Hi @jhochella & @darkwave !
I suppose you have read carefully the wiki’s tutorial:
Your “stereo” connector have soldered a hardness with 3 wires, being the red wire the “mass”, that is connected to the connector’s chasis and the other 2 (black and white) the “signal”. In the other side you have a 3-pin dupont connector.
As i’ve explained in the wiki’s tutorial:
Due to hardware problems, Hifiberry has recently changed (September 2019) the specification of the DAC+ADC. It seems that the Balanced Audio input doesn’t work like expected and it works like a simple not-Balanced input. You can read more about this subject on this forum thread.
So, for taking profit of the stereo connector that should be a mono balanced input but it’s not balanced at all, you better get a stereo unbalanced input by connecting both audio channels to the connector. The problem is that the 3 wires Dupont connector included in official kit doesn’t allow to do it easily. You have to cut the second wire (red or white) and solder a single Dupont connector, connecting it to the pin 5 on the Hifiberry. Please, check the Hifiberry DAC+ADC specification
Please, also note this:
Some kits have flipped the red and white wires. This is not a problem. Simply look at the black wire.
Yes. You only need 3 wires.
In fact, if you use the included 3-pin dupont connector, like is shown in the photo, the middle wire (normally red, although it can be white in some kits) is not used at all, because of the “Hifiberry problem”. In such a case you get a simple MONO unbalanced input.
You may want to take profit of the 2 signal-lines of the stereo connector for getting a STEREO unbalanced input. Then you need to hack the harness a little bit. You have to “cut” the middle wire (red or white) and solder a 1-pin dupont connector, then connect it to the pin 5 on the Hifiberry on-board 5-pin row connector. In the photo it’s the first pin from left.
Sorry for the mess, but Hifiberry’s “changes” in its specification is driven me crazy, guys!
Regards,