What is this? (Mega Drive II Headphone Jack)

[ItellYaHuat]

It's a part of a CIB Mega Drive II (EU) I'm going to sell. I took it out of the box and on the back is has one of those mini headphone ports. I used a converter to fit a standard pair of headphones and I get the usual static noise upon plugging in my headphones yet I get no sound. I tried with the pack-in Sonic 2 that came with it. Do Mega Drive II's normally have a headphone port like this (or whatever it may be since I can't seem to get sound) or would this be considered modified? I can take a better pic tomorrow. This shitty picture is the only one I have available and the flash was off.

[TmEE]

I'm more than certain its put there by someone not Sega.

[CheapAssGamer]

I was wondering how hard it would be to do this myself on my Model 2. I could tap the right and left channel out of the output jack easy enough but I figure I'd have to build some kinda amp circuit with a volume pot on it to get any reasonable level of sound for an headphone jack.

[TmEE]

if I could find a good source of slider pots I will start offering headphone outs for MD2s.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

if I could find a good source of slider pots I will start offering headphone outs for MD2s.

To be honest I think instead of a volume slider a volume dial like you see on walkmans would fit the style of the Model 2 better.

Though if I put a Headphone jack on a Model 2 I'd put it in the front near the Controller 1 port, so it would be around the same area where it is on the Model 1.

[TmEE]

I was more thinking on having the tip of the slider seen near the left side corner, so you can slide slider towards the back and forth. Its even harder to find such dials than sliders, at least locally for me. It would look pretty slick IMO...

[TrekkiesUnite118]

I was more thinking on having the tip of the slider seen near the left side corner, so you can slide slider towards the back and forth. Its even harder to find such dials than sliders, at least locally for me. It would look pretty slick IMO...

Yeah, with mods like that my goal would be to try and make the system look as stock as possible. So things you put on it look like they belong there and were always there. So people would look that Model 2 with a Headphone jack and go "Wait, did some models have this?"

[ItellYaHuat]

Yeah, with mods like that my goal would be to try and make the system look as stock as possible. So things you put on it look like they belong there and were always there. So people would look that Model 2 with a Headphone jack and go "Wait, did some models have this?"

Just like I did with this particular MD II.

[kool kitty89]

Open it up and see how it was done!

[ItellYaHuat]

Open it up and see how it was done!

I'm somewhat hesitating to do that because it's as if it's in NIB condition. Blame it on the virgin tweaks too. If it will help the cause, I suppose I'll do it. I'll have to do it later tonight if not tomorrow.

[ItellYaHuat]

I'm somewhat hesitating to do that because it's as if it's in NIB condition. Blame it on the virgin tweaks too. If it will help the cause, I suppose I'll do it. I'll have to do it later tonight if not tomorrow.

Disregard this statement and excuse my being a wuss. If it's modded it would've been opened up already lol. The console looks super new/factory fresh and there isn't a single flaw anywhere so the sleekness fooled me into forgetting that it was modded. The mod looks stock anyways. There isn't a speck of dust even in the tiny crevices of the casing. Anyways, I'll shut up about how this is the newest looking old console I've ever seen and I'm going to report my findings now.

Apparently it doesn't seem like much of a headphone jack mod at all. I would've suspected something to do with the AV out port but in this case it doesn't. There is something very interesting though that I never would've suspected to see. There appears to be some sort of chip added to this particular Mega Drive on top of another chip that came stock with the console. It says the words (from top to bottom) "Sega", "Genesis Mod BD", "Assy . 10-0096REV".

On the bottom of this peculiar chip, there is a series of solder joints labeled J1 through J9 (refer to picture). There are a series of red wires soldered from the strange chip from joints J1, J2, and J9 that are soldered to the chip underneath. There are also red wires soldered from joints J3, J6, J7, and J8 that are soldered to the motherboard on various locations. There is a blue and white wire soldered from said strange chip on J4 and J5 which leads to the supposed headphone jack. Here are some pics.

First of all, here is a better shot of the first pic I took:


When I opened it up from the back, I noticed two wires soldered to the headphone jack. On a side note, I also noticed a hole for what would be for the Master System Converter screw just like in the model 1. It even has the metal clip thing. Was this modded as well or did Mega Drives have this feature? Maybe I'm stupid or something because I never recall seeing it on a model 2 Genesis. I'm not much of a model 2 user in the first place.



Here was the "wtf moment" for me:






I took the liberty of labeling each joint:


Finally, a picture of this particularly sexy looking Mega Drive II:


I'd like some input from the experts as to what this mod is supposed to be and what it's supposed to accomplish. Like I said before, I get no sound from the headphone jack though when I power on and power off the console I hear the "thud" noise through my speakers. I was confused so then I did something stupid and used a y-cable and tried to see if maybe it is meant to pass through video. Well, I was wrong. Finally, I tested the console regularly hooked through the AV port and it works perfectly. Video, sound and all. It says Genesis mod on it. Maybe it's supposed to be a region mod?

[Christuserloeser]

Wow! Thanks a lot for sharing these! I'm pretty confused tho. Let's see what the experts say.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Are you sure it's a headphone jack? It could be a broken switch or something.

[ItellYaHuat]

Could be but I there is a contact in there where a headphone plug would hit, plus it fit snugly in the hole and there is no damage visible where a switch would have been. You're probably more right though it makes the "thud" noise when I power the console on and off

Edit: I plugged it in and noticed that the contact gets push away due to the pressure which means it most likely has to be a jack of some kind, headphone or not. The blue and white wires are wired to it as well on the bottom of the jack mechanism.

[Enternal]

Interesting, it looks very well done. That might be quite a piece if its factory.