Stereo Channels and Dual Mono Amplifiers

[Ledbomb]

I have owned my Musical Fidelity KW 500 Dual Mono Integrated Amplifier from new in 2004. The amp and power supply were fully upgraded and modified by John Sampson at JS Audio last year and never sounded better.

The main amp went back of to John last month as the right hand channel output current resistors in the power amplifier (the amp had started to get as hot as hell and was just too hot to even touch briefly, though the sound wasn't affected). Whilst being repaired further Upgrade Work was carried out - both the Pre-amp & Power-amp Power Supplies within the main amp were further upgraded [this was following an issue identified recently by Musical Fidelity themselves]. Also a couple of capacitors in the Input Stage were swapped out. On getting the amp back I was blown away once again.

Anyway here is something that is beginning to bug me more and more as I listen to music using my Dual Mono Integrated amp . Conventionally we plug the left and right hand speaker cables into their respective left and right hand connections as labelled on the back of the amp but is this correct? The more live recording I listen to and the more I am convinced that this possibly isn't correct at all. I have been to numerous live concerts where the lead guitarist stands on the left of the stage (predominantly staying to the left of the band during the majority of a concert) and therefore he is on the right hand side of the band as the audience sees and hears things. However when the live recording is played back that very same guitarist now appears to be standing to the right of the band and the sound coming from the speaker on the left of the room as the listener looks and listens to the speakers. For these live recording to be anything like remotely accurate the channels would need to be swapped around so that guitarists that stand on the left of the band come out of the right hand speaker so as to mirror what was happening at the actual concert from the audiences point of view. Just like looking into a mirror, left is the audiences right and vice-versa.

Your thoughts would be welcomed.

Thanks,

Paul

[Harry Hill]

Easy Paul,

Just put on a test record/CD.
Failing that put on the Thompson Twins "Into the Gap" The "East" female vocal will come from the Right speaker and the "West" female vocal will come from the Left.

Showing my age I know!

Harry.

[Barry]

Assuming you have made the connection to your amplifier from your source correctly (that is, the output from, say, your CD player, the left hand channel is plugged into the left hand CD input on the amplifier and the same for the right hand channel), then the left hand speaker, as seen from your listening position, should be connected to the left hand output and again the same for the right hand speaker.

The terms "left" and "right" are always in relation to the listener or from the audience's perspective.

The best way to check your system polarity is to use a test disc that has channel identification tracks on it. With classical music, the orchestra used to be arranged so that the violins were on the left, but these days this convention is not rigourously adhered to.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Where's the sound of the audience in all this?
Is the audience is laid out in front of you in the near distance of the soundstage, or around and behind you?

[Ledbomb]

I can confirm all connections made between source, DAC, Amp and Speakers are correct as per the labeling on the various components and as evidenced by test discs playing left channel through left speaker (situated to the left of the AMP as you look at it from the front) and right channel through the right hand speaker (situated to the right of the AMP as you look at it from the front).

However with certain commercial live recordings where I know for a fact that the lead guitarist plays to the left of the stage and should therefore feature on the right hand side of the sound-stage he doesn't. Which leads me to the conclusion that certain live recordings, recorded through the mixing desks, have been produced with the left and right channels presented as they were input rather than from the audiences perspective.

[Ali Tait]

Then it's down to the recording engineer. I get the same occasionally watching films with sound through the system.

[Firebottle]

It doesn't surprise me if the channels get swapped sometimes for live recordings.

Does it really matter as long as you enjoy the sound?

Alan

[Oldpinkman]

Assuming you have made the connection to your amplifier from your source correctly (that is, the output from, say, your CD player, the left hand channel is plugged into the left hand CD input on the amplifier and the same for the right hand channel), then the left hand speaker, as seen from your listening position, should be connected to the left hand output and again the same for the right hand speaker.

The terms "left" and "right" are always in relation to the listener or from the audience's perspective.

The best way to check your system polarity is to use a test disc that has channel identification tracks on it. With classical music, the orchestra used to be arranged so that the violins were on the left, but these days this convention is not rigourously adhered to.

wow! perhaps i just have an old classical library. I always rely on the orchestra when I set up, and sue always comments when its wrong. can't recall ever seeing an orchestra with other than a conventional layout. of course I doubt many live recordings use a fixed stereo mike. they are all multimiked and engineers can do what they like in the mix which probably accounts for the "swapped" guitars at the start if this thread. if I think of the live orchestral peter Gabriel concert I have, peters vocals in the mix come from a head mike and he dances all over the stage. no engineer is going to follow him on the faders!

[Macca]

The guitar feed on alive recording will be direct to the desk, same as it is in the studio so the recording can be mixed to put the player anywhere in the soundstage - the only exception will be 'bleed' noise picked up through the vocal/drum/acoustic instrument mikes and this is what gives that spatial feel to a live as opposed to a studio recording. As far as I'm aware, anyway.

[newton]

Where's the sound of the audience in all this?
Is the audience is laid out in front of you in the near distance of the soundstage, or around and behind you?

singer is facing you but audience is in near distance of soundstage.always strikes me as a bit strange.at concerts rarely was audience behind performer