Steve House |
August 2nd, 2005 05:39 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephanie Wilson
Steve,
I think I know what you're describing but I don't have the guts to respond. But if you are interested in a friendly, fun and intellectual challange, I'll hook you up with the smartest engineer in Los Angeles. He's a great guy and I'm sure you will appreciate each other's intellect.
And most importantly, it may help to educate us all. Look forward to your positive post,
Steph
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Always nice to meet new folks. Was just gently correcting you where you said the ring of a TRS connector was "the only way to accept a ground" when in fact it is only grounded in a couple of special circumstances, namely when making up a balanced-to-unbalanced adapter and even then not always, sometimes it's not connected at all. If the TRS is used for a stereo signal such as a pair of headphones the ring carries the right channel signal while if it is used for a balanced mono mic or line level connection instead of an XLR connector it carries the "cold" side of the signal.
A lot of stereo consumer devices like cassette recorders etc, and I'd think that would include a lot of consumer camcorders, have a mic connector that can accept a "stereo" mic. A true stereo mic, two regular regular mic elements in the same handle, is wired like the headphones mentioned earlier with the left mic going to the tip and the right mic going to the ring, both sharing a common ground through the sleeve. A MONO mike intended to be plugged into such a device, which some manufacturers might actually label a "stereo mic", has only one capsule and thus one signal line plus ground. Since we'd usually want to record the same mono signal on both the left and right channels in the recorder, the mic might have a TRS connector that has the tip and ring connected together and so both are connected to the same signal. That way the mono signal is divided at the jack and goes equally to the left and right channels in the recorder. A lot of mics that come with computer soundcards or on computer headsets are wired this way. Over the years I've accumulated a pile of them and when I checked with a multimeter that's how they were all set up
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