Autocom- only getting one channel but in both ears

[boxerboy]

I bought a Super Pro AVI from a friend awhile back and ordered a ton of accessories from Barry McGuire at McGuire Importing & Distributing (found him on this forum). Got everything hooked up with Zumo 550, I-Pod, special dongle for in-ear speakers (Etymotic ER6I)and ultimately will buy a Kenwood for bike to bike. Everything was working fine for a few weeks and then one day I could only hear the left channel of music but it comes through both ear speakers. I say left channel but all I know is it's the channel that doesn't have the lead guitar or singer in it. The music sucks like that. Anyway, it started with the I-Pod so I switched to the Zumo mp3 but it's the same. If I plug the ear speakers directly into the I-Pod or the Zumo- all is back to normal so the problem appears to be with the Autocom.

Any ideas?

[snod]

I had similar symptoms about two years ago. I tracked it down to broken wires in the lead that goes from the microphone to the headset "spider". It never made any sense to me why the microphone wires would effect the speakers, but I was able to make the problem come and go by swapping out the wire to the microphone. YMMV

[allikanbe]

You may want to double-check the connection between at the zumo cradle. Sometimes those cradle connections get loose and you get bad sound. You can wiggle your wire in the cradle and it may get better. A while back garmin was replacing bad cradles.

[boxerboy]

I had similar symptoms about two years ago. I tracked it down to broken wires in the lead that goes from the microphone to the headset "spider". It never made any sense to me why the microphone wires would effect the speakers, but I was able to make the problem come and go by swapping out the wire to the microphone. YMMV

I'll give that a shot. All those wires are crammed up in between the outer shell of the helmet and the liner. Maybe something got crimped. The whole microphone/speakers dongle is brand new but who knows. I'll update after fiddling with it.

thanks for the info.

[boxerboy]

You may want to double-check the connection between at the zumo cradle. Sometimes those cradle connections get loose and you get bad sound. You can wiggle your wire in the cradle and it may get better. A while back garmin was replacing bad cradles.

I've wiggled all the outputs coming from the Zumo but not the cradle connections. I'll fool around with that as well and see if it works. Thing is, the problem is the same whether it's I-pod or Zumo.

I spoke with Troy at McGuire Importing & Dist. last week and he said it sounded like something called a binary mono something or other. He was supposed to call me back a week ago to help but I haven't heard back. MID was great and very responsive when I was ordering all that stuff but once purchased they don't return calls and their customer service is very lacking once you've made your purchase. FYI.

[John Bentall]

last week and he said it sounded like something called a binary mono something or other.

 

Binaural mono should be taking both channels of the stereo input, combining them and routing the sound through a mono amplifier to both ears.

 

Waggle the plugs from the iPod/Zumo where they enter the Autocom and see if it's a poor contact of the stereo. The plugs on the music devices are not all the same, whereas Autocom took extreme care to use a single supplier for all its 3.5mm sockets with precisely the right amount of contact spring pressure to stop the plugs working loose in a m/c environment.

You might not believe it but Autocom Tom spent time in the Navy and was anal about his products being fit for use in adverse operating conditions . That's why Autocom is engineered as a premium product ..etc, etc.

[boxerboy]

Well, the gremlins are having their fun. I went out this morning to tinker and waggle and low and behold, the problem is gone. Perfectly normal stereo. I have no idea what changed. As far as I know, nothing. But, for the moment, everything is as it should be. I hooked everything up, turned on the I-Pod and without doing a single thing, the problem was gone. Same with the Zumo mp3. I'll take it out for a spin later to see if anything changes while riding. I did crank the engine to see if anything would change but all was good. Weird.

 

Thanks to all for all the tips and suggestions. If the problem re-occurs I'll let you know.