to drive all four speakers in the car with floating ground (balanced transformer something). My EQ was only set up to accept one pair of speaker leads (i.e. rear only) and the inputs were set up to accept common ground signals. I ended up hooking the rear outputs from the radio to a common ground/ floating ground adapter (about $10) and I left the front speaker wires unconnected. I then hooked up the 1/8"/RCA stereo jack supplied with the CDP to the AUX inputs on the rear of the equalizer/amplifier. WARNING!!!! If you do this, be extremely careful that you don't turn on the radio and CD player at the same time (Sniff, sniff). At least I couldn't on mine because I had no manual overide switch. Try and spend more than $50 for an EQ/AMP. My S/N ratio isn't all that great. John Golkosky Bell Labs