Model 1 Genesis headphone jack not working correctly.

[Shaddap]

First off, just wanna say how awesome this site is. Long time lurker, it's easily the best retro gaming site around.

Alright, so I recently purchased Streets of Rage 2 and decided to whip out the old Genesis (Altered Beast bundle, purchased waaay back in 1989) and fire it up for the first time in probably 15 years. Everything still works perfectly, until I plugged a pair of headphones into the headphone jack. Sound comes out fine out of the left channel but the right channel either outputs no sound at all or very little sound at max volume with a lot of buzzing. The power adapter is the stock one it was supplied with, in case that's an issue.

I cracked the system open and took a peek at the headphone jack's connection and it looks fine...but I'm not sure if there's a way to definitely fix it and figured someone around here may have a solution or expertise on the situation. Is there any simple way to get the headphone jack working again? Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Also, I tried various different headphones and tried a Y-adapter (this type: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41JGQR4TJML.jpg) to no avail. Only a couple headphones manage to get any sound out of the right channel.

[Hobie-wan]

Either the plug or the volume slider could be fouled by a little corrosion from sitting. I'm assuming you don't have any electrical contact cleaner handy. You could put a few drops of rubbing alcohol in the headphone jack and plug/unplug 20 times. Could do the same in the volume slider and slide it up and down 20 times. Then take some canned air and blow them out and let it sit for 3 or 4 hours before hooking up and powering on again.

[Shaddap]

Thanks for the fast reply! Actually tried the alcohol method yesterday, no difference unfortunately. Volume slider seems ok...flicked it up and down a bunch but also makes no difference and swabbed it with a bit of alcohol to see if that could remedy anything. Blasted it with air as well yesterday and did so again about 10 minutes ago (along with the alcohol/plug and unplug method) but I'll let it rest and see how it turns out in a few hours. Could it be due to a connection problem with the wiring? Again, the right channel will come in sometimes but the sound is accompanied by heavy buzzing and at max volume, is pretty low (compared to the left channel, which is totally fine).

[Hobie-wan]

Yeah, you can check that the colder joints haven't cracked where the volume and plug connect to the board.

[flojocabron]

does the headphones you are using work with other stuff?

Are you using it for regular headphones? Or are you going the audio jack for sega cd stuff/surround?

There are different types of cables out there and some have slight differences.



The plug on the left only has sound for one speaker. The one on the right both.

I had a similar problem a few months ago, with hooking up audio to a stereo CD player from a PC. I only got sound from one speaker.

I learned that I had a mono cable. Maybe that's what you have?

[Hobie-wan]

Plugging in a set of headphones, so not likely.

[Shaddap]

Definitely stereo cables, as I use them to record stuff via line-in sometimes (which is what I want to do with the Genesis, actually). And all headphones I tested work perfectly with mp3 players, pc, laptops, etc. Used earbuds as well, same thing, buzzing right channel at low volume when slider is at max volume. Do I need to remove the bottom casing of the Genesis to look at the circuits? Nothing looks corroded, the board is a lot cleaner than I imagined it to be after all these years.

[Hobie-wan]

Yeah you'll need to remove the board to look at the solder points.

[Nyukki]

I never got the point of a headphone jack on the Genesis when you can just plug your headphones into the TV. Is the sound quality particularly good coming straight out of the Genesis?

[Hobie-wan]

I never got the point of a headphone jack on the Genesis when you can just plug your headphones into the TV. Is the sound quality particularly good coming straight out of the Genesis?

Remember, back then you were living in the lap of luxury if you were hooked to the TV via composite (which isn't stereo on the Gen 1), most people were using RF which also isn't stereo. Also TV didn't usually have headphone jacks back then.