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View Full Version : Weird topic maybe... Old equipment and creative use of adapters.


The Postmaster General
03-03-2008, 08:49 PM
Okay, this topic may go down faster than Lindsey Lohan at a casting call, but last night I found myself hooking up an old stereo in my kid's room and found myself wondering if anyone else finds themselves going nuts with doing whatever you can to get her hooked up. This is kind of rambling, but again, I just wonder if anyone is like me in this respect.

Pretty boring, maybe, but I am wondering if there's anyone like me, who has a huge container full of wires and assorted accessories. And you have every single wire and adapter except due to some strange bend in the fabric of space and time... You never seem to have the exact wire you need at any give moment. Oh, you are looking for a standard RCA plug, and you find a whole bunch of S-Video wires, but later you go back to look for a S-video wire and all you can find are RCA wires.

I think it's become less and less common for this to exist - optical audio is like what, one wire? And you are finding things standardized more and more by the day.

Since this old stereo had a blown left channel, I planned to just use just the right, keep it in mono (going in a 2 year old's room) - It's a great stereo that I plan to fix one day with a simple solder job and although its a dinosaur, the sound it gets is great, and I think it makes a perfect amp for my project rooms, patios, all the places I've used it for almost 20 years:

http://www.vintagetechnics.stereomanuals.com/images/sagx303catalog.jpg

So since the left channel is blown, I'll just hook both speakers up to the right channel, and the rear channels as usual. (BTW - my rear speakers for this set up are made by technics and shaped like balls - pretty cool, just trying to add understanding why I hold on to this cool ass setup...) Now since everything is hooked to the right, I need to hook the CD player and Phono by having both L and R channels going into the amps R channel, but in order to get the rear speakers to add anything (which is really nice since there's no front stereo) I need to also send in a stereo signal...

So from both the phono and CD player, I have this set up going...

Component > L / R wires going into a Y-adapter, plugged into amp, but also the Left channel split, with one going to the Y-adapter, one going into the L channel.

Yeah, lossy, but it's working.

Then back to why I brought up that box of wires... for this set up, I needed an RCA wire, 2 Y-adapter with one male and two females, and 1 Y-adapter with one female and two males (for the Left channel split)

Well, I found myself without a Y-adapter with the one male and two females, but I did have one with three male ends... So to get this to work, I end up using the 3 male Y-adapter, and to make the one female, I use a male S-video adapter to female RCA, then a S-video wire, and on the other end, another S-video adapter with a female RCA.

Good, that was boring even typing it.

Any other Dr. Frankenstereos out there, or am I the only cheap dinosaur bastard on these boards.


*Thread starters note: Only 100 tech snobs were harmed spiritually in the creation of this thread.

movie2cats
03-03-2008, 11:19 PM
Yeah, as I was reading through the boards actually my girlfriend was going through a trash can of wires (we are probably moving at the end of the month) and came across an ass load of cables I don't have a clue what they go to. I had nightmares like yours before too though. I used to have a Sony 500W/3Ch system from the mid eighties that I lost the RCh to and had to do a similar split (added a new pre-amp though). In the late nineties the CD player died so I added on a Discman to the mix too. Finally I just let the bastard die a few years later, but yeah, I feel your pain. Similarly I found a cable tonight I don't know what the fuck it's for. It's a banded portable to RCA split that has a video cable too. That would be great if I had a portable device to match!?! Anyway, screw cables. I have too many (even came across a couple of coax cables (and BUNNY EARS!!!!!!!!!)).

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Great looking stereo too. I used to love Technics.

SkyNet
03-04-2008, 12:15 AM
i have a Tub full of wires and chords (im not sure if thats the correct spelling of the type of chord im thinking of or if this is the spelling for Chords on a guitar) and splitters and cables and just all sorts of shit! It looks like a big ball of christmas lights!

so, i feel your pain dude!

The Postmaster General
03-04-2008, 03:01 AM
It's a banded portable to RCA split that has a video cable too.


Sounds like a digital camcorder or camera?

movie2cats
03-04-2008, 11:48 AM
Sounds like a digital camcorder or camera?

That was my first thought too, but my camera only has a USB port.
:confused:

terrestrial
03-04-2008, 01:07 PM
#1 I have a big box of wires too. BUT: I know for what every of them is meant to. Having worked for many years in a cable producing (+ stage systems/loudspeaker systems + some other stuff) company might help with that. ;)
#2 Technics thingy of you looks very similar to the one of y hubby, but he has a 3 part system, including a cassette deck (term?). Only problem with it is to change the &%-station, we have since years that problem. Sometimes it works if shut the receiver on and off very fast and change at the same time the channel :rolleyes:
#3 you thinks THAT is old and still in use? Hubbie refuses to give up his tape recorder (reel to reel system), still uses for recordings. :)

Unfortunatedly I do not know the terms you used to describe your adapters and splitters and wires, but if you can find an old systems description of an VHS recorder, they often had various drawings to describe different situations (for example to include an extern soundsystem too), you might find out, what it is, what you try to find out. :D