DIY Line Out Cable - Works!

@14124all wrote:

axon, WOW!!! Disregard previous post. There is a difference in firmware versions, but not with affected volume. What I found - You are correct!!! At 100% volume there is barely any differnce in volume output from the Griffin dock out or player headphone out. With my lineout cable there is a noticeable increase in volume! This renders the Griffin Dock rather useless as is for a lineout connection. This should be easy to alter the Griffin Dock to get the signal straight through. The Griffin Dock has series 220uf decoupling caps and parallel 10k impedance output resistors feeding the output jack. Time to bypass the resistors and maybe the caps!

NOTE: Another problem with the Griffin Dock is loss of the FM antenna. The player seems to only connect the FM antenna through the headphone jack common audio connection with no connection on the 30 pin connector. The Griffin dock has no connection for the antenna! Activating it will probably require an internal jump in the player to an unused pin on the 30 pin connector and a single wire to act as antenna on my cable. Getting the antenna to work might take some doing for other alternatives.

Interesting.  I was going to get one of the Griffin docs while they were still on clearance, but if it doesn’t solve the level issue then there’s really no point.  Man, it really shouldn’t be this hard to get a decent line out.

I still haven’t had a chance to mod my cable, but I’m hoping to try this week.