Strange Aux behavior (jittery sounding)

I have never used the auxiliary in before, until yesterday. I have a 2-male RCA -> 1/8" male adaptor pluged into the aux RCA cable. I pluged the 1/8" into my iPod Shuffle just to test it out.

The result was rather strange. The song was coming through very jittery. I'm not sure how else to describe it. It was off and on all over the place. I changed tracks on the Shuffle a few times, and when I did, the song would come in fine for the first 2 seconds or so and then start to studder all over the place.

I checked the integrity of the the RCA connections and all seems to be fine.

Any ideas as to what's going on?

Would it seem to drop audio or just pause it? Pausing or hesitation would indicate that it is a data / digital issue. Dropping out would seem to be more on the audio output path.

I'm not totally sure, but it seemed to be dropping the audio. I could hear the song progressing I think.

Install the latest Hijack kernel and try again (unless you've already done so, of course!).

Hmmm... Makes sense - especially given that it is an aux source...

As a reality check, you might want to put a splitter on your shuffle's output and listen in, just to make sure the track is playing back properly.

Also, what is your volume on the shuffle? Could you be coming in too loud and getting volume clipping?

Lastly, try hooking up another device (any portable source) to the aux input and see if you get the same behavoir.

Mark and Paul,

I will try all of the above and get back to the thread by Thursday. I just wanted to post the it here first in case this was the same issue in the past.

thanks for the help.

I've seen jittery audio due to the MUTE line floating around when the ethernet was in use. It might be possible that using the AUX port could also get it to bounce a little, which is why I suggest ensuring Hijack is up to date. There was a fix for that a few versions ago.

Cheers

I think I remember a similar conversation a while ago, and someone mentioned that there would be a ground problem with portable devices and the aux input. (Maybe talking about how to best use a Karma in the car?) The suggestion was to run a ground from the RCA jack to the chassis.

--Nathan

I figured out that it was just clipping that was occuring because the volume of the Shuffle was up too high.

thanks for the input fellas.