Audio breakout cable for iPod/iPhone

Computers & Mobile
Audio breakout cable for iPod/iPhone
breakOut.jpg

Jesse Rutherford writes:

Have you ever wanted to plug in a professional studio mic to your ipod touch/iphone? There may be a commercial solution, but I couldn’t find one. Even if there is one, I figured I could build one cheaper than a ready-made one. You could also use this for a line-in (my original reason for the project), but the source really needs to be taken down to mic level from line level for good sound quality.

The hardest part was finding the 3.5 mm 4 conductor plug (found it at Jameco). The soldering to the plug was a bit tricky too. I needed a cable with at least 4 conductors inside, and I wanted to build this for next-to-nothing, so I used some CAT5 ethernet cable I had. CAT5 has 8 conductors, so if you know of any other common cable with at least 4, you can use that.

Audio breakout cable for iPod/iPhone

2 thoughts on “Audio breakout cable for iPod/iPhone

  1. Volkemon says:

    A ready source for the 4-conductor plug is a video adapter cable- has right left and video RCA output(female). Common ground to all.

    I had some around, think they were from radio snack…

    I am using them to access the audio outputs on my 5.1 surround card

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Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. His free weekly-ish maker tips newsletter can be found at garstipsandtools.com.

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