Sum to Mono w/ DPDT

[Dr. Toobz]

I finally got to play around with the mono switch idea, and I took Paul's suggestion of wiring a SPST switch off the pot (being the simplest approach). This worked perfectly! The folded mono has no loss of bass, no loss of depth....and flipping the switch for an actual mono recording does absolutely nothing, so there's clearly no balance or phase issues between channels on my Quickie (or my sources). The mono switch helps immensely with jazz recordings from vinyl, as the surface noise is much less intrusive when folded down.

Thanks for the advice!

[xcortes]

I've had the switch suggested by PJ ín my FP3 for ages. The only drawback is that signal will go to both channels and when I listen in mono I like to listen to one speaker only. The cool thing would be to have another pole that shorted or cut the output of one of the channels.

I hadnkt thought of that so I only disconnect one output. But I like the idea!

[Dr. Toobz]

I do 100% of my listening over headphones these days, as my tiny, thin-walled NJ apartment makes speaker use a dicey proposition. (My Heresy speakers are hooked up, but haven't seen any action since I sold my condo this summer and moved to the coast). So, it was important for me to have the output over both channels, exactly opposite of what might be preferable over speakers!

[Moko]

Could you post up a picture of your mod as I am having the same problem with my mono Jazz albums and your solution sounds relatively easy to do.

I was intending to add a second arm on my deck dedicated to Mono using something like the Ortofon OM25M cartridge so having a mono output on my Quickie would be ideal.

Thanks in advance

[Moko]

I don't know if I have done the modification right, or I am just not getting what the mono switch should do but here's what I did I soldered a wire off Terminal 1 & soldered a different wire off Terminal 5 to a SP/ST switch so no problem there but if I turn the switch on whilst playing a mono LP the sound becomes much quieter & distorted.

However if I try the same thing whilst playing a Stereo LP the volume remains the same & no distortion, but I do lose half the band (like on Beetle's stereo LP's and on Gene Clark I lose all the backing vocals)

So my question is this what I should expect, or have I done something wrong?

Ideally I was trying to lose some of the surface noise on my Mono LP's when using a stereo cartridge (Denon DL103) so maybe a mono cartridge would be a better way to go.

Thanks in advance for any advice/opinions