Can the NES output Stereo sound?

[Anthony1]

The last time I had a Nintendo Entertainment System, the year was 1989. I sold my NES and all my NES accessories and games to move on to the TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Genesis. Since 1989, I haven't touched a NES.


Now that I've gone Retro, I obviously have been looking at getting a NES again. My question is, can the NES output Stereo sound, or only mono? I was at a GameCrazy earlier today, looking at one of their used NES systems. I saw on the side of the unit it has one yellow plug for video output, and one red plug for audio output. It also of course has a output for RF. Is there anyway to get stereo sound out of this unit, or did the NES not feature stereo sound?

I would use the yellow plug (composite/rca video plug) for my video signal, to send to the TV. But what about the audio? I guess I could get an adapter from Radio Shack that would take the mono audio output and make it play out of both speakers.

Any insight into any of this would be appreciated. Thanks.

[rbudrick]

Yes, but it requires an internal modification...darn...can't find the link right now. CHris Covell used to have it on his site I think...


-Rob

[Anonymous]

The homebrew game "SKELETON!" for the atari2600 has stereo sound through the RF out. I still can't figure out how they did that, or why games today don't have stereo sound through the RF unit.

[omnedon]

I guess I could get an adapter from Radio Shack that would take the mono audio output and make it play out of both speakers.

that's what i do. it's quite good, but monaural.

[YoshiM]

Like Omnedon said, you can get the little Y splitter (single RCA Female to two RCA Males) so you get both channels going. But no the NES is not capable of "true" stereo sound-like hearing a bullet move from the left speaker and have it phase through and out the right speaker.

There was a controller for the NES that allowed you to hook headphones to it so you can hear the games in "stereo" sound. Can't remember who made it but I think is was mostly brown in color. I remember seeing it by Dino Riki ads all the time.

[Tom61]

As stated earlier, the NES does not output true two-channel sound, but there is a mod to get 'neat effect' on two speakers:

http://www.zyx.com/chrisc/nesstereo.html

[wberdan]

plug in a rca jack splitter and run it to your stereo... then if you must have simulated stereo (it will always be simulated, because the nes was only meant to output mono) hook it to a reciever and feed it a goofy delay or something... that will do the trick.

willie

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Everything outputs in stereo at my house. Mainly because I run it through a Realistic reverb unit and pump it out through surround speakers. The effect's actually pretty neat.

[TRM]

The controller we are talking about is named the Sansui SSS Joycard, made by Hudson Soft. I have one but never used it so I'm not sure how good it is...

[Tetsu]

My NES has stereo, kind of. I performed the mod in the link above and it sounds great. Even put the potentiometers in there, so the level of mixing can be adjusted. True to the lore on the site, you can make the walls shake with a certain adjustment to the pots. It sounds pretty neat: bass and triangle on one speaker, noise and treble sounds on the other.