Low volume from cassette-style car audio adapter

[[email protected]]

I've got one of those cassettes that you plug into a portable CD player
or whatever to send sound through a car stereo and it works OK except
that the volume is really low. At full volume on the stereo and on the
source (I've tried a Walkman and an iPod), I can just about hear the
music on the car speakers. Is there something I can do to the adapter
or tape player to make this better? Will demagnetizing the head help?
Cleaning? TIA.

[MOSFET]

> I've got one of those cassettes that you plug into a portable CD player
> or whatever to send sound through a car stereo and it works OK except
> that the volume is really low. At full volume on the stereo and on the
> source (I've tried a Walkman and an iPod), I can just about hear the
> music on the car speakers. Is there something I can do to the adapter
> or tape player to make this better? Will demagnetizing the head help?
> Cleaning? TIA.

Have you tried playing a regular audio cassette and seeing how that sounds?
If that is really quite, too, then your problem is in your cassette deck.
If not, the problem may be in your adaptor. I use one of those in rental
cars and the volume is always just fine.

MOSFET

[[email protected]]

MOSFET wrote:
> > I've got one of those cassettes that you plug into a portable CD
> > player or whatever to send sound through a car stereo and it works
> > OK except that the volume is really low. At full volume on the
> > stereo and on the source (I've tried a Walkman and an iPod), I can
> > just about hear the music on the car speakers. Is there something
> > I can do o the adapter or tape player to make this better? Will
> > demagnetizing the head help? Cleaning? TIA.
>
> Have you tried playing a regular audio cassette and seeing how that
> sounds?

Yes, actual tapes play fine.

> ...
> If not, the problem may be in your adaptor. ...

Yes, I assume that. I'm trying to understand if there's something I
can do to it to make it better.

[bobb]

On 14 Feb 2005 10:26:01 -0800, wrote:

>Yes, I assume that. I'm trying to understand if there's something I
>can do to it to make it better.


There should be a GAIN knob somewhere. If not, yer SOL.

[MOSFET]

>
> >Yes, I assume that. I'm trying to understand if there's something I
> >can do to it to make it better.
>
>
> There should be a GAIN knob somewhere. If not, yer SOL.
>
Yes, I think you will just have to buy a new adaptor. At least they are
fairly cheap.

MOSFET

[[email protected]]

MOSFET wrote:
> >
> > >Yes, I assume that. I'm trying to understand if there's something
> > >I can do to it to make it better.
> >
> > There should be a GAIN knob somewhere. If not, yer SOL.
>
> Yes, I think you will just have to buy a new adaptor. At least they
> are fairly cheap.

I'm an idiot. ;-) The cassette-type audio adapter has the transfer
head positioned as if the A side of the tape was playing. Believe it
or not, the several times over several weeks that I'd tried my adapter,
the tape player was always auto-reversed to play the B side. I fiddled
a bit more yesterday and when I hit the Program button on the stereo, I
nearly went deaf as the pickup and transfer heads aligned and the sound
got through!