Speakers and general electrical question

[Harsky]

So comes another bored day and I rummaged my attic for various stuff to ebay and I came across a cheap toy where pushing various button makes noises from it's mini speaker. Then it stuck me.

"I know, I'll wire an MP3 player to it"

Which I did with a junked MP3 player but the problem was that while it was nice to have music blaring out of it's 1990's speakers it was still too quiet so I thought I might as well include an earphone jack. My only question is, is it possible that while the music is blaring out of the speaker, putting a headphone into the jack disables the speakers and redirect the music to the headphones?

 

[spinal_cord]

It is usual that the headphone jack will break the speaker connection then the headphones are plugged in. It does this by pushing the connection apart. I think most headphone jacks you buy should do this.

 

[Harsky]

It is usual that the headphone jack will break the speaker connection then the headphones are plugged in. It does this by pushing the connection apart. I think most headphone jacks you buy should do this.

Yeah but the headphone jack came from the MP3 player itself which I desoldered. Not sure if it will do the same.

 

[FAST6191]

It may be a forest for the trees thing but is there something wrong with an SPDT switch stuck along the (speaker) power lead?

 

[Harsky]

It may be a forest for the trees thing but is there something wrong with an SPDT switch stuck along the (speaker) power lead?

Whut?

 

[FAST6191]

I assume there is the usual three wires for the speaker (power, ground and signal with the first two being vital), if you stick a single pole double throw switch across the ground (you could do power but on second thought ground would be better) you can eliminate one of the options with said switch as well as have a crude mute button: