User avatar
AmigaFox

Posted Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:10 pm

Maybe I'm not looking in the right place, but I noticed when looking at pictures of various Commodore monitors from the Amiga era that none seem to have any inputs for stereo audio only mono. Were all the Commodore monitors mono audio only or were there stereo models as well? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

Thanks

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:14 pm

Technically, yes. I have a 1084S, and the "S" stands for Stereo.

It's just like my 1080, but rather than a single speaker on one side it has two - one on each side of the monitor.

Commodore made several stereo monitors.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:21 pm

To be clear the monitors have the built-in speakers, and they have left/right inputs that match to the machine's output audio ports.

You can also get left/right external speakers that plug into your machine's audio ports to get the same (and probably better) effect.

I said "technically, yes" originally because the way the Amiga outputs stereo sound is a little odd. It's more literally outputting independent left and right channels with no real cross mixing. This is most apparent if you ever decide to use headphones with your Amiga. There is a new product out there that solves this issue (which I've been looking at getting for a while now) called the KA71 made by RastPort.

RastPort:
Amiga sound chip Paula sends two of its four audio channels to stereo left channel, two to the right channel. They are fully separated, which is annoying especially when listening with headphones. KA71 can mix stereo channels at a level adjustable with a knob, from full separation to mono output. It can be also used with computers having monophonic audio, or to mix two computers simultaneously playing parts of the same song. Of course one can also use KA71 as a regular headphone amplifier with smartphones, music players, computers and other sources.


But to the original question, yeah - there were a lot of stereo monitors made by Commodore.

User avatar
AmigaFox

Posted Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:27 pm

Thanks for clearing things up.





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