As promised, I have developed a way to make the S/PDIF signaIs dockable through the Mic In line of the harness. I decided that I didn't want to make any permanent alterations to the wiring of the docking harness.

I carefully removed the contacts associated with the mic in line (on the ends of the gray and black striped wire on "Analog" and gray wire on "Digital") from the two connectors labeled "Digital" and "Analogue." I then inserted them into a Molex 873690200 male connector (2 conductor version of connectors used on the Empeg). To mate with this, I used a Molex 894000220 female connector. This connector is then soldered to a pair of wires which are fashioned into a special harness that connects both the Mic In line and the panel mount RCA of the coaxial S/PDIF out to the coaxial out connector on my digital out board.

For the sled half of the docking connector, I did not want to use the cheap stock mic in line, so I started with a fresh sled connector and assembled a digital female RCA cable with a Monster Cable connector and Monster Cable digital coax line. This is what I will use at home (no sled), rather than the panel mount RCA cable on the back of the Empeg. Obviously the same could be done for a sled mounted harness plug. Just remove the old mic in line and crimp a new cable.

Everything works perfectly through the docking connector. This is definitely the way to go if you want to use coax in the car.

Anyone interested in these? The Monster Cable part is quite pricey as I have to get the connectors off of a Y-cable and the digital coax from a premade cable. I don't think it's totally necessary either, but why not do it? The interior wiring is also problematic, as one of the Molex connectors is only available through samples or huge quantites. One solder joint is also required. Anyway if anyone is interested, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Don't forget, this will also work well for sub out too.

Pictures to follow.

Stu

Here's a picture of the interior wiring. Circles and arrow were added for clarity.

Stu

Here's a broader view of the wiring.

Stu

Here's a picture of the high end digital out cable on the harness plug.

Stu

Does this mean you have a good functioning sub/center out board? Didnt see anything on your site. Maybe an update is coming?

Sorry, it doesn't mean that. I mainly did it for the digital out , hence the extra expense of a digital coax cable. I will update the site when the sub out board is finished and again when they are for sale. I did however,order some more parts for breadboarding a new sub board design. They should be in this week.

Stu

just out of curiosity and planning purposes... What is the frequency width on the subout board?

Given that this is a 44.1 kHz application, its bandwidth would be 20 -20 kHz or there abouts. The DSP has various settings that allow different cutoff frequencies, but all must be handled by software. As far as I know, Shonky, aka Christian, is the only one with such software.

Stu

okay.... I just thought that maybe as it was a subout it was filtered internally, either by the DSP or by your subout board. where the cutoff (I hoped) would have landed at about 200Hz...

Wich is pretty much what you said....=) Thanks for the answer