[toptip]

In 1965 the French company “Continental Edison” made a fancy radio for the Citroën DS Pallas called the “Radioën HiFi” — it is “Hi-Fi” because for the first time it had FM. In any case it is mono and quite rare. I recently got one.

In the 80s, Sanyo made a bunch of clock radios and others called, “Stereocast.” The FM on these were mono. But you could get a small adaptor that plugged in and produced stereo (but strangely, only through a headphone output). I have one of these. 

This weekend I tried to connect it to the Radioën. I just picked up the signal from the ratio detector. It worked perfectly. I may have to do some signal matching. I also had to be careful because the Radioën is 12V, negative ground, and the Sanyo is, again strangely, 6V, positive ground. The Sanyo has two jacks — a 3.5mm and a 2.5mm. The signal and positive ground are on the 3.5mm and the -6V comes in from the tip of the 2.5mm (the “body” of the 2.5mm is not connected). Inside there is a Sanyo A3311 MPX chip.

Now I have to figure out how I can operate this +12 / -6V combo in a car. Any ideas?