Help! Interfacing Portable CD player with Car stereo

[Tazman]

Hi,

I have checked out the 8pin din layout article in this website, and I have a question following this article:

If I want to interface a normal walkman portable CD player to the 8pin din socket, (using the earphone stereo output), would it work if I only use the Left input, Right input and Signal Comon pins???

[Russ]

Originally posted by Tazman:
[BIf I want to interface a normal walkman portable CD player to the 8pin din socket, (using the earphone stereo output), would it work if I only use the Left input, Right input and Signal Comon pins???[/B]

My understanding is the head unit won't enable the CD audio input unless a CD changer is attached, and possibly also only while a CD is actually playing. So to do what you want, you'd need to have a CD changer installed, and some sort of toggle switch or Y-adapter in order to get the walkman signal to come up on the head unit.

I recently asked BZ whether he could make a SmartMP3 adapter which would automagically switch the head unit to an external audio input with or without the presence of a CD changer. The challenge here is that the head unit and CD changer recognize each other and communicate using Alpine's M-BUS protocol, which is proprietary. Unfortunately, without this info the chance of any sort of SmartMP3 adapter making it into production seems remote.

HTH.

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Russ
'91 black/black