So I'm stuck in a rental car for a while and after that it may be a while before I'm fully settled in with whatever I get stuck with enough to actually start doing things like changing out the sound system. The rental's system is particularly awful though with horrible veiling, mids completely recessed into oblivion, and etc to such an extent that even attempting to equalize it closer to neutral has utterly failed to produce tolerable sound. To this end, I came up with the idea to use a simple portable speaker setup with a somewhat spare portable digital amplifier I have on hand. The sound from this is actually fairly tolerable and I've found that it definitely complements the sound system of the car sufficiently to get by. Not perfect by any means, but it will do for now. The only catch is I'm basically having to have just one speaker on it. I'm currently setting it up in the middle so it's almost sort of like a central channel, but it has to be connected to just one side. That amplifier can't be bridged either. If I connect the two outputs from the line output of the dock, then the sound going to the stereo system in parallel to the portable speaker also becomes mono. It would be just plain bad to have it stereo between the stock system and the portable acting as different sides (imagine some of the panning some things do and what that would sound like...)
From googling around, I do have the impression that it is possible to build circuits to convert stereo to mono, but I can't seem to find any actual information still active except a couple of threads here, but really, if I could I would rather adjust at the line level instead of the output -- especially since I'd like to use the same circuit on other things as well more easily -- and at least one response I saw in my googling around said that it could be done (though it linked to a site that has apparently been down for a long time and a page on said site that apparently was never indexed on any service I've tried so far.) Even with the previous threads though I'm still not 100% clear on exactly what I'd need to do anyway. I'd like to keep this simple anyway. Obviously money is a big issue right now, and I'd rather not be ordering parts where it ends up costing $6+ in shipping (funny how those services that actually have things like capacitors, resistors, and etc always charge far more than makes any sense for shipping...) I have tons of old electronics that I never throw away because I can desolder various capacitors, resistors, and etc, so if there's something simple I could do with just parts I could salvage, it would really help.
From googling around, I do have the impression that it is possible to build circuits to convert stereo to mono, but I can't seem to find any actual information still active except a couple of threads here, but really, if I could I would rather adjust at the line level instead of the output -- especially since I'd like to use the same circuit on other things as well more easily -- and at least one response I saw in my googling around said that it could be done (though it linked to a site that has apparently been down for a long time and a page on said site that apparently was never indexed on any service I've tried so far.) Even with the previous threads though I'm still not 100% clear on exactly what I'd need to do anyway. I'd like to keep this simple anyway. Obviously money is a big issue right now, and I'd rather not be ordering parts where it ends up costing $6+ in shipping (funny how those services that actually have things like capacitors, resistors, and etc always charge far more than makes any sense for shipping...) I have tons of old electronics that I never throw away because I can desolder various capacitors, resistors, and etc, so if there's something simple I could do with just parts I could salvage, it would really help.
OK, I'm gonna try and understand.
You have two outputs from the dock. That's left and right, correct? What is the "dock?"
Why can't that line-level signal be sent to the stock system and the DTA-1 again?
It seems like there must be bad connections to change things to mono.
You're changing from the 4-wire output of the source to the 3-wire input of the DTA-1?
The portable speaker only has one speaker, thus mono. It's not bad connections or anything like that. To that end, I want to convert the stereo signal to it to mono so it doesn't just receive audio from one side, missing the sound from the other side. (It also has somewhat of a simple bandpass on it via a leftover inductor and a salvaged capacitor, so in a way it's almost like an actual center channel anyway and it is being placed in the center by virtue of the fact that it's the only decent place I could place it.) However, the same line output is running in parallel another connection to the main system which is stereo and which I want to keep in stereo (eg I can't just connect the two positives or both will end up being mono.)
In particular I'm wondering if I can do something really simple like maybe using a couple of electrolytic capacitors since they're supposed to be polarized to direct the sound together one way, but not the other. Even if so though, I wouldn't have the slightest clue what values to use for such a task...
In particular I'm wondering if I can do something really simple like maybe using a couple of electrolytic capacitors since they're supposed to be polarized to direct the sound together one way, but not the other. Even if so though, I wouldn't have the slightest clue what values to use for such a task...
A. I'm looking for simple. I can't really build a whole amplifier (especially since it also needs basic power filtering too for reasons that should be obvious.)
B. There ARE simpler ways -- if nothing else people have described methods adding to the output from the amp, but I'm not sure if that is safe (eg bridging) or not and I'm not sure exactly what values I'd use with this even if so.
C. I wasn't sure if a capacitor could be used as sort of an AC diode or not (hence asking) as capacitors and their uses are definitely among my electronics weaknesses, however, I do know that they have a lot of properties beyond merely storing energy such as blocking DC current for instance.
B. There ARE simpler ways -- if nothing else people have described methods adding to the output from the amp, but I'm not sure if that is safe (eg bridging) or not and I'm not sure exactly what values I'd use with this even if so.
C. I wasn't sure if a capacitor could be used as sort of an AC diode or not (hence asking) as capacitors and their uses are definitely among my electronics weaknesses, however, I do know that they have a lot of properties beyond merely storing energy such as blocking DC current for instance.
A. There are passive summing circuits. Radio Shack even sells one built into an adapter. I won't guarantee that it's a simple plug-in solution.
B. An isolated summing of the L+R signal. Have a look to see how that is done.
C. Capacitors block DC by storing the energy.
B. An isolated summing of the L+R signal. Have a look to see how that is done.
C. Capacitors block DC by storing the energy.
If you want to convert stereo to mono at line level then in most cases you simply connect the two channels together. Talk of bridging merely introduces confusion. In some cases a pair of equal value resistor can help, but often they are already present in the source.
If you ask a very simple question then people may assume you are really asking a slightly more difficult question and try to answer that instead.
If you ask a very simple question then people may assume you are really asking a slightly more difficult question and try to answer that instead.
That was my intent - search words summing, passive and/or amplifier.
As I said earlier, the answer to your question is similar to the common 2.1 subwoofer connection. I'm confident a circuit can be found with little effort.
I still don't know what the "dock" is.
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