Help me Sort this technical question??!!

[rockabilly1955]

what is the difference between mono inputs and stereo inputs?? I always thought that if something is mono, the sound would only come out of either the left or right side/speaker?? and is mono/stereo the same thing as unbalanced/balanced?? what would happen if you use a balanced cable in a unbalanced input jack?? Line inputs are mono or stereo?? yes...........i am a newbie

 

[c7sus]

An example of a mono input is a guitar amp. You have one source going into a single channel amplifier.

Stereo inputs are routed to two seperate amplifiers, one left and one right.

You can place a mono signal anywhere in the L-R stereo field with panning.

Line inputs can be balanced or unbalanced. So can line outputs. Most mic preamps have balanced inputs and outputs. A home cassette deck or CD player will have unbalanced outputs.

Sometimes using a balanced cable into an unbalanced input can cause problems. Like with battery-powered stomp boxes. Most times though it's not an issue.

Mono and stereo are different than balanced/unbalanced. Your computer most likely has an 1/8" stereo output. It's stereo but unbalanced. Higher-quality soundcards will have balanced inputs and outputs. The advantage of having a balanced circuit is noise cancellation. Balancing allows you to run a longer cable than you could with an unbalanced circuit and have less noise at higher gain.

 

[rockabilly1955]

ok, its makin sense now. So would a "line" input be able to be panned center, left or right like a mono input?? and if a mixer has a channel that has left and right 1/4 inputs, would just plugging an instrument into the left input make it mono?? or only if that mixer channel specifically has that option??

 

[Halion]

"Line" is just a standard for the volume level of a signal. It exists so that a piece of equipment will know how loud the signal is that it is recieving.

Any 1 signal is mono. If you send a mono signal to a channel on a mixer (like plugin in a microphone, or a guitar) it is send to the master output, which is probably stereo. What is done there is simply sending this one (mono) signal to both left and right of the master stereo output. This is still mono, however you can now connect multiple speakers / hardware devices to the mixer and still have signal on both the left and the right side.

The pan knob allows you to place a mono signal somewhere within a stereo field. All this does it turn up one side of the master stereo out for that mono channel, making it sound more to one side.