Since today my dcc170 plays with an echo-ing sound. It sounds like music played in a empty hall. Very bad sound. It is with pre-recorded as with self recorded tapes.
Also I noticed that the player did not power on directly although plugged with an adapter. I did not use the player for 1 month or so.
Anybody have an idea what is wrong?
This sounds like a problem with the physical connection of the headphone jack, nothing DCC-related.
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You are right. If I put my modern earphones in the dcc player I get an echo-like noise. When I use the original remote between it, it sounds ok. Solved! And again a bit wiser!
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The problem is caused by the fact that the DCC portables have a 4-pin socket instead of a 3-pin socket. The 4th pin is used for the remote control. If you plug in regular earphones (or earphones with a microphone which also have a 4-pin plug but are wired differently I think), the “common” pin of the headphones doesn’t get connected to the ground of the recorder/player so basically what you hear is the difference between the left and right signal.
===Jac
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Thanks Jac,
So you always need to use the remote?
Or headphones with a standard 3 pin headphone jack (without a microphone).
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What Max said.
Instead of using a remote or changing your headphones, you can also use an extension cord or a splitter. I have a splitter to connect two headset to one output and it works great to fix the “problem”.
Basically: Your headphones will work on a socket with 3 contacts and anything with 3 contacts can be plugged into the DCC recorder. So if there’s something with 3 contacts between the 4 contacts of the recorder and the 4 contacts on your headphone plug, it will work as expected.
===Jac
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Just for the record - third generation devices have 4-pole socket, but first generation have 5-pole. The fat outer ring is also used for remote purposes. 