Hit again,

This would probably be your best bet!

Feed the output to the left and right inputs of the RAT1(two 'mono' feeds in a sense!) and it will work just fine.




Whats the retail on this piece?

Here is your solution. This is a summing volume control. Stereo in mono out.
[Link: audioplex.com]

Stereo isn't really helpful, as mentioned, in background situations, or where you are moving around. Single-stereo speakers put out both channels from one small circle. This is, physically, mono, even though the two channels are separated electronically. But it is not worth retro-wiring and changing speakers to do this. This allows you to have mono sound where you only have one amp and it makes sense for some locations to be in stereo. For mono, make the stereo into mono before this.

I am skeptical about any approach that mixes the outputs of two power amplifier channels, which is what both Audioplex devices do (I also still haven't found a place for that Audioplex "plsma-proof" IR sensor that worked everywhere except in a room with a plasma, so pardon my general skepticism about their technical stretches). If you connect the channels together right at the power amp, it will shut down or blow up. If you do it after a matching device of some sort, whether switch box with amp protection or impedance matching volume control, then the effect on the amp will be lessened by that circuitry. It might still cause damage to the amp in the long run. The only bulletproof approach is to make the signal mono before the power amp.

This has one challenge, too -- be sure that when you make the signal mono, it doesn't make the source into a mono source.

If you were to come out of a CD player with analog cables and use Y cables to make the signal mono, that would work for the house signal. If you fed it only to the house system, well, great. But if you also Y-ed it to the main system, then you wouldn't have stereo CD music in your main listening area.

If you doh't have a zone 2 out, you can take a Tape Rec out signal for your line level house system feed. But if you connect these directly together, that might make the signal back inside the amp into mono, too. If you have a zone 2 out, you can just Y the signals together...but I would still do a listening test to be sure this monofication didn't back up into the main two channels of the unit.

The solution is either the RDL piece, or a bit of simple (but irritating because it always takes too long) construction, where you take each channel's output, put a 5.1k to 10K resistor in series with it, then tie together the outputs of the resistors. The resistors keep the channels separate in the signal source itself; 10K might attenuate the signal a bit, but it should still work well.

Here's some crude artwork. The right sides of the 10ks are connected together. I used to make these fast, although they looked crude, by soldering it all together and wrapping it with heat shrink.

left channel--->-------10 k resistor---->--------
right channel-->------10 k resistor---->---------combine--------- mono signal

Hitagain,

You have 3 patios pretty much in the same areas? If so, check to see whether you're wired in a matrix. In other words, if you're between gazebo's make sure you are hearing stereo. Speakers in phase will produce bass. One out of phase channel will cancel sound pressure of the other and kill bass entirely - making what you have sound like the common Bose system.

That being checked, much can be accomplished by moving the existing speakers into more strategic locations. In outdoor areas, I prefer to mount speakers at ground level and in some instances even reflecting them off of hard objects like the walls, rocks and fences. If the speakers are at ear level, there is only one sweet spot amidst many noisy and single channel spots - too loud for conversation and distracting from the ambiance or atmosphere.

It might seem funny, but when I'm spec'ing an outdoor system, I will walk the most used path from one end to the other while humming, imagining where I can tuck speakers in to keep an uncut flow of music. I walk it after I'm done to give it the tweek as well. You might walk it and take note where you'd can get a better flow.

About $36