Any diy hifi buffs on here?

[Rezillo]

I have the same concerns as Slowmotion. Have you tried the headphones in something else since you set this up? In theory, you should have blown both headphone drive units the moment you plugged them in and turned the unit on but it is possible that you have only damaged one, hence the quiet/loud difference. If you're lucky, they are high impedance headphones but even then, they are not usually designed to take unattenuated speaker output. The power handling of headphones is in the order of a hundred or two milliwatts, from an amp, a few watts up to scores of watts or more. Even with the weediest of speaker outputs, there's going to be a huge mismatch.

The other possibility is in the way the Maplins switching socket works (do you have a link?) or simply that the amp section of the player is wired in a way that doesn't like a common ground for its speakers. Or you have two separate negative speaker wires going into the switch and haven't combined them on the 'three wire" headphone output side, thereby giving you getting one full channel and low volume bleed from it for the other. To be honest, I'd be very wary about turning it all on!

 

[Markymark]

Thanks. The headphones work well on other hifi.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/35mm-pcb-mounted-stereo-socket-fk20w

 

[Rezillo]

Thanks. The headphones work well on other hifi.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/35mm-pcb-mounted-stereo-socket-fk20w

I'm not sure that is going to work in the way you want - it only has two switched contacts, which implies it is intended to switch the +ve output of each channel from one terminal to another, while having a permanent common ground for both outputs. That common ground will either be from the metal surface the switch can be attached to using the knurled ring, or on the base of the switch (not shown) there are either one or two ground contacts in addition to the switched contacts that both the input and output grounds should be wired to. Not really safe of me to advise from a distance as it will be easy to suggest something to you that could fry the amp section.

 

[Markymark]

I'm not sure that is going to work in the way you want - it only has two switched contacts, which implies it is intended to switch the +ve output of each channel from one terminal to another, while having a permanent common ground for both outputs. That common ground will either be from the metal surface the switch can be attached to using the knurled ring, or on the base of the switch (not shown) there are either one or two ground contacts in addition to the switched contacts that both the input and output grounds should be wired to. Not really safe of me to advise from a distance as it will be easy to suggest something to you that could fry the amp section.

It's fine I take any advice on my own risk!

 

[Andy_R]

Have you tried both black connectors together? My thinking is, that stereo must have seperate amps for seperate channels....or not, as the case may be.

 

[Markymark]

Have you tried both black connectors together? My thinking is, that stereo must have seperate amps for seperate channels....or not, as the case may be.

Not yet. I will try that too.

 

[marknotgeorge]

This page and this page suggest that the amp's likely to have an H-bridge, so the black wires aren't a ground. Looks like you'll have to take the ground from somewhere else.

 

[Markymark]

This page and this page suggest that the amp's likely to have an H-bridge, so the black wires aren't a ground. Looks like you'll have to take the ground from somewhere else.

Ah, that makes sense. I'll try and get a gnd elsewhere.