Reader Rob requested this hack back in November so I jumped on it when it showed up in my RSS reader. Although Mike Kruckenberg preferred the sound of his SoundDock to the iPod HiFi, he was disappointed that it didn’t feature an auxiliary input. He decided to crack the box open and mount his own aux port. Bose doesn’t use the same pin numbers, but Mike was able to figure out the left, right, and ground. He still needs to do a little more digging to figure out how to turn on the dock without having the iPod in place. I think a nice hack would be building a dummy plug that appeared to the dock as an iPod but only has a line-in jack.
[via Digg]
>I think a nice hack would be building a dummy
>plug that appeared to the dock as an iPod but
>only has a line-in jack.
I agree
Such a device would let me use my Zen with the myriad of iPod devices out there!
Somebody get on it ;)
you know, all highs..no lows..it’s gotta be Bose.
for a more refreshing set of speakers, try the klipsch igroove, it’s 50$ less, sounds much better AND has an aux in. problem solved, eh?
but, this hack does deserve praise, as it was well done and helpful, especially since to interface with, bose products are incredibly hard
dang though, If I spent that much money on that, I wouldn’t be doing anything not exspained in the instruction manual. I don’t mind doing some dicing of a Win 95 machine, but a bose sound dock
i agree with 1–an interface would have been easier and more practical. now he’s lost the warranty on some very expensive speakers.
also, for $350 he could have bought either a small stereo with and aux in, or a kickass amp and speaker setup. or a combination–something like small speakers to be portable and a decent pair for his desk.
bose :(
hack :(
All excellent points (esp #3). I agree something like number 1 is a much better solution, but it requires trying to figure out how the SoundDock switches on and off when the iPod is connected. The trial and error with that was more risk than I wanted to take. If Bose doesn’t add an aux in, someone will eventually build a cable.
As far as the warrantee . . . once I got the idea no amount of reasoning could stop me from trying it. I’ll be up a creek if the SoundDock ever needs service. I may regret this hack if that happens.
I did this mod over a year ago to my sound dock, except I used RCA plugs for a more stable connection. In fact i was using my sounddock’s line in when i read this hack. It is really not a difficult one, I was able to do the whole thing from scratch in about 3 hours, with doccumentation this hack should take 30 mins top.
Ok, now i’d love it if someone could explain how to do one of these in say, a cd player alarm clock, or other things where its not as easy to tap into an unamplified signal.
As a follow up, I have created the cable mentioned in number 3:
http://mike.kruckenberg.com/archives/2006/10/building_an_aux_input_cable_for_bose_sounddock.html
For the non-hack type you can purchase them at:
http://www.cablejive.com
What’s ironic is that I was actually working on the CES show today (Ford presentation at the Keynote where Ford revealed their new all electric Focus) and the Hackaday site was blocked. The reason? “Criminal skills/hacking”!