Connecting an IPod to an Amplifier: Troubleshooting Tips for a Last-Minute Party

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I've got a sony home theater system and my dvd player has gone for repairs. I've got a party to throw by tomorrow and I need some help.

I want to connect my IPod to the HT system. The only problem is, it takes those individual inputs for the left and right audio signals (red and white wires).

I don't have a converter of sorts (to get two individual outputs from a single output on the IPOD), so I plugged in my earphones to the IPOD then cut the phones themselves out and connected the two ends of the wire to the red and white input wires of the amplifier. Unfortunately, my stroke of brilliance didnt work. Any ideas on how to go about it or what I did wrong?

Should I connect the earphone wires directly to the amp input?
 
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Any decent electronics store and many other places that sell electronics (Wal Mart, perhaps) have headphones to RCA adapters/cables. That said, I would have thought what you tried would be the correct wiring - did you have the volume up on the ipod?
 
I assume the red and white wires you're referring to are the RCA jacks? Headphone-to-RCA adapter is the cleanest way to go, I have a couple of those around here for that purpose. I also have a headphone-to-tape-cassette adapter that I use in my car. If you have a regular computer sound cable (stereo 1/8" to stereo 1/8") and some alligator clips lying around, you should be able to easily hook up the 1/8" cable to the RCA--I've done this before in a pinch.
If this is your stereo 1/8" cable:

__]===

The leftmost = section is ground, and I'm not sure which is which but the right two = are left and right channels. Looking into your RCA cable:

( o )

The outside sheath is ground, and the inside is the channel connection. Just connect, with alligator clips, the ground of the 1/8" cable to the grounds of both RCAs and connect the left channel of the 1/8" to the center connection on the left (red?) RCA cable. Same for the white. It takes a little care so the clips don't pop off but it definitely works.
 
russ_watters said:
Any decent electronics store and many other places that sell electronics (Wal Mart, perhaps) have headphones to RCA adapters/cables. That said, I would have thought what you tried would be the correct wiring - did you have the volume up on the ipod?

Yeah... I did have the volume up. I just got static. I thought there MIGHT have been a faint trace of the song, but I am not sure. The static changed in pitch and loudness when I moved the wires around a bit.

I did hold the wires together with my hands, maybe that caused interference with the signal, which is what I was hearing on the speakers? If so, it should be easy to fix, if its something else, then I don't know...
 
Each headphone has two wires, one + and one -. I think when I've taken apart my headphones before it was really hard to get the two separated. It's possible you have a short, OR, the wire is enamelled (which is common in headphone wiring), so you might have to get that off.
 
I usually carry alligator clips in my schoolbag for just such a purpose, when a spontaneous music session is needed. If it is a really faint signal, I've had luck hooking it up through the Phono input on HT systems. A few times, I've noticed that the preamp worked better as it needed to bump up the signal from the turntable. Or maybe it was just a bad receiver unit.