Is it possible to feed the output of a discman to the tapehead inputs?

[FBMinis]

The plastic gears of the tape-player of an old stereo I have here broke, rendering the tape-player useless.

Can I connect the headphone output of a discman (player cd player) to the inputs soldered to the tapehead!? How?

I have actually done this and it worked but the headphone output of the discman is still too loud and it distorts once the signal gets to the tape amp.

Should I just attenuate the output of the discman or is there some filtering that must be involved?

Forgive the novice questions, I'd just like to give it a go..

 

[Mooly]

You need to attenuate greatly, say a 1k and 22 ohm in series as a ballpark start point and take the output from across the 22 ohm.

You also need to remove any equalisation components from the cassette head amp (NAB curve?) so that the amplifier has a flat response.

 

[rayma]

Can I connect the headphone output of a discman (player cd player) to the inputs soldered to the tapehead!?
I have actually done this and it worked but the headphone output of the discman is still too loud and it distorts
once the signal gets to the tape amp. Should I just attenuate the output of the discman or is there some filtering that must be involved?

A tape head needs equalization similar to a phono cartridge, so the Discman audio connected that way would be amplified a lot and equalized a lot. Is there another input? Or, maybe you can connect the Discman to a later point in the circuit that would just amplify it a little, or even not at all. It's probably large enough already.

 

[FBMinis]

It's working properly after attenuating the signal with a simple voltage divider in each channel:

http://www.raltron.com/cust/tools/images/voltagedivider.gif

R1 = 10k ohm
R2 = 100 ohm

Discman volume is set to half oh playback and, when turning off and changing source, these are at the same level. No significant extra-noise noticed when using batteries, but connecting the discman to it's 4.5v transformer adds quite a bit.

Slight EQ was needed in the lower mid range but nothing as dramatic as RIAA EQ found in phono levels.

Thank you and merry christmas,

Francisco

 

[Mooly]

Good that you have it sorted