mono headphones?
January 23, 2015 12:08 AM   Subscribe

I'm 100% deaf in my right ear, with normal hearing in my left. Listening to music through headphones is problematic since many songs are mixed for left and right and I either get too much vocals or not enough at all. Turns out some audiobooks/plays are worse, with one cast member's voice left and one right. I listen to things on both Android phone and iPad, and would not like to re-edit audio files. Would headphones solve this? Are there any decent ones that turn stereo into mono for under $100?
posted by nerdcore to Technology (18 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
You can do this in software on your iPad! Go to settings, then Accessibility and there is a mono setting. I'd be amazed if Android doesn't have a similar option.
posted by chrispy108 at 12:17 AM on January 23, 2015 [8 favorites]


In the iPad, go to 'Settings'/'General'/'Accessibility' then under 'Hearing' select 'Mono Audio'.

No new headphones required.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 12:41 AM on January 23, 2015 [4 favorites]


Nthing that anything should be able to do this in software. Failing that, it's trivial to rewire any pair of headphones.
posted by turkeyphant at 12:43 AM on January 23, 2015




It may help if you can specify which Android phone you have, and which version of Android you are using. Settings vary because different manufacturers apply different UIs.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 12:45 AM on January 23, 2015


Response by poster: I am actually looking for headphones as I do not have any currently. I also listen to music on my home and work computers, and plan to upgrade phones in like 2 months. Perhaps I am wrong in thinking that headphones are the solution, but it seems like a good place to start rather than settings on multiple devices all running different OSes.
posted by nerdcore at 1:21 AM on January 23, 2015


There's an adaptor for you! Search or ask in a shop for a 3.5mm stereo to mono adaptor, and pick one that seems unobtrusive and durable. No software problems, ever.
posted by lokta at 2:20 AM on January 23, 2015 [12 favorites]


One Good Earphones do exactly this and are well under $100. I have no idea about their quality, but they'll do what you want without adapters or rewiring or having something pointlessly stuck in your compromised ear.
posted by buxtonbluecat at 4:29 AM on January 23, 2015 [10 favorites]


It's easy enough to mod headphones like this with minimal tinkering - just cut the cable and rewire so both the tip and middle ring of the plug connect to the left earpiece. Easiest on sets with a pair of wires connecting the plug to the 'phones, and on older sets that have thicker wires.

It's basically the same as a stereo to mono adapter, but built into the wiring of your headphones. Maybe try it on a cheap set first!

If you don't have the tools (soldering iron, multi-meter) or experience to feel confident trying this at home, you might get in touch with your local makerspace. If, as your profile suggests, you're in Santa Rosa, that would probably be Chimera in Sebastopol. (Sonoma County has gotten more awesome since I moved away!) Or try contacting one of the local high schools that has a makerspace program. Or memail me, and I can try to connect you with the makerspace folks at the school where my mom teaches.

I've done this for cycling - only in environments with very low traffic! I cut the headphones in half and temporarily attached them to my helmet. Leaves one ear free to listen for the rare car or passing cyclist.
posted by sibilatorix at 4:47 AM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


There's an adaptor for you! Search or ask in a shop for a 3.5mm stereo to mono adaptor, and pick one that seems unobtrusive and durable.
I think you'll want two adapters though, because the phones and the source are both stereo. One adapter is stereo plug to mono jack, and the other is mono plug to stereo jack, all 3.5mm. Mono plug goes into mono jack, stereo plug goes into your audio source, and your headphones plug into the stereo jack.
posted by in278s at 4:53 AM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


cut the cable and rewire so both the tip and middle ring of the plug connect to the left earpiece.

Wiring phones this way means that you get two amplifier output channels fighting each other, which can lead to audible distortion. You get much, much cleaner results from doing the stereo to mono mix in software with the OS setting designed for that purpose.
posted by flabdablet at 6:11 AM on January 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


The stereo to mono adapter sums the audio channels and outputs to a single channel. If you plug a stereo headphone into it, you'll only get sound in the left channel (which I guess is fine if you're deaf in your right ear). If you use a mono-stereo adapter, it copies the mono channel from the first adapter to both channels.
posted by empath at 7:43 AM on January 23, 2015 [3 favorites]


By the way, mixing sound channels in this way can cause weird audio problems because of phasing. If signals are out of phase between channels, it may cancel each other out, and if they're in phase, it can boost the volume to the point where you get clipping and distortion. Usually the latter is more of a problem than the former. For stuff that's generally mixed to the center like audio books, it's probably better not to use the adapter.
posted by empath at 7:46 AM on January 23, 2015


I think you'll want two adapters though, because the phones and the source are both stereo.

You can plug stereo headphones into a mono jack, but you will only get sound in one ear (the left!). So that should be just fine. If you had problems with your left ear, you could use a mono-stereo jack and then you would get sound in both ears.

The first review of this adapter talks about this.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 7:58 AM on January 23, 2015


Or exactly what I missed empath saying.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 7:59 AM on January 23, 2015


You can go to RadioShack and buy an adapter that converts stereo to Mono.
Just look at the "rings" on the 3.5mm jack. the Male one should one have 2 while the female part takes the regular 3 or 4 ring plug from any headset.
posted by Mac-Expert at 10:00 AM on January 23, 2015


Mono to stereo is easy. Stereo to mono is a little trickier.

Stereo to mono adapters should properly sum the two stereo signals via resisistive loads (at the very least). Simply wiring Left and Right together might work, but there's a risk of the two power output amplifiers driving each other in weird ways, or even possibly cause damage, depending on the circuit architecture.

It's not clear to me that the little stereo-to-mono adapters do this. It seems weird that they would not, but then again, it's very possible that these may not be very well thought out, bad hack job-level devices.

I have made simple passive adapters before. It wasn't hard, but does involve some minor skills. The tip and ring of the male connector each have their own resistor, (I'd try 1k Ohm) soldered to their soldering points. Each resistor now has a free lead. Those leads get soldered together, and connected to the tip and ring soldering points of the female connector. Any regular headphone/earbuds can now be used with mono audio routed to both earpieces.

If you have the right parts, it may be possible to wire all this stuff inside a single adapter. I've done this before with an existing stereo extension cord, cutting the cable and rewiring the cable to an empty appropriately gendered connector with the resistors inside. FWIW, I've done this a couple times to use an mp3 player through a musical instrument amp as a makeshift PA/loudspeaker system. Works fine.

Also, phasing problems would be a really weird problem to have with a three conductor stereo connector. A summing circuit like I describe would have no phasing problem other than phasing problems already engineered into the recording. They would be the same problems you'd have listening to the source material through a mono FM radio. I've never encountered this as an actual problem. At worst, a stereo effect involving phase differences between Left and Right would simply not have much effect. FWIW, it's possible to have phasing problems with two channel stereo (four conductors such as two RCA jacks), wired incorrectly. Not an issue with three conductor headphone jacks.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:40 AM on January 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


Thinking about it a little more, driving headphones, you'd probably want significantly smaller value resistors. The 1 kOhm I mentioned was for driving a relatively high impedance input, not a headphone speaker.

Hard to pin down a value exactly, but I'd say probably closer to the impedance value of the headphones being used, but probably not less, to be safe. There will probably be volume loss to some extent.
posted by 2N2222 at 12:07 PM on January 23, 2015


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