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MG MGF Technical - Speakers - no not an upgrade!

I have a Garmin GPS unit that 'talks' to you and it comes with a micro mono jack which will power headphones or their supplied mini speaker - all OK so far!

What I want to know is it possible to wire this in to the car speakers so that I get more volume and better sound - I can do this on my motorbike and the sound comes out nice and clear and loud over the BMW system, BTW it is not me being clever BMW think of thing like this and provision is made!

The hand book says that the jack is for their speaker OR headphones OR external speakers and that it is 8 ohms unpowered rated.

I am a total 'idiot' when it comes to these sort of things so any thoughts or ideas would be 'well received'.

Ted
Ted Newman

Ted, you need an amplifier.

Two options I can think of (there may be more that others can come up with):

1. Use a cassette adapter used for portable CD players. I use this approach for my mp3 player. Should work fine with the Garmin as it uses the same headphone output.

Pro: Cheap and simple
Con: you can't use the stereo to listen to tunes at the same time as the cassette adapter is loaded.

2. Use a separate amplifier. It is difficult to find an amp that'll take a pre-amplified signal such as that from the earpiece output - but they are available if you search. Then you have the entertainment value of integrating this into your ICE wiring. Not too hard, but requires some thought and the solution may vary depending on the amplifier you choose.

Pro: should enable you to have both tunes on the stereo and the Garmin instructions at the same time
Con: more complicated and expensive.

A challange I think!

I'll be interested to hear what others have to suggest here.
Rob Bell

Thanks Rob

I have one of these CD/Tape thingies and thought of that but the jack is 'stereo' and whilst mini it is not micro - can one get adaptor jacks? Or do I have to re-wire the cd/tape thingie (I never use it these days)?

Ted
Ted Newman

You can get stereo to mono adapters.

I know Maplin do them, but I suspect many other places do (and the other way round too!)

Neil.
Neil

I'm sure that Neil is right - that there are size adapters as well as stereo to mono converters.

Might be easier just to re-wire the cassette adapter with a new jack to suit the Garmin TBQH - especially if it is never used for anything else. Go the adapter route if you think you'll need to use it again for another device.
Rob Bell

>>>I have a Garmin GPS unit that 'talks' to you

So you vill be only obeying orders, ja?

((C) Boy's Own/xenophobe productions inc.)
David Bainbridge

Actually David I can switch it to speak German - proper German that is - but as it is I normally have it speaking in English, that is English English not American English.

BUT as I said it speaks to you, one can ignore it if one wishes and then get lost!

ted
Ted Newman

Do you have the factory standard head in the car as I am using a Alpine head that has an auxilary input to enable the use of such items....

Another way would be to connect it via the moby phone link up , this would cut the music whilst giving you directions...

Depends how much you wanna spend

Good luck

STU
Stewart

This thread was discussed between 11/06/2002 and 12/06/2002

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