[geeks] Stupid recording engineers

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Wednesday, July 24, 2002 at 10:10:33 (-0400), Joshua D Boyd wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [geeks] Stupid recording engineers
>
> Openingup the volume control on my headphones (whoops, I'll need to
> get a new pair at lunch since I broke the circuit board), I see that
> the mono switch, when on, appears to be just bridging the 2 chanels,
> like:
> 
> Vr --------------
>         |
>       Mono
>      Switch
> 	|
> Vl---------------
> 
> Which actually is a bad way to do it to my understanding, but when on
> it is still a basic summing circuit.  I notice the traces are
> different lengths, but to my understanding that is only an issue for
> radical differences in length, not small differences. 

Very bad for the way you're trying to use it, but exactly correct for
when you plug it into a mono-only source.  It no doubt has a
three-connector phono jack of some size and so when the switch is in the
mono position it doesn't matter which connector (left or right) is
mated by a mono female jack.

> But to get back to the point, from a quick batch of testing other CDs
> (before I broke the headphones that is), none of the others noticebly
> drop instruments when played in mono, so I stand by my suspicion that
> this recording engineer didn't do his job.  The Mandolin sounds like
> it is almost perfectly out of phase between the two chanels.  I
> haven't copied the sound to a .wav file for exact analysis yet though.

Your "tests" are bogus.  Your results are meaningless.  You're futzing
with the output of your player when you cross-connect its channels.
Don't do that.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

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