Anyone here addicted to MONO pressings?

[vintagesteve]

There is real soundstage in mono it's caused by room interaction. Unless you listen outside or in an anechoic chamber. Place your speaker(s) well and it's great.

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ANY soundstage that's caused by room interaction is 'accidental' and could just as easily be good or bad. It's different frequencies bouncing around off various walls and objects before reaching our ears. Unless you're a 100% mono man, the speakers should be optimised for best stereo listening. Well, unless you want to make adjustments to them each time you listen, not always easy with spikes etc.

Mono recordings can sound excellent fidelity wise, no doubting that. But as for a soundstage - and by sound stage I mean left to right stereo mixing/panning (that's what differentiates stereo and mono, and defines stereo) - quite simply there isn't one! As for soundstage 'depth' then that's just the different recorded levels of different instruments and voices to achieve the correct balance of them as decided by the artist(s) and or producer, aka 'the mix'. If one appears to be 'behind' another, then that's simply because it was mixed to be quieter. Mono recordings do not have a soundstage of any description.

[Clive]

ANY soundstage that's caused by room interaction is 'accidental' and could just as easily be good or bad. It's different frequencies bouncing around off various walls and objects before reaching our ears. Unless you're a 100% mono man, the speakers should be optimised for best stereo listening. Well, unless you want to make adjustments to them each time you listen, not always easy with spikes etc.

Mono recordings can sound excellent fidelity wise, no doubting that. But as for a soundstage - and by sound stage I mean left to right stereo mixing/panning (that's what differentiates stereo and mono, and defines stereo) - quite simply there isn't one! As for soundstage 'depth' then that's just the different recorded levels of different instruments and voices to achieve the correct balance of them as decided by the artist(s) and or producer, aka 'the mix'. If one appears to be 'behind' another, then that's simply because it was mixed to be quieter. Mono recordings do not have a soundstage of any description.

When listening with two speakers I get a soundstage. Sure it's about half the width of stereo and doesn't reach the speakers but it covers 2/3rds the distance between the speakers. It is a sounstage akin to a live performance.

[struth]

Always found an intimacy about mono recordings in comparison to their stereo counterparts

[montesquieu]

ANY soundstage that's caused by room interaction is 'accidental' and could just as easily be good or bad. It's different frequencies bouncing around off various walls and objects before reaching our ears. Unless you're a 100% mono man, the speakers should be optimised for best stereo listening. Well, unless you want to make adjustments to them each time you listen, not always easy with spikes etc.

Mono recordings can sound excellent fidelity wise, no doubting that. But as for a soundstage - and by sound stage I mean left to right stereo mixing/panning (that's what differentiates stereo and mono, and defines stereo) - quite simply there isn't one! As for soundstage 'depth' then that's just the different recorded levels of different instruments and voices to achieve the correct balance of them as decided by the artist(s) and or producer, aka 'the mix'. If one appears to be 'behind' another, then that's simply because it was mixed to be quieter. Mono recordings do not have a soundstage of any description.

Sorry mate but I think you are completely wrong here. Any soundstage, stereo or mono, is a psycho-acoustic effect generated in the brain of the listener - for sure impacted by room conditions but not a direct product of them.

Our brain makes sense of auditory response to generate an image. To a significant extent, it’s a work of imagination. There are people who don’t hear a stereo soundstage because they aren’t aware of what they should be hearing - in effect, it comes with practice - thought clearly having an active imagination helps! (The width of this image when using two speakers with a mono signal hugely helps the brain in this regard - the width and height allows the brain to 'place' elements of the music around the space).

You also dismiss depth as a soundstage element focusing only the L-R pan effect. Back to front placement is of course done at the desk through manipulation of relative volume - there’s no other way to do it - but it’s absolutely a crucial element of soundstage and can be very convincing. L-R pan (also done through manipulation of relative volume, in this case of a signal between channels) is pretty artificial too, in many ways, but our brain accepts it as real. With a well-mastered recording and a well set up system, the brain can even construct height as part of the soundstage - something the electrical signal doesn't capture at all. In an orchestral recording we generally hear horns and trumpets high up at the back - that's because the recording prompts us to hear them that way, through left to right and back to front placement, but we hear them as high up too because we know that's where they should be!

As others have said in many ways listening in mono is more like the experience of a real performance where unless you are at St Mark’s Cathedral in Venice - with trumpeters and singers distributed round high balconies - the performance generally happens ‘in front’ - this struck me quite forcefully at a recent chamber concert and previously at jazz gigs.

Anyway if you don’t hear this it’s likely your preconceptions are stopping your brain from giving you the full mono experience. Which is a shame.

[walpurgis]

Should mono sound just as good if one ear is covered?

[montesquieu]

Should mono sound just as good if one ear is covered?

Don't know about you but I need both ears working before I can enjoy music properly.

Always found an intimacy about mono recordings in comparison to their stereo counterparts

Absolutely agree with this.

[walpurgis]

Don't know about you but I need both ears working before I can enjoy music properly

I know what you mean, but it was actually a serious question. Being hearing impaired in one ear, the thought arose. We have two ears in order to sense direcional information, but mono sound, as opposed to stereo has no directional information, just a single source.

[montesquieu]

I know what you mean, but it was actually a serious question. Being hearing impaired in one ear, the thought arose. We have two ears in order to sense direcional information, but mono sound, as opposed to stereo has no directional information, just a single source.

Interesting point. We have evolved with two ears and that's why the brain does what it does with what the nerve endings inside them picks up - hearing actually happens inside the brain, in response to sensory input at the ears. It's my view that to as great an extent as it can, the brain will try to compensate and make 3D sense of what it's hearing.

[struth]

The best mono Ive heard was blind willie mctell on bluesville. i sold it to barry, and kept the slightly inferior stereo version. surprising how good some of them are

[scotty38]

Might be a dumb question but one that has just occurred to me....

I think it's accepted that it's ok to play old mono records with stereo equipment (cartridge) but for best results a mono cartridge is recommended, Vice versa is a no no.

But, my question is, with the recent new releases of mono mixes, for example Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn, do they still need mono gear to be best appreciated or not ie are they cut as a stereo record but just with mono info?