Using a headphone amp between mp3 player & car aux input?

[AlexC1981]

Hi All,

The sound quality from my car speakers is very poor when I play music from my phone via the cars 3.5mm aux input socket. It is odd because the car radio and cd player sounds fine, but through the aux I get a lot of noise. If I keep the car stereo volume below halfway it's not so bad, so I was considering using a headphone pre-amp between the phone and the aux socket to pre-amplify the signal to avoid turning the car stereo up so much?

Something like this maybe?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brainwavz-AP001-Portable...

Can anyone suggest a suitable amplifier or a better solution to the problem please? This seems like a less than ideal solution, but I cant change the whole car radio as it is integrated with the dashboard and hands free etc. It is not my phone at fault as I did not have this problem in my old car. Could it be a fault with the car? It's a used car, but I bought it as an approved used from a main dealer and it is under warranty. If I plug the cable into the car, but leave the other end dangling I get loads of white noise/static come through the speakers.

I also see there are apps that say they can increase the volume from your phone, so I might give one of those a go first.

Thanks,
Alex

[marshalla]

Try using a shielded cable.

[Ultuous]

As above, try using another cable first if possible... Failing that, is it 'quieter' (i.e. do you have to turn the volume up more on the head unit?) than the other inputs?

If not, I doubt (though they're not something I'm really familiar with) a pre-amp will do anything other than overload the input and create distortion!

If it is, is there a setting on the head unit that is 'trimming' the input, resulting in you having to over-amp it?

[AlexC1981]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have tried two different cables, but both unshielded ones. On my old car I had a much better cable that was shielded and had a special plug that went into the back of the car stereo, hence why I can't use that cable on my new car.

I do have to turn the volume up louder for the aux input, but I would not get the noise if I played a cd and turned it up to the same level. The main noise that annoys me is a high pitched buzz, that comes through in pulses, sort of in time with the music.

If I turn the phone volume lower and adjust the car volume up to compensate the distortions are much worse, which made me think a pre-amp might help. I could not see any settings for the aux input, but I will have another look. Thanks.

[Monty Python]

Sounds to me like the noise is coming from the unit itself, not from the external source. You may want to try putting a noise suppressor on the power supply.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/10A-Noise-Suppressor-Filte...