Force Windows XP to output only mono sound

Question

I have the following arrow, composed of a rectangle and a triangle (done by using borders). I'm asking this question because I want to be able to fill the triangle with the a gradient, and currently borders do not support gradients. Is there a way to make an inverse of the style I currently have?

.arrow {
    height: 40px;
    width: 150px;
    background: #4e99b8;
    margin: 20px 0 20px 20px;
    position: relative;
    display: block;
}

.arrow:after {
    content: "";
    position: absolute;
    right: -20px;
    top: 0px;
    border-top: 20px solid transparent;
    border-bottom: 20px solid transparent;
    border-left: 20px solid #4e99b8;

Solution 1

Did you check Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices > Audio > Sound Playback > Advanced ? You can set the speakers to all possible "Mono" choices you might have. Then set the balance to 100% left. That should work.

Solution 2

I tried to mix the two channels and I can't in Windows Media Player or the Control Panel.

But I opened the file with VLC Player and the audio can be changed from the "Audio" menu under "Audio Device"

Solution 3

Go to Control Panel > Sound, double click "Headphones" in the Playback tab.

In the Enhancements tab, check the "Headphone Virtualization".

Solution 4

Try "Virtual Audio Cable":

1. Create virtual line(One will be created after installation)
2. Set it as default sound device
3. Run "Audio Repeater" from VAC folder in start menu.
4. Set your virtual line as "Wave in" and your real audio device as "Wave out".
5. Select Mono for "Chanel config" and click start, it's done!

Note: the mixed mono sound may be directed to LEFT channel only, I think it depends on device. Enjoy.

Solution 5

I know this is an old post but people may still be looking for an answer, and I have found it.

About two or three months ago my left speaker in the laptop died. It did not bother me because most games and music seemed to sound just fine with one speaker. Movies and such usually get routed through the headphone jack to the surround sound system. But today I wanted to listen to a podcast and there was no sound.

Windows volume meter showed there was in fact something playing but it was not coming out the right speaker. I tried playing something else and it played fine. So I figured that the pod cast must be playing only out the left channel. So started my quest, to set windows 7 up to play sound in mono. Going to playback devices and configure for the speaker only had a stereo setting.

I have a realtek driver loaded and nowhere could I find a mono setting. So I finally ended up at the realtek site and downloaded a generic vista/win7 driver. It did not want to install because the driver was not signed. I uninstalled the old driver. I tried again to install the generic driver I had just downloaded without success. So finally I decided not to use the setup.exe and instead double clicked on alcupd.exe (the driver update program).

Success!!!

Only thing is that because I uninstalled the laptops sound driver, I no longer have any of the environment or equalizer settings. Not a big deal for me, If I need them I will just re-install the laptop sound drivers. So I right click on the speaker icon in the taskbar and choose playback devices, then the properties for the headphone. I renamed headphone to Internal Speaker.

Then under enhancements I chose Headphone virtualization. Success, now can hear both the left and right channels on the one good right speaker, with just slightly less volume. I was able to hear my podcast just fine with the new settings.

So I guess "Headphone virtualization" equals Mono sound. Hey it works for me, maybe it will work for you.

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Comments

[Oskar Duveborn]

The ability to go mono in Windows XP was later removed and isn't available in Windows 7, as confirmed by Microsoft Support (not sure about Vista though). But a sound driver can provide it as an added benefit.

[user2357112]

I wish I actually had mono options in that menu.

[tvt173]

The "Virtual Surround" enhancement can also kind of makes the sounds appear in both audio channels, which is handy when a video say only has audio on the left channel.

[bh_earth0]

This doesnt provide the desired result. This copies left to right (and vice versa), but it diminishes volume approx. 80%. now, Uneven volume level is problem . the annoyance level of buggy stereo sound . goes from 100% to 80%. in the end, you are still annoyed .

[Zook]

Didn't work for me, no sound, however it led me to VB-Audio VoiceMeeter, which worked, is free, and has a better UI.