Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPod Making ipod mono output?

S

solinent

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 29, 2005
14
0
The ipod output is obviously stereo. I want to change it to mono, due to the fact that it doesn't play correctly in my amp (my amp is better than my stereo, so I want to play it in that!)

Just change it to mono. ARRGH I CANT BELIEVE THAT YOU CANT CHANGE TO MONO ON AN IPOD!
 
I believe he wants to know if there is anyway to get an iPod to output in mono as opposed to stereo.

As far as I know, this is not an option on the iPod itself. However, there maybe some hardware workarounds.

I seem to remember seeing a stereo to mono converter at some electronics store. However, I could be mistaken.

Second, you could get cable that splits the output to a left cable and a right cable (similar to the apple av cable, but you won't need the video cable), then connect that to a joiner that would mix the two streams to mono.

Neither one of these are very neat solutions, but if you're dead set on doing it, this would be the only way.

Of course, you could always just convert all of your music files to mono....
 
Just make (or buy) a cable. a stereo unbalanced cable (like the one in an ipod) has three wires, a generally a red, white (or black) and ground (shield). This represent the left, right and the ground (shield) . If you have a 1/8" stereo to a 1/8" stereo plug, just clip one end off and solder on a mono 1/8" connector. You would connect the ground (shield) to the ground of the connector and simply twist the other two wires together and solder it to the pin. Or just buy a cable from radio shack, but making them is much more fun!
 
SoundGuyDave said:
Just make (or buy) a cable. a stereo unbalanced cable (like the one in an ipod) has three wires, a generally a red, white (or black) and ground (shield). This represent the left, right and the ground (shield) . If you have a 1/8" stereo to a 1/8" stereo plug, just clip one end off and solder on a mono 1/8" connector. You would connect the ground (shield) to the ground of the connector and simply twist the other two wires together and solder it to the pin. Or just buy a cable from radio shack, but making them is much more fun!
Click to expand...

The mono 1/8" connector will automatically mix the two audio streams?
 
SoundGuyDave said:
Or just buy a cable from radio shack, but making them is much more fun!
Click to expand...

I agree making cables is more fun than buying them. Plus, when you do that, people think you're a nerd.. which you are for making your own cables. Case in point, I had to make a 3.5mm to RCA cable one time using an RCA cable, a pair of headphones, a pocket knife and some electrical tape. I didnt have time to solder them. It was a lot of fun, and it worked, but people thought I was crazy.
 
I've wondered about mono for a different reason: I sometimes listen to music with just one earphone so that I can hear the world around me with the other.

Most music doesn't matter much but some of the early stereo stuff they mix certain instruments or voices entirely in one channel. So the song sounds really strange when you only hear one side.

So does anyone know if the iPod minds having L and R shorted together? If it does, you could connect the L and R together with some low value resistors (5 to 10 ohms maybe) at the cost of a bit of volume.

Greg
 
Apple should think about giving the option to mono.

However, my ipod goes into the amp with an adapter to a 1/8th, it's normally the huge ones. (1/4th I believe)

So I have the litle 1/8th input cable, and then I put on the 1/4 adapter. I look at The source and see if I can get a cable. Maybe I'll get a better stereo :rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back