Stereo/RCA "sound in" adapter for New Astro City amp

Arcade cabinet hardware and accessories
beigemore
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Stereo/RCA "sound in" adapter for New Astro City amp

Post by beigemore »

I just got a New Astro City cab the other day and was seriously wanting some q-sound goodness, but the cabinet didn't come with the stereo input cable that goes from the sound source (ie, RCA jacks on a CPS2 A board) to the amp itself. I'm pretty new when it comes to custom wires and stuff, so I'm pretty happy with how this basic adapter came out. I just wanted to share in case other people were in the same situation.

First I needed to find out if I could find a plug that would fit. It looks like a typical four pin 2x2 molex adapter. I went to a few electronic shops (Radio Shack, Fry's) and they had every type of molex connector except for that one. I had an adapter that came with a video card of mine that had this type of connector, so I just chopped off the end that I didn't need. Most power supplies have this, as well. The only issue I've found with these is that the clip that insures the cable will not come off doesn't fit very well with plug that's on the amp, so I just snipped it off.

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I wasn't able to find the exact pin out for the plug online, and eventually determined the top left and bottom right pings were the negative lines, and the top right and bottom left were the positive ones using a multimeter. It turns out the top two pins are for the left audio channel, and the bottom two are for the right channel.

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While I was at Radio Shack, I picked up some "Solder-Type Phono Jacks" (part 274-0337).

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The next step was to strip a bit of the wire tips off, slide part of the phono jack casing down the wires BEFORE soldering, and then soldered the corresponding wires to the right spots. On phono jacks, the inside is positive (the little tiny metal part) and the outside is the negative (the long metal part). I decided to do the left audio channel first and used the black jack (black or white is usually the left channel), and then used the red jack for the right channel (they both start with R!).

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Once that was done, it was time to plug it up to the amp.

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...and then attach the audio source.

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And that's it. :)
Last edited by beigemore on June 7th, 2010, 4:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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emphatic
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Re: My composite stereo adapter for my New Astro City amp

Post by emphatic »

Very nice! :clap:
dieKatze88
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Re: My composite stereo adapter for my New Astro City amp

Post by dieKatze88 »

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/3563/imag0065mz.jpg"

Now just make the other half for your non CPS2 games ;)
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Ramza
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Re: Stereo/RCA "sound in" adapter for New Astro City amp

Post by Ramza »

Sorry for digging up this post. I need the exact same adapter, but wouldn't it be possible to just strip an old RCA cable and connect the insides to a 4 pin AMP-UP connector?
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Sobriquet
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Re: Stereo/RCA "sound in" adapter for New Astro City amp

Post by Sobriquet »

I think putting phono jacks on this cable is misleading since it's amplified (or should be if you're feeding it into the 4P AMP connector). I was planning to just put the AMP plug on some speaker wire and us post/banana plugs into my stereo amp.