Years ago Data East put a headphone accessory on games at the ACME show in Reno. It was called "Hear It" and was supplied be Incredible Technologies. It had two channel, stereo, output that could be combined into "Mono".
One method was to use an audio transformer arrangement, from "Radio Shack", attached to the speaker output and the other was a direct connect to the audio pot. The board has two audio amps, LM386, and a volume pot.
I have attached the schematic for it.
See images.
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