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(More customer reviews)During installation, you will need to make a choice whether or not to attach the black wire. The instructions are vague, they say "install if you will be attaching a portable device".
What the should say is "connect the black wire when using a player that is powered by battery only"
Here's what you need to know:
(A) If you connect the black wire to ground, then you decide to plug your charger cable into the player, the audio from your mp3 player may be shorted out and you may hear nothing.
(B) If you do not connect the black wire, and you use a player without using the charger cable, you will likely hear some background noise (buzzing).
For me, I want the adapter to work properly whether I plug my mp3 player into the charging cable or not!
The method I chose is to attach the black wire from the adapter to one side of a mini toggle switch (SPST from Radio Shack) and connect the other side of the switch to a ground lug (or the radio black negative wire). Then mount the switch or have it dangling behind the dash in a place you can access. Then change the switch as necessary depending on how you are using the mp3 player.
Unfortunately, they did not design the adapter to automatically deal with both situations. I originally connected the black wire and then had to tear down my dash to gain access later to add the switch so I could use my mp3 player with the 12VDC power cable.
The adapter needs one ground path for noise-free operation. When the mp3 player is connected to the power outlet, a ground path is established and the black wire is not needed, and in fact may short out the audio. When the mp3 player is not connected to power, the ground is floating (subject to noise) unless the black wire is connected.
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