Can a mono mic record "stereo"?

[Derek Heeps]

Originally Posted by Greg Miller

If you actually bought some 1/8" jacks, you will have a hard time plugging in any modern equipment. Modern connectors are 3.5mm; 1/8" is 3.175mm. Not sure when the actual change occured, but I tried plugging some really old (1960s vintage) plugs (which are truly 1/8") into a modern 3.5mm jack, and the fit was so loose that the connection was intermittent. Obviously a sinister conspiracy on the part of the metric countries...

Interesting the different terminology used in various places :)

I have long been used to 1/4" Jack plugs , both mono and stereo alongside GPO jacks , which look somewhat similar and are used in patch bays , but are not interchangeable .

Then there are 3.5mm mini jack plugs , again mono or stereo ( 2 or 3 pole ) but I have never heard them referred to as 1/8" !

We also have 2.5mm micro jack plugs which are used for LANC connectors on some equipment and can have 2 or 3 poles .

I know some call jack plugs phone plugs as they are the origin of GPO jacks and come with various pole configurations ; and there are phono plugs , used in audio equipment , sometimes called RCA jacks .

Why can't everyone speak the same language ? :)

[Greg Miller]

Here in the US, a plug is male, a jack is female. When training college kids, I always told them, "Jack is not male" and they could remember that. I think "jack plug" is a British terminology... maybe some confusion about gender across the pond.

In addition to the standard 1/4", there was also a 3/16" diameter size, although I can't recall where it was used. And we also had the "switchboard" style, with a 1/4" diameter sleeve, but different dimensions for the tip (and perhaps for the ring) so that they wouldn't mate properly with 1/4" "phone" connectors. I've encountered some 1/4" patch panels that used the standard audio dimensional connectors, and other panels that used the "switchboard" dimensional connectors.

The 1/8" size was original, back in the 1960s and perhaps into the '70s. I don't know when the transition started, or when it ended, but everything now is 3.5mm. And I don't know when the term "mini" began, but it seems to be interchangeable with 3.5mm these days.

And this is nothing compared to the massive clusterbleep of SMA connectors: plugs, jacks, male, female, normal, and reverse. Even consulting spec sheets from different manufacturers does not give a uniform picture of this terminology. The only sure thing is that nothing mates with anything else.