I'm an electrican, and have got the opportunity to do some work for will.i.am, i am building two seats that will be going into the recording studio for will. He wants one of the beats by dre beatbox boomboxes torn apart and rebuilt into the seat. Everything is straight forward except for that the boombox currently has a ipod dock, and they do not want an ipod dock. They want to just have female usb mounted into the seat. Not a problem but it needs to work with the stereo as in provide audio input and charging at the same time.
Can i just pin out the ipod dock and use the data parts or will that not work?

 

Dumb idea if you ask me.

In a recording studio you dont want any speakers and amps of lesser quality than real dedicated studio monitors.

 

Dumb idea if you ask me.

In a recording studio you dont want any speakers and amps of lesser quality than real dedicated studio monitors.

Thanks idiot! I'm well aware, but unless you want to be helpful, why say anything! I agree with you 100% but if the job pays why not do it. It is strictly a request, i dont need your opinion on if its a dumb idea or not. I've done things for customers for years that I thought was stupid but its not what you think its what the customer wants.

 

I'm leery whether you'd get the right signals from a USB connection to the dock in order to both play and charge. You could attempt to buy a male to female Ipod extension cable and splice it on the male side to a female USB. Can't guarantee you won't damage the boombox, but assuming you don't and it doesn't work, you haven't "hacked" the boombox beyond use.

I've been doing a bit of searching and found this. It allows you to use a USB cable to charge the Ipod and a separate stereo audio connection to get music to the boombox. After a lot of looking around, I think this is your best bet. I know there may be some push back from the customer, but I'm sure there is a reason there isn't already a boombox with a single USB connection for both power and sound. Part of this may be due to the fact USB communicates with data and data to every device is different. Thus, without a host computer or something programmed into the boombox to identify and communicate with most MP3 players with a USB connection, there is no way to interpret the USB data signals as audio. Whereas the dock connection has separate left and right audio lines. If you use the adapter mentioned above, the boombox will be able to charge and play any MP3 player now and into the future. Since Ipods, Iphones, and technology in general is changing all the time, i.e., connections, this should help you "sell" this idea.

You could also try contacting the manufacturer and see if you get lucky talking to an engineer who may tell you how to do this or why it simply isn't possible. Probably won't be able to speak to that person, but no harm in trying. Good luck.