Stereo To Mono

[johnviera]

Can I get a mono signal by just splicing 2 channels together?

For example. I get the two center pins of an RCA connector and splice them together. Then I get the two commons and splice them together.

Will that give me a mono signal into one RCA connector? Or will I blow up my iPod?

Thanks.

JV

[Wolf]

Can I get a mono signal by just splicing 2 channels together?

For example. I get the two center pins of an RCA connector and splice them together. Then I get the two commons and splice them together.

Will that give me a mono signal into one RCA connector? Or will I blow up my iPod?

Thanks.

JV

I wouldn't do that. You need to have a 'summation network' to combine outputs so they don't 'see' each other and wreak havoc.

Later,
Wolf

[johnviera]

So how do you explain this ?

http://www.amazon.com/Hosa-CMP105-St...ref=pd_sim_e_2

[Wolf]

So how do you explain this ?

http://www.amazon.com/Hosa-CMP105-St...ref=pd_sim_e_2

Any of the following:
-one connection is not connected internally
-internal resistors isolate the separate signals
-not originally intended for this application

Later,
Wolf

[johnviera]

Thanks.

That's crazy because I remember buying that cable so I could use a Mackie speaker that only had a 1/4 inch mono input. I plugged in my iPod and the party went well.

I thought I was getting a summed L/R signal.

WTF?

[Wolf]

Thanks.

That's crazy because I remember buying that cable so I could use a Mackie speaker that only had a 1/4 inch mono input. I plugged in my iPod and the party went well.

I thought I was getting a summed L/R signal.

WTF?

I hope there are resistors in there to isolate the channels and not allow seeing of the other. If there aren't you really could hurt something in the output of the ipod. I didn't say it wasn't summing, I just stated the 3 likelihood possibilities of how it works.

Later,
Wolf

[OlderMongrel]

Even if nothing is damaged, you will get "insertion loss" of 6db, which will make the output relatively noisy. I think the last time I did this was maybe 35 years ago, and I did not care back then.

John