atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Vodavi Telephones & Systems Starplus STS Music on Hold

Hey all,

Sorry for the rudimentary question - but is there a line gain adjustment for the MOH on this system?

Our MOH is provided by an MP3/Cd player, through a mini-RCA mono-cable to the punch down block, and it sounds pitiful - soft, cuts out and is very erratic and horrible sounding. When the volume is turned up on the player, the sound on the MOH is just as lousy, but now it is distorted too, which is just not pleasant.

Finally, does anyone know why Vodavi uses he punch down for the MOH and not just an RCA jack?

Thanks -
K

The problem probably isn't with the STS but with what you are supplying it with and how you are doing it. Your player has a stereo output that is "mono'd" by the cable you are using. It bridges or shorts the two outputs together which will have the effect you experience and will eventualy permanently damage the output devices in the player. I have seen the output of CD players and radios supplied by customers die within a few months.

Then also there is the question as to whether that derived output is even appropriate for driving the STS MOH input.

Your answer is to use a player designed for MOH applications. Be aware also that using music from any source for business purposes requires you to pay royalties unless you use royalty free music or a music service.

-Hal

Hal is right on the money with his reply.

Probably because Vodavi tries to discourage DIYers from making such connections themselves. They don't want to have any part of people breaking the law by just hooking up FM radios or CD players to their systems. They know that trained technicians will warn customers of this, where if it just involves a trip to Radio Shack, they can't do their part in this curtailing this theft.

Your concerns are understood and appreciated, rest assured that the MOH that my firm uses has been professionally prepared with personalized hold messages and music in the public domain - we have special knowledge of the ramifications of such violations, and therefore would be under special scrutiny if we violated copyright laws.

That being said, our installers were the folks that stripped and punched down the mono cable (yes, from Radio Shack as a matter of fact) - indicating to us that was the cable we needed to use. I believed that I had also read that a mono cable was preferred (on this board) for MOH, so I did not think it might be the cable, stereo to mono. But now you are telling me that my cable might be what is causing the problem? There are two punchdowns for the MOH, does this relate to the stereo right and left channel? I have decided to do my own testing by using alligator clips to a stereo cord that I have, is this a good plan of action? Right channel to one punchdown, left to the other?

Thanks,

K

No, it is not a stereo connect. You'll have to use one channel off of a stereo cable.

If the installer did this, I would make him come back and fix it. Also, you should consider getting a Message-On-Hold player that would supply a mono output and would have the proper impedance.

The output of any player must be a 600 Ohm output any other rating may permanently damage the MOH input on the phone system.

Does your player have a headset output? I have used headset outputs on players of all kinds for more years than I care to talk about and never had a moh port on a system get damaged. What does this cable look like? Does it have one insulated stranded wire and one uninsulated stranded wire? If so it should be spliced to solid copper crossconnect wire and then punched down on the 66 block. Some techs get lazy (and that includes myself a time or two) and they try to punch down the stripped radio shack cable directly on the block. One of those little hairy wires can touch, short the two pins, and could produce the lousy sound you are complaing about.

I usually have success splicing the two hots of a headphone jack together to produce a mono rather than having to choose between a left or right channel. The hots for a 2.5mm jack sometimes differ between players, ipods, mp3s. Of course I always inform the customer that any music should be royalty-free.

Derrick, thanks -

Since I heard here that the mono cable could screw the player, I hooked a different cable to the block - what is it is a stereo 1/8" jack from the headphone port, and the cord terminates in white and red RCA jacks (the kind that you would hook to a standard amplifier for instance) - this is the kind of cable that allows you to hook an mp3 player to the stereo inputs of a receiver, for instance.

Then what I did was connect two shielded gator clips to each of the outputs and pulled the "shields" over that connection (they fit together rather well). THEN I attached one gator clip to the bottom punch down post, and the other gator clip to the next up punch down post - which were indicated by my installer as being the two MOH block positions.

MOH is louder, still erratic and not sounding very good. What else do you think I can do here?
The mono cable is still connected to the left hand side of the block, and I think I am going to pull that out, so that there are no possible "hairy wires" maybe causing shorts (even though I don;t think that is possible, as I removed the jumpers from the middle between the right and left punchdowns which I assume connected the right and the left signals on the block). ANy other ideas?

When I have gone to investigate purchasing a MOH system, I have seen kits with pre-recorded CD's and *COBY* CD players, the crappy ones that you buy for 10 bucks for your kids? Those aren't mono players, right? What gives? Does Vodavi have a "special" authorized or approval MOH system that it supports? This doesn't seem to need to be so complicated, copyright issues aside. If this complexity and mystery is programmed into this device just to keep the end users pumping money into a system that really should just work and well the first time it is fired up, I would say that they are discouraging me from ever buying or endorsing this product - my opinion.

Thanks again,

K