Technics RS-M22 has no volume control

[zulutribe]

Hi all

I have recently bought a Technics RS-M22 cassette deck and I hooked it up to my M-Audio Firewire Solo via line outs to digitize my cassette collection.

I'm running into a problem though. The M22 does not have output volume control knobs (line out/headphone), the signal coming into the Solo is a little low and the Solo does not have input gain for rca input.

I could increase the volume via recording software but I'd rather increase the signal before it enters the Solo.

Any advice?

 

[greenhorn]

ideally you can build a op amp based preamp to increase the gain. You're looking at <100 rupees worth of parts and some soldering, maybe more if you want audiophile grade components.

Else a headphone amp should do.

 

[zulutribe]

Thanks for the reply.

Can you explain what is an op amp and where can I find instructions to build one? I'm no engineer but I can give it a shot if it's not too difficult finding the components needed.

The Firewire Solo can work standalone without tethering to a computer so that sort of works as a headphone preamp. But again, even after maximum on the headphone knob, the signals way too low.

Otherwise, which headphone preamp would you recommend?

I have Audio Technica ATH-M40fs headphones and ATH-IM50 in-ears.

 

[greenhorn]

you need to build something like this
http://www.hifivision.com/diy/27074-diy-super-simple-preamp.html

this is a rather high quality version, so it's a fair bit expensive, and you might need to modify the gain settings.

how much gain are you looking at? for about 7-8 db of gain, look at the fiio e6

 

[zulutribe]

What about this?
Technolink TC-780LC Stereo Line Level Amp / Booster

 

[reubensm]

I once encountered a challenge when we had to connect a cd player to an old amplifier and the cd player was overloading the amp's input. I used this simple shunt technique which I had earlier used during our kiddy days to make line recordings using a small tape recorder which only had a mic input.

Here is the philosophy:

Increase the value of R1 to drop the gain further.

 

[greenhorn]

yes, that should work fine. a bit expensive, but will work

EDIT: dumb question - are your windows mixer levels all maxed out? including the recording level sliders?

 

[zulutribe]

I once encountered a challenge when we had to connect a cd player to an old amplifier and the cd player was overloading the amp's input. I used this simple shunt technique which I had earlier used during our kiddy days to make line recordings using a small tape recorder which only had a mic input.

Here is the philosophy:

Increase the value of R1 to drop the gain further.

Yea, that will work if I'm going into the Solo mic input. However, there's only 1 mic input.

yes, that should work fine. a bit expensive, but will work

EDIT: dumb question - are your windows mixer levels all maxed out? including the recording level sliders?

Yup, the sliders in the software are all the way up. Technically, I could increase the input signal by sending it to another virtual channel and add a gain plug-in in between. But that's all in the software which I want to avoid.