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Stereo-Mono Adapters?

I wish to plug a mono 6.3mm cable from my shotgun mic (camcorder microphone) into a 3.5mm stereo camera. Do adapters work in reverse (converting mono to stereo or stereo to mono depending on where the sound is coming from)? If not, will the following item on ebay convert my mono microphone into a stereo sound that will then be plugged into the camera? It says that it is "Used for adapting a male 3.5mm Stereo plug to a female 6.3mm Mono jack" but does that mean the sound source must come from the 3.5mm plug or can the input actually be from the 6.3mm mono sound I will be plugging into the adapter. Thanks. It is a HTDZ HT-81 shotgun microphone that I need to plug into a 3.5mm stereo socket on my Canon vixia HF10.

Public Comments

1. Please don't confuse mono/stereo with balanced/unbalanced mic connections. And you did not tell us anything (need manufacturer and model number information) about the camcorder or the mic... The BEST, most effective, fool-proof way to use a balanced, XLR based mic with a consumer-grade, 1/8" (3.5mm) unbalanced audio-in jack is to use an XLR adapter. I use the juicedLink CX231 or BeachTek DXA-6. They match the impedance requirements and also provide for manual audio gain control. There are XLR (mic) to 1/8" TRS cable-tail adapters that can work but I do not recommend them because the little 1/8" (3.5mm) plug into the camcorder gets stressed - and I've seen them break off in the camcorder... and then you have a whole different set of problems. Generally speaking, if you are able to get the cable-tail method to work, only one channel will record - right side, I think. You can use an audio manipulation tool like Audacity to clone the audio on that one channel and copy it over to the other channel. Some folks will off-set that audio by a single frame so it sounds "fuller" but not echo. You can do the same thing if your video editing application allows for multiple audio tracks (like Final Cut or Vegas). The other advantage to the XLR adapters is even if you plug a single mic into one channel, just flip the Mono/Stereo switch to mono and both channels will be recorded with the same audio.