Mono to stereo adaptor for Audio Technica ATR-55
 

http://www.worldofcables.com/store/catalog/40632.jpg

Get this. I was fooling around with my sound cables and I plugged this onto my old ATR55 (which had been collecting dust as a waste of money) and stuck it into my GL1.

3.5mm MONO MALE to 3.5mm STEREO adaptor I had picked up from radio shack for 5 dollars it brought the audio to life. It seems that missing channel was sapping huge amounts of power that wasn't going anywhere. Now sound could be heard just as loud as my onboard microphone.

The ATR55 is no doubt a crappy shotgun mic but with the mono to stereo adaptor it is at least as loud as my on-board microphone.

So if you are stuck with the ATR55 for now and have nothing else, finding this adaptor (or one like it) may give it an extra bit of life.

Cost: $5.10 CAD

Great find, Tom

What's interesting is that the tip of that plug appears to only have two conductors, tip and sleeve.

For proper operation, it should be tip, ring, sleeve.

For the casual observer, don't be fooled into thinking that just any adapter that looks sort of like this will work. I have a bout 3-4 of these. Problem is they all have different configurations. I always have to go through them in an efffort to find the right one.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Adding a note to Ty's comment, I've discovered that various manufacturers might place the insulator separating the tip from the sleeve on a mono TS connector at slightly different distances from the collar at the top of the connector. If you plug it into a jack that expects a TRS plug and it happens to be one of those where the insulator is a little high on the shaft, the jack's ring contact touches the tip of the plug and the result is that the tip and ring in the jack short together. With other plugs whose insulator is a little closer to the tip, the jack's ring contact touches the plug's sleeve instead.