Mp3 Amplifier Output

Intro: Mp3 Amplifier Output

In this instructable I'll show you how to connect your MP3 player to your amp to play your music or videos (the sound).

STEP 1: Materials

MP3 player, guitar amplifier, audio cable (does not need to be retractable), stereo headphones with headphone/stereo capability.

STEP 2: Connection

Now you want to take off the stereo cap of the stereophones, leaving the headphone jack.

Take the stereo cap and put it on one end of the audio cable and the other end of the cable to the headphone jack of your MP3 Player.

Now take the stereo end of the audio cable and plug it into the "INPUT" port of the guitar amp with the MP3 still connected.

Then turn on the amp as well as the MP3 player.

Select whatever song or video you wish to play and play it.

The sound of the song or video should come through to

Comments

[ssgtgibby]

I've actually tried this with my little berringer (sp) amp. While yes it did "work" the sound quality was horrid... It does however work ok if your playing an instrument along with the music, such as a guitar, bass or keyboard or something else. Higher quality amps might do better i'm not sure.

[Splatocaster]

1. Extremely Obvious, does not need a instructable.
2. You will most likely get worse sound quality than if you had used an amplifier.
3. Almost all guitar amplifiers are monaural, so you will lose the right channel altogether.
4. MP3 players have an amplifier built in, making their output voltage higher than a guitar's pick-ups.  This voltage can cause damage to the preamplifier of your guitar amp.

[Thereyouhaveit]

Not losing the right channel , but even my DSP amp has a TRS input for my android or anything that has audio , and combines left and right .

[bears0]

unless your amp has an mp3 jack. like mine :-P

[javajoecool]

 I agree there is nothing difficult about connecting a MP3 player to any kind of amp. I also agree that the sound quality will suffer by losing one side of the audio unless you use an adapter to turn a stereo signal into a mono signal. But it will still not sound as good. 

[guitarfan]

i have that same yamaha amp i hate it but is the only 1 i have lol

[MrAllanGH]

Use, instead, a 1/8" stereo to left & right RCA jack cable (a buck or so at RadioShack), and run the output of your mp3 player (or mp3-playing cell phone, like I did a couple of years ago) into the AUX input of your component stereo or home theater unit. Works the same way if you want to route the line out of your sound card into your stereo -- who ever needed computer speakers in the first place?

[bears0]

 just get an adapter or get lucky because mine has a plug on it that says mp3 i just plug it in there nice ible lol

[bigt4616]

yupp. i got lucky too. spider 3 amp. its such an amazing amplifier for my hd555's i was hearing them play from my downstairs, i left em on. imma prolly be deaf by 20 but i sure made it count xD

[kendallkadaver]

This would be fun. But so would buying an adapter for a dollar. Smarter, not harder. : )

[RonGarza]

The point is to eliminate noise or buzz, and that can be done with a humbucker guitar pickup, which is what amps use. But, don't spend that much money -- you can accomplish the same with an audio transformer. These are cheap and small (thumb-sized). Solder one side's terminals to a plug to the CD player; solder the other side's terminals to a guitar cable (or a plug that will take a guitar cable). I used this setup with "play along" CDs (karaoke for guitar). Clean!

[baneat]

Tried it, it sounded horrible! no amount of tweaking would make the sound anywhere close to even the £1 headphones from the pound shops.

[marmorek]

The problem with this is that amps almost always have mono inputs, so you'll only get the left channel of sound.

[hackerlife]

i'm really iffy about this b/c i know that amps work by amplifying the power coming out of the gutiar, which is minimally small. the power coming out of the ipod has to be many times more powerful than the guitar (which doesnt even put out enough for a minor shock), so wouldnt that mean you might blow out ur amp? a personal comment or message about this would be nice, cuz i'm prolly never going to check his ible again!

[Nirjuana]

Well, it's simple, you connect an audio source to amplifier and then you can hear music! What a surprise... This could be good idea if you build a dock to your amplifier which gives power to your Mp3 while listening but otherwise this instructable is quite useless.

[weedfat]

you can get a dock for the zune that gives it power while its playing only problem is that it needs a usb port but it has an adapter for that too, u would need a plug for the amp too so it all works out

[2dark4day]

damn, i need a huge stack of Marshall's now

[Rammstein]

COol i also have a ZUNE (they rock)

[belcher]

anyone with any concept of line in/out, mono vs. stereo could have figured this out, but true, most people have no idea that all you need is a set of old stereo phones, snip ear muffsoff, and solder to 1/4 inch stereo jack, rat shak, bam, personaly, i just snipped two sets of phone lines, and wired them together , taped up, used 1/4 in adpt. i wonder what it would sound like using mono lines. after all you only get 1 spkr w/ amp.

[Lysol]

Oh cool, an Instructable on how to buy an adapter...