[Sinbios]

Ok, so I have two sources, and one jack, which my phones plug into. I want each channel on the phone to play one source. To do this, I hacked up a cable with the left channel going into the source's left channel, and the right channel to the other source's right channel, and then tied both grounds to the jack's ground. Now, when I have only one source playing, stuff comes out of the other channel, too. I gather that this is because I have shorted the grounds of the source together.

Now, my question is, is this safe to do? Would it damage the circuitry in the sources? Is there some way to eliminate this?

 

[Garbz]

ground is ground. They are all designed to short together. Something's not right.

 

[bhjazz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz ground is ground. They are all designed to short together. Something's not right.

I'll vote for that. Hack it up and start over, my friend!
I would connect source 1 both left and right,
send some left and right test tones to check,
connect source 2 both left and right,
send some left and right test tones from that to check,
then carefully disconnect one right and one left channel.

Yeah, lots of stop gaps in between. Let us know how it goes!

 

[JahJahBinks]

Ground is a relatively voltage level if it's not referring to the earth ground. So ground on the two sources might not be the same.

 

[Garbz]

but the mere act of hooking them together would not give the above problem. As far as the above devices are concerned once the virtual grounds are linked together one is driving one channel and the other is driving the other. There should be no leakage from one device into the other.

Check to make sure that you didn't swap signal and ground on one or both of the units.

 

[Sinbios]

I tested and retested the connections, and couldn't find a short anywhere. Could anyone hack up a quick cable to confirm this?

 

[Garbz]

no need to hack up a quick cable. I have a 3.5mm to 2x RCA. WHen I plug one side into a different source I get mono sound from each separate speaker. But never the same sound from both.

 

[Sinbios]

What if you mute one source and blast the other one? The sound I'm getting from the other channel is quite a bit quieter...

 

[Garbz]

If I mute one source there's sound coming from one speaker only. What you are describing is called crosstalk where one channel leaks into the other. This may be less noticable when both channels are running but is constant. It should definitly not turn it into a dual mono when one source is muted. It's the same thing as unplugging an RCA jack from a Hifi, You should loose the channel not simply get mono sound.

 

[Sinbios]

Yeah, I should have said that there's only like a quarter of the volume out of the channel that's not supposed to be playing.