It's like a woman bring her car into the dealer for service. The service writer asks her what the problem is and she says it sounds terrible. Not a lot to go on. If she said it squeaks or rattles that would give them a hint as to where to look.

If you are going to work with audio you need to know at the least distortion and hum and the common causes. Distortion is nearly always caused by something being over driven into clipping. That should tell you where to look. Check to see that you are using the correct input for the signal level you are supplying.

Hum can be caused by many things and can sometimes be a real PITA to solve. It's caused by 60Hz AC getting into your input somehow. Check to see that your input is wired properly. A balanced output connected to an unbalanced input will likely cause hum for instance.

Lastly, phone systems are not audio gear so don't expect page outputs to conform to any audio standard. Levels differ from manufacturer to manufacturer as does it being balanced or unbalanced. If possible read the manual to see if there are instructions for connecting to the amp.

The strangest one I ever heard of is the IPO. You need a WMT-1 on the station port that is programmed for the paging output during boot so the system thinks there is an analog phone connected to the port. If you connect to the paging port during normal operation you get nothing. You have to reboot to make it work.

-Hal

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