Thread: color organ question

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I got my color organ put together but is needs a lot of sound. Can I put 8 ohm resistor in line with the speaker so its not so loud.

Most color organs have a sensitivity knob. Mine needs a small speaker right behind them to work well. Let us know what you find.

and i lost a 1/4 watt resistor can i replace it with a 1/2 one?

yes, higher wattage is OK, lower wattage not so good!

Originally Posted by bradbaum

yes, higher wattage is OK, lower wattage not so good!

thank u , and thank god for the ye old parts bin.

I have a couple of these also. Yes, you needed a fairly high volume in order to drive them. Playing with the sensitivity will help some, but I think the real culprit is the transformer on the audio input.
Most color organs circuits were designed to be hooked up to a home stereo speaker output, so there's a transformer on the audio input of the color organ to protect the rest of the color organ circuitry. This works well if you have the color organ hooked up to your 3 bazillion watt home stereo. This does Not work well if you are driving your color organ from an Ipod or your computer, as it has a much smaller audio output wattage (i.e. heaphones or powered speakers)
I'm playing with this same situation myself and am experimenting with changing the input transformer to something less agressive.
For a speaker output thats too loud, use a 10 K pot to dial it down.

I did get it working on my 3 bazillion watt stereo but my dad just bought a bass guitar and amp so im gonna try out the bass speaker on a hacked boom box.