Stock Stereo, Line IN Modification Question
 

Hey All,

I am trying to figure out the Line-IN modification which is on this thread. I disconnected the cassette deck and using the input port on the equalizer, I can get the left & right channels of audio, I just cannot get the radio to turn off/mute.

The thread mentions "directs power from R of the power connector to either Br (can't see the Br pin on the thread diagram) or R of the audio connector" which puts the unit in tape mode. This isn't too clear and doesn't match my pin-out on the below diagram.

http://scottiedog.com/clarion.jpg

Thanks in advance!

I did this mod and it worked easily for the my 80 SA, not sure if
maybe the 85 stereo might work differently. Give innertwist a PM
and see if he has any ideas. I just saw him at the OReillys the
other day so I know he's around.

I don't have a ready solution unfortunately. That writeup wasn't for premium sound setups; it was based on the basic Clarion. It's news to me that the tape decks on those units even have a similar connection. For the record, what year system is it?

Otherwise, here's my guess:
Assuming that the interface does work the same as the other tape decks, and while you still have everything connected, try a couple different input sources. I did, in the course of things, find that some had too high an output impedance to register with the deck, leading to the ghost sound of the radio. If this is the case (that is it works fine with other devices), getting it to work with your device could just be a simple matter of putting two 10k resistors in parallel with your sound source. This could be done with a dongle cable that plugs into your cable which contains resistors directly from each channel to ground. Every time this dongle cable were plugged in it would switch the deck. It's not the best solution, it would kill the signal from the device some and the resistor values may need to be adjusted, but it would be simple.

For the tape mode switch, we need to know if it works the same as the other units. If you could, can you post pictures of the back of the tape deck and equalizer or otherwise describe all the connections on them? We could then compare to see how similar they are to basic sound.

The failsafe option would be to interrupt the signal going from the head unit to the equalizer using either a switch or some electronics. A DPDT switch to go between the radio and your source would do the trick.