Mono to stereo?

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Metalhead

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On your sound card basics page you point out that the line and mic input jacks of a typical sound card are both stereo. As you already know, guitar and (some)mic cords are mono. I have been told by a number of people(one an electrical engineer) that it is not a good idea to plug a mono jack into a stereo input, as this causes one of the stereo channels to short to ground. Is there a sound card you would recommend that has a mono line input?
 
See if you can find a two 1/4" mono female to > 1/8" stereo male "pigtail" at radio shack.
 
i guess that's true...but there's no electrical current flowing through the other connection point that's been shorted to ground. If tip is L and ring is R....signal L on the plug is touching the tip inside the jack while ground (no signal) is touching ring. And ground has no signal on it. So I don't think it's harming anything. however, this is just my understanding of electronics...i could be way off.


you should probably look at investing in a quality sound card anyway. and most mid level and beyond ditch the whole 1/8"-1/4" idea for microphones and use XLRs which is better suited for a microphone anyway. Look at www.m-audio.com
 
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