I was wondering if there is a way of converting the speaker output of a
cassette player to a signal suitable for line-input of a PC audio card.
There is no headphone-out on the device. The intention is to fit a car audio
cassette player into the PC. Will it even fit? Has anyone tried to do the
same thing? I know there is a company that makes one but it ain't cheap
http://plusdeck.com/englishsite/index.asp or at least it ain't as cheap as
I'd like it to be! I'd like to convert the family tape collection to mp3 but
I'm sick of all the cables and leads festooning this computer as it is
without adding any more to it with another piece of stand alone kit.

Thanks for any help

Ian

On 2006-03-10, Grumble wrote:

I was wondering if there is a way of converting the speaker output of a
cassette player to a signal suitable for line-input of a PC audio card.

there's two potential problems.

1 the speaker signal level is too high for the line in

2 the speaker outputs may be bridged meaning they're not ground referenced.
also the soundcards aux input may not be ground referenced.

on the good side.
the PC's +12V supply should be compatible with the cassette player.

1 can be cured using resistors in a configuration called an L-pad

2 can be cured using an audio isolating transformer, two for sterio.

There is no headphone-out on the device. The intention is to fit a car audio
cassette player into the PC. Will it even fit?

I've not compared the din outline with a 5.25" half-height drive bay.
memory tells me they're about the same size, but I can't say for sure

FWIW the drive bay is 145mm accross and 41mm high,

Bye.
Jasen

On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 21:05:47 +0000 (UTC), "Grumble"
wrote:

I was wondering if there is a way of converting the speaker output of a
cassette player to a signal suitable for line-input of a PC audio card.
There is no headphone-out on the device. The intention is to fit a car audio
cassette player into the PC. Will it even fit? Has anyone tried to do the
same thing? I know there is a company that makes one but it ain't cheap
http://plusdeck.com/englishsite/index.asp or at least it ain't as cheap as
I'd like it to be! I'd like to convert the family tape collection to mp3 but
I'm sick of all the cables and leads festooning this computer as it is
without adding any more to it with another piece of stand alone kit.

Thanks for any help

Ian

I'd just go ahead and try it. Line in is typically rated for one volt
input (if you over drive, it will clip the signal and be distorted).

A car system will output a maximum signal of just under its power
supply voltage. ~12 volts unless it is rated at some very high RMS
power output - then they may use an internal DC -DC converter to step
up the voltage - but that is just in those systems that make your ears
bleed, an inexpensive player won't use a power converter.

A car tape player may use a bridged amplifier so there is no common
between speakers - that may cause you a problem. They use two
amplifiers for each channel to increase the power - one amp is driven
with an out of phase signal - so its output will be high when the
other amp is low. Four amps for stereo . . . and it is quite common.

You might try using ground and one wire from each speaker output to
the line in and see if that works. Keep the output turned down low.

If that is still too much a resistor divider on the output will drop
the signal.

It may require some experimentation - the car amp is designed for a 4
ohm speaker load and may not work well on a much higher impedance
input so you may need a load resistor to keep the amp happy.

You may find all kinds of hum and hiss that wasn't noticeable with the
player in a car - you changed the power supply from a heavy DC battery
to the switching supply in the computer or some other supply that it
wasn't designed to work with.

You may have ground loops between the signal paths and supply current
paths.

The output of the car player may have a high noise level that will be
present all the time but only becomes noticeable when driving another
amp input (a voltage divider may help there).

All the problems have solutions - but you have to be able to track
them down and fix them.


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