Blu Tooth Modding My Collection: NEXT

So, as you have seen in the past, I have been adding connectors to my radios so I can plug my tiny blu tooth receiver into them, run them on AUX and control them with my Android cell phone.

I now have 3 radio's modded like this and it's really cool since most of the time I am using my cell phone, either the mp3 collection in it or listening to online streaming music through an app called "Tune In". Since the sound quality is just so so, I have now downloaded an EQ app to help balance it all out. It sounds pretty good now.

SO, the next modded radio in my collection is my work horse....my worn out, battered, reliable TRC-920

Even though the case is hanging by a thread....she is fully working. The AM/FM, works perfectly, she has perfect straight antenna's. The cassette deck has been rebuilt and works perfectly...and it was the fact that the cassette deck works that I wanted to do something different this time.

In my other mods, the radio's didn't have working decks, so I just put the blu tooth receiver and the plug in the cassette deck space.

But with this one, I wanted to leave the deck alone, so I opened her up and did something different....

It was simple to run the connection wire into the power cord storage compartment.





The receiver just fits in the cord compartment.



I pulled the amp board out and soldered the wire leads to the RCA AUX IN connection points.





I then zip tied the wires up so nothing will rattle and put the radio back together.

Literally, this took 10 minutes to do



Now, when ever I want to grab a radio and go, I can grab these modded radios, put my blu tooth receiver in and have 32 gigs of music on my phone or stream any music style I want

that's cool .

Fantastic! Be prepared to be asked for a mod or two at the NorCal meet.

THAFUZZ said:

Fantastic! Be prepared to be asked for a mod or two at the NorCal meet.

Click to expand...

I can do these, but we will need some parts....no prob!

Very cool Chris, I love the mod!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

baddboybill said:

Very cool Chris, I love the mod!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Thanks man, 10 mins of time and a $30 receiver and any smart phone runs your radio!

I have a smart phone now so I'm sure I will get into doing this soooooon!


Thanks for the pics and motivation

Nice mod !
That reciever must run on a small watch battery right?
And I assume there is a pairing process?
Also want to know, when you are using bluetooth does volume adjustment on your phone
Effect output level to the reciever?
Sorry so many questions but I would like to do this as well,
I probably won't hard wire it though.

blu_fuz said:

I have a smart phone now so I'm sure I will get into doing this soooooon!

Thanks for the pics and motivation

Click to expand...

If you have a smart phone, Android or iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or laptop with Blu Tooth you can do this!

Here is the one I have: http://www.miccus.com/products/blubridge-mini-jack-rx

hemiguy2006 said:

Nice mod !
That reciever must run on a small watch battery right?
And I assume there is a pairing process?
Also want to know, when you are using bluetooth does volume adjustment on your phone
Effect output level to the reciever?
Sorry so many questions but I would like to do this as well,
I probably won't hard wire it though.

Click to expand...

Yes, this thing is VERY small. Smaller then a Bic Lighter. BUT...It lasts a LONG time. I have easily played music for 10 hours and often forget to turn it off and have found it 3 days later still running

Pairing Process YES, same as a blu tooth headset or blu tooth pairing with your car (if you have that). Basically, you pair the receiver with your phone once and then it is saved. Then when you want to use it, you turn on the receiver and go to your wireless settings, blu tooth section and choose it from the list. I have never had it fail to connect, works flawlessly every time.

Volume Level YES, the volume tat turns up the music / head set turns up the volume on the radio, you just set the volume knob on the radio and you can turn it up of down from there, mute it, change songs, play your play lists.

With the radio's that aren't hard wired, I just plug in RCA's and hook the receiver up to that.

I really love this set up, at this point, I can't live with out it.

how do you find the actual audio quality? i have bluetooth headphones, and i noticed the high end seemed very compressed. it reminded me of downloading 96kbs and 128kbps mp3s back in the day. basically cymbals and high end get kind of shwooshy sounding. i'm thinking its probably way more noticible on headphones than a boombox. a friend has ford sync in his car and listens to music over bluetooth and i don't remember noticing the same thing.

does the eq help with that?

chump1039 said:

how do you find the actual audio quality? i have bluetooth headphones, and i noticed the high end seemed very compressed. it reminded me of downloading 96kbs and 128kbps mp3s back in the day. basically cymbals and high end get kind of shwooshy sounding. i'm thinking its probably way more noticible on headphones than a boombox. a friend has ford sync in his car and listens to music over bluetooth and i don't remember noticing the same thing.

does the eq help with that?

Click to expand...

Your correct, headphones are going to make this more prominent. Basically, MP3 file compression sucks and there is no way around it.It's less noticeable on a boombox and yes, the EQ app does help, much like having an eg on your radio helps you adjust the music to your listening preference. I'm sure your friends car has been tuned to make up for these losses.

With all the computing horsepower we have today and massive storage capacity, I wish we could get away overly compressed music.

When ever I'm downloading I look for 320bit sampled compression and when ever I'm streaming I look for the highest rate offered on the station I am choosing. This helps too.

In the end, nothing sounds better than on old cassette through your old boombox! Unless your boombox plays VINYL

i was referring more to the bluetooth part
if i plug in direct headphones to my laptop, mp3s sound great. most of my stuff is vbr v0 or v2
it was only when i used the bluetooth that i noticed the really low bitrate /compression sound issue.

chump1039 said:

i was referring more to the bluetooth part
if i plug in direct headphones to my laptop, mp3s sound great. most of my stuff is vbr v0 or v2
it was only when i used the bluetooth that i noticed the really low bitrate /compression sound issue.

Click to expand...

I can't say I have experienced that at all. I notice no difference between using a cable or using the blu tooth.

Maybe there is a setting on your computer???

Now... How to hard wire it completely and eliminate the need to recharge it? Where is Norm? :superduper:

Alf said:

Now... How to hard wire it completely and eliminate the need to recharge it? Where is Norm? :superduper:

Click to expand...

Norm and I have talked about this....it's as simple as building a small pc board that cuts the voltage, installing a USB plug on it and plugging the receiver into that full time.

I haven't because I like to transfer the receiver into different radio's and at $30 a pop, I can't buy a receiver for each radio.

But it could be done!

Lasonic TRC-920 said:

chump1039 said:

i was referring more to the bluetooth part
if i plug in direct headphones to my laptop, mp3s sound great. most of my stuff is vbr v0 or v2
it was only when i used the bluetooth that i noticed the really low bitrate /compression sound issue.

Click to expand...

I can't say I have experienced that at all. I notice no difference between using a cable or using the blu tooth.

Maybe there is a setting on your computer???

Click to expand...

im using a2dp profile
this was on my 1g macbook air and my new one
my iphone 4s is the same way
maybe its the headphones?
ill have to try a different pair

chump1039 said:

Lasonic TRC-920 said:

chump1039 said:

i was referring more to the bluetooth part
if i plug in direct headphones to my laptop, mp3s sound great. most of my stuff is vbr v0 or v2
it was only when i used the bluetooth that i noticed the really low bitrate /compression sound issue.

Click to expand...

I can't say I have experienced that at all. I notice no difference between using a cable or using the blu tooth.

Maybe there is a setting on your computer???

Click to expand...

im using a2dp profile
this was on my 1g macbook air and my new one
my iphone 4s is the same way
maybe its the headphones?
ill have to try a different pair

Click to expand...

I don't know...I never have used any head phones with blu tooth