When I play a portable CD or iPod mp3 player into the AUX input of my Rio Car, the left channel's output is just noise. The right channel is a mix of the left and right channels' of the CD or mp3 player. For example, if I disconnect _either_ the right or left AUX RCA jack, the music still comes out of the right speaker of my stereo system. And the noise coming from the left channel is present whether the CD or mp3 player is connected or not.

This problems happens regardless of if the engine in my car is on or off, or if I seperately ground the AUX inputs' RCA shields to the case of the Rio Car.

This is killing me. Everything else about this mp3 player is incredible and works great. I wanted passengers in the back of my car to be able to plug in their own portably electronics to play through the stereo, but the left channel is just noise .

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated,
-Jeff

Kinda sounds to me like you've got a mini-phone plug as the input and you've accidentally got a two-conductor wire in there somewhere. If that's not the case, explain further how you've got the jacks presented to the portable device.

I am using a mini-phone plug adapter, but I've tried two different adapters, and at least one worked fine with a normal stereo. Even if the adapter was the problem, that wouldn't explain why noise comes out the left channel when no AUX input is connected. Nor would it explain why the music comes out of the right speaker when only _either_ the right or left Rio Car AUX RCA jack is connected to the CD or mp3 player.

I also tried looking for shorts between the right and left AUX signals, but they were both correctly floating with respect to each other, and to ground.

Thanks for the idea,
-Jeff

Oops. Didn't catch that part about the music comes out of the right speaker when only _either_ the right or left Rio Car AUX RCA jack is connected. I had to read it about three times just now to get it into my head.

All I can tell you is that I have mine hooked up to provide a three-conductor mini-phone jack as input to the empeg's aux and it works fine, so it's not a design fault or anything.

Maybe your sled's wiring loom is broken? It might be possible that there's some loose wiring in there touching something that it shouldn't. Hooking up an RCA output directly to the Aux inputs, one at a time, avoiding your adapter, would at least point the finger in the right direction. Of course, you may not have anything available to do that with (I don't think I would).

I'm with Bitt on this one. Sounds like bits of the wiring loom at the back of the docking sled have pulled out and are dangling and touching things they shouldn't. This happened with a certain batch of looms, they didn't get crimped properly.

If this is the case, contact support and they can send you a new wiring loom. You could also solder the connections yourself if you were so inclined.

If it's not the loom, then contact support anyway and see what David tells you.

Oh man, it turned out to be much worse! After disassembling it and spending hours reverse engineering the left auxiliary in circuit, I found that one of the surface mount resistors was bad. After I replaced that resistor, everything was OK. Good thing I got it working the night before my road trip to Seattle. . .

Thanks for your help,
-Jeff

Wow, good job.