Anyone here addicted to MONO pressings?

[Wakefield Turntables]

I've finally managed to get a decent MONO setup that I'm happy with. I must admit to being astonished by just how good a decent MONO pressing can sound. Some sound dire but most have an impressive depth and width to the soundstage. I'm now actually hunting out MONO pressings to explore and enjoy this area of vinyl reproduction.

[mr shovel]

I dont know the details but i once heard a very nice recording of Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis recorded in mono (1950s i think).

Anyone know a likely candidate for the conductor etc?

Could be 1946 Barbirolli? (on YouTube)

[oceanobsession]

mono pressings on the steamboat label can sound great frank Sinatra and Peggy lee for starters .

[vintagesteve]

Mono recordings by their very definition and nature cannot present a soundstage as all instruments and voices are coming from the same point; a single speaker.

[Ammonite Audio]

Mono recordings by their very definition and nature cannot present a soundstage as all instruments and voices are coming from the same point; a single speaker.

Yes, but with a good true mono setup, the 'soundstage' is actually rather like what you'd experience at an actual concert. I find that when playing mono, the lack of stereo effects means that I am more drawn into the musical performance, rather than distracted by 'imaging' etc. On top of that, the brain soon fills in and creates its own soundstage. Until I started using a Miyajima Zero mono cartridge, I never realised how good mono can be, and like Andrew found myself scouring the local second hand record store for more mono recordings, some of which have turned out to be complete gems.

[vintagesteve]

Yes, but with a good true mono setup, the 'soundstage' is actually rather like what you'd experience at an actual concert. I find that when playing mono, the lack of stereo effects means that I am more drawn into the musical performance, rather than distracted by 'imaging' etc. On top of that, the brain soon fills in and creates its own soundstage. Until I started using a Miyajima Zero mono cartridge, I never realised how good mono can be, and like Andrew found myself scouring the local second hand record store for more mono recordings, some of which have turned out to be complete gems.

I'm not knocking mono by the way, I love vintage audio and all that it entails, long may it live and be enjoyed. But as you say, any soundstage in mono is all in the mind.

[jandl100]

I find that mono works best on headphones.

Coincidentally, I am currently listening to a 1942 recording of Bruckner's 5th symphony on headphones and it sounds great! :)

[speedracer]

Yes, me too. It is a fairly recent discovery for me; obviously I knew about mono pressings but until I heard some examples played on a good system I had no idea what they could bring to the party so to speak.
In fact I had another turntable made specifically for mono records so I don't have to keep changing cartridges all the time, my Lenco GL75, & even with a fairly lowly AT/MONO3/LP it sounds glorious. I marvel at the sound that can be achieved, the vibrancy, excitement, the get up & go, the fun, the feeling it is happening right there in front of you. I only had around 10 mono LP's when I commissioned the Lenco, now more like 50 & growing all the time. It is expensive too, I currently have a Lyra Helikon mono cart on loan & the Lenco has upped its game by quite a substantial leap, as I suppose it should given it's price tag, so I am doing my best to find the pennies to keep it here!

[Lee Henley]

Ive been fortunate to compare original mono Bluenote pressings with stereo pressings of the same album, in my opinion the mono wins hands down, with the stereo mix you tend to have the drum kit the size of the soundstage, ie cymbals coming out of each speaker which can detract from the listening experience. The mono mix has the drum kit scaled correctly. You also get a better depth of soundstage with the mono mix and the presentation is far more holographic.

If I had the choice when buying used vinyl Id buy the mono version everytime over the stereo version

[montesquieu]

Mono recordings by their very definition and nature cannot present a soundstage as all instruments and voices are coming from the same point; a single speaker.

Well-recorded, well-reproduced mono has a back to front soundstage that is as realistic as anything in stereo. If you haven't heard that then you haven't come close to hearing what mono is capable of. Of course mono soundstage happens in the mind, it's the mind that constructs stereo soundstage too. Interestingly I find using two speakers to reproduce mono gives the mind a lot more to play with, with all the parts resolving on a much larger canvas - it's almost as if mono doesn't really come to life with a single speaker.

There's are quite a few threads on here about mono, I reckon 20-25% of my 4000 or so LPs are mono and I have the kit to reproduce them to the point where they sound fantastic. As Hugo says, a mono soundstage is rather more like a real concert than stereo reproduction, which is far less natural if you compare directly.

The legendary record producer and impressario Walter Legge (responsible for finding and bringing to prominence some of the finest classical artists of the 20th century including Elizabeth Schwartzkopf - who later became his wife - Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, Maria Callas, Carlo Maria Giulini, and Herbert von Karajan) resisted stereo for years as he felt it was a gimmick that detracted from the experience of the performance. And I kind of agree with him, after a night of mono I go back to stereo and I do wonder whether it really adds very much to musical enjoyment. Certainly the art of recording, producing and mastering realistic front to back spatial information has largely been lost over the years and now panning left to right is, for the most part, all we have - who says that's really any better? It's certainly not any more natural in terms of capturing a performance, though we can all appreciate the 'hifi' aspect of it.

It's not just classical ... many albums from the golden years of jazz, which co-incided with the early decades of the LP from the late 40s through to the early 60s, are mono and do a wonderful job in capturing every nuance of performance as well as the acoustics of the recording space. Of course with these early LPs there's more to playing them back than sticking a record on with a normal stereo cartridge and expecting things to work - the groove width and shape were different, and equalisation wasn't standardised on RIAA officially till the late 1950s (and in practice, till the mid 60s) so to hear them at their best you need not only appropriate mono cartridges for playback, but also an adjustable phono stage.

Thin, weird sounding, letterbox mono is an artifact of poor reproduction. Properly reproduced mono is far from 'quaint' or 'vintage' - it can be a really vibrant and expansive, room-filling experience.

[Ammonite Audio]

I knew Tom would put it rather better than I could!

[jandl100]

Why has this thread been moved to Analogue Art?
You can get mono recordings in digital as well. I've been listening to some streamed today. :)

[montesquieu]

Why has this thread been moved to Analogue Art?
You can get mono recordings in digital as well. I've been listening to some streamed today. :)

Some wonderful digital mono, I agree. I've picked up a few wonderful 78 transcriptions on digital lately, Andrew Rose of Pristine Classics is working some real magic with them. I have a spectacularly good recording of Thibauld and Cortot playing the Beethoven Kreuzer sonata from 1929 that sounds like something at least mid-century. I buy on CD rather than download (the CDs are cut to order).

Having said that there was a time when mono transferred onto CD tended to be done pretty badly - I think in the late 80s and 90s the skills of doing decent transcriptions were largely lost. Thankfully though a new generation has come through that really understands both the strengths and needs of the originals, with access to some pretty incredible digital tools.

[alphaGT]

Ammonite, perhaps your mono sounds spectacular because you’re listening to it with a Miyajima Zero? That is a pretty amazing cartridge! I imagine everything that comes through it sounds fairly decent!

I recall as a boy, when I first started reading stereo magazines, seeing pictures of old men with huge mono rigs. A homemade speaker resembling a Klipsch Horn, a tubed amp taken out of an old wooden console system, and some retro-fitted suitcase record player. Just one big speaker. I can imagine compared to what had come before, they were making serious headway into the realms of high fidelity. I’m guessing this was in the early to mid 50’s? Early 60’s maybe?

As a young man, I had a friend who was completely deaf in one ear. But he loved stereo! And I asked him if he could describe what he was hearing, and he did have some kind of soundstage in his head.

Russell

[garrard]

I have a dedicated mono system. It uses 1950s tech. The turntable is a garrard 4HF (with magnetic cartridge), the amplifier is an ultra-linear push-pull 6L6 valve circuit, and the speaker is a Plessey-Rola 12" fullrange. Even with these "limitations" I get a very pleasing sound.

I have some favourite mono labels, but by far the most favourite, are the Decca FFRR recordings. Also older Westminster, Columbia, His Master's Voice.. These are mostly classical. Someone mentioned BlueNote jazz. I don't have any monos of these, but I do have some Clef label mono, which I believe preceded BlueNote. Then of course there's the early pop era mono, including Beatles, Stones etc. All do well in full mono :)

[Lee Henley]

I have a dedicated mono system. It uses 1950s tech. The turntable is a garrard 4HF (with magnetic cartridge), the amplifier is an ultra-linear push-pull 6L6 valve circuit, and the speaker is a Plessey-Rola 12" fullrange. Even with these "limitations" I get a very pleasing sound.

I have some favourite mono labels, but by far the most favourite, are the Decca FFRR recordings. Also older Westminster, Columbia, His Master's Voice.. These are mostly classical. Someone mentioned BlueNote jazz. I don't have any monos of these, but I do have some Clef label mono, which I believe preceded BlueNote. Then of course there's the early pop era mono, including Beatles, Stones etc. All do well in full mono :)

The Decca LXT mono recordings are very nice mate, whenever I see them on my travels I usually pick them up. If you do see some Blue note mono recordings at the right price always buy them they are fantastic, Ive also got some reissue mono Blue note recordings and they are also superb.

[Lee Henley]

Ammonite, perhaps your mono sounds spectacular because you’re listening to it with a Miyajima Zero? That is a pretty amazing cartridge! I imagine everything that comes through it sounds fairly decent!

I recall as a boy, when I first started reading stereo magazines, seeing pictures of old men with huge mono rigs. A homemade speaker resembling a Klipsch Horn, a tubed amp taken out of an old wooden console system, and some retro-fitted suitcase record player. Just one big speaker. I can imagine compared to what had come before, they were making serious headway into the realms of high fidelity. I’m guessing this was in the early to mid 50’s? Early 60’s maybe?

As a young man, I had a friend who was completely deaf in one ear. But he loved stereo! And I asked him if he could describe what he was hearing, and he did have some kind of soundstage in his head.

Russell

I dare say that the Miyajima mono cart is a wonderful cart and one I wouldnt mind owning, but mono playback can be enjoyable with a stereo cart, I use an original Shure 75ED moving magnet cartridge through a mono switch box (thankyou Alan aka Mr Firebottle), seems to do a very admirable job. I was playing recently the Louis Armstrong Satchmo plays King Oliver on the Fidelity lable, its an original mono 1959 pressing, simply wonderful, Ive got a stereo version of this album and the mono beats this by a country mile.

God knows what it would sound like with a Miyajima mono cart, one can only dream

[alphaGT]

I dare say that the Miyajima mono cart is a wonderful cart and one I wouldnt mind owning, but mono playback can be enjoyable with a stereo cart, I use an original Shure 75ED moving magnet cartridge through a mono switch box (thankyou Alan aka Mr Firebottle), seems to do a very admirable job. I was playing recently the Louis Armstrong Satchmo plays King Oliver on the Fidelity lable, its an original mono 1959 pressing, simply wonderful, Ive got a stereo version of this album and the mono beats this by a country mile.

God knows what it would sound like with a Miyajima mono cart, one can only dream

No argument from me! Many early stereo records were augmented from mono recordings. It’s no wonder the mono original sounds better.

Russell

[Clive]

I too listen to mono with 2 speakers. It take a while afterwards for me to adjust to the gimmickry that is stereo...

[Lawrence001]

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.

Sent from my BLN-L21 using Tapatalk

[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.

Sent from my BLN-L21 using Tapatalk

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?

[montesquieu]

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?

Have done that experiment with my Miyajima Zero 0.7 mono vs Miyajima Madake stereo. The mono is better. Indeed after an evening of experimentation around this at my place, using the Prestige Miles Davis reissues to test things out, as well as some original early microgroove recordings from the early 50s, Petrat ordered up two Zeros (1.0 and 0.7).

Reissues generally as well as a lot of later mono (typically marked 'mono') are cut with a v-shaped groove (like a stereo record) to the modern groove width so will play happily with a modern stereo cartridge, but there are benefits from a proper mono cartridge in terms of 1) noise (thought this shouldn't be a big isssue with expensive reissues and 2) overall coherence of what's picked up from the single coil - it just sounds more right. Hard to explain till you've heard the comparison.

Original microgroove records from the pre-stereo era (not necessarily marked as mono because there was no stereo back then) have a wider u-shaped groove and need a wider stylus.

[Ammonite Audio]

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?

Good question, but I hope that modern mono cut with a stereo head still has only horizontal modulation, so no vertical component (eg extraneous noise).

[scotty38]

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

[vintagesteve]

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.

I suppose the issue is, 'what is a soundstage' A soundstage to me is not some kind of wall or span of sound with an apparent finite width as you describe, it is one where the individual instruments and voices can be heard coming from different points in front of you on a left to right basis. That is how it appears when you listen to musicians on a stage in front of you. Of course, one has to take into consideration larger concert halls and rock band scenarios where the room is so big, and/or the PA is so loud (reverberations, delays etc) that this left to right (stereo) imaging or positioning no longer occurs, or becomes very difficult to detect. But in a more intimate acoustic, orchestral or 'lighter' electric band scenario, you can easily pick out the positions of the various instruments etc. That is my definition of a soundstage and what most people that I know in the recording, hifi and musicianship worlds take it to be. So, a single mono speaker is capable of filling a room with sound just the same as two speakers in mono are capable of doing. They will both sound different for obvious reasons. Yes, two sources of sound can be identified with two speakers and a higher spl will be detectable to the left and to the right, but as I have just described, with either system there is simply no ID, no data, of where individual instruments are placed, and therefore no true soundstage. If people want to refer to an apparent 'width' of a music source in front of them as a soundstage that's up to them, albeit, in my opinion, confusing the true meaning of the word soundstage. Before hifi entered the smoke and mirrors phase as it did in the 70s, becoming more matter of the head than the ears, speaker reviewers - as they still do now - used to refer to the ability, the accuracy, clarity and the fidelity of the speakers to be able to provide the listener with a clear, distinct soundstage, the ability to pick out the left to right positioning of the various instruments. Speakers being by a long shot the weakest link in a hifi chain, they play a crucial role in maintaining the recording's stereo image - its soundstage. I realise that people do believe in other definitions of soundstage such as its apparent width.

[montesquieu]

I suppose the issue is, 'what is a soundstage' A soundstage to me is not some kind of wall or span of sound with an apparent finite width as you describe, it is one where the individual instruments and voices can be heard coming from different points in front of you on a left to right basis. That is how it appears when you listen to musicians on a stage in front of you. Of course, one has to take into consideration larger concert halls and rock band scenarios where the room is so big, and/or the PA is so loud (reverberations, delays etc) that this left to right (stereo) imaging or positioning no longer occurs, or becomes very difficult to detect. But in a more intimate acoustic, orchestral or 'lighter' electric band scenario, you can easily pick out the positions of the various instruments etc. That is my definition of a soundstage and what most people that I know in the recording, hifi and musicianship worlds take it to be. So, a single mono speaker is capable of filling a room with sound just the same as two speakers in mono are capable of doing. They will both sound different for obvious reasons. Yes, two sources of sound can be identified with two speakers and a higher spl will be detectable to the left and to the right, but as I have just described, with either system there is simply no ID, no data, of where individual instruments are placed, and therefore no true soundstage. If people want to refer to an apparent 'width' of a music source in front of them as a soundstage that's up to them, albeit, in my opinion, confusing the true meaning of the word soundstage. Before hifi entered the smoke and mirrors phase as it did in the 70s, becoming more matter of the head than the ears, speaker reviewers - as they still do now - used to refer to the ability, the accuracy, clarity and the fidelity of the speakers to be able to provide the listener with a clear, distinct soundstage, the ability to pick out the left to right positioning of the various instruments. Speakers being by a long shot the weakest link in a hifi chain, they play a crucial role in maintaining the recording's stereo image - its soundstage. I realise that people do believe in other definitions of soundstage such as its apparent width.

Seems to me that's a extremely impoverished perspective on what a decent system can deliver - there's far far more to soundstage than the pan button on a mixing desk.

I think you are also ignoring how the ears and brain actually create the perception of sound. It's safe to say that this is not a post-1970s phenomenon, rather the function of eons of evolution.

[Wakefield Turntables]

So Tom slightly different topic which budget cart or replacement stylus for old carts would you use to play 78s

[montesquieu]

So Tom slightly different topic which budget cart or replacement stylus for old carts would you use to play 78s

I use a Shure M44-7, with some styli from Expert Stylus, 3.0, 3.2 and 3.5.

Most of the styli for 78 commercially available for 78 are 2.5 which are fine for very late, 1950s 78s, but earlier ones through the 20s, 30s, 40s and into the early 50s have a wider groove. And even some later ones work better with a wider tip if they are a bit worn. There's no real way to tell which tip works best except by ear, whichever is the quietest.

I also have an Edison 'Replica' which is an early incarnation of the Miyajima Kotetu. This is a moving coil with a 4.0 tip.

[Wakefield Turntables]

Thanks

[Mike - H]

When I finally got round to doing a detailed catalogue of my music, I discovered to my surprise that about 20% of my vinyl was in fact mono. On top of that I then bought the beatles mono collection.
Then a posting by Hugo about the virtues of mono cartridges piqued my interest, so I decided to take it further. After some research I opted for an Audio Technica AT33 EV matched up with an Audio Technica AT33 Mono, this meant that I can just change heads without changing all the other settings.
These were my first MC cartridges so I needed a phono stage for them, I went with a Graham Slee Reflex C with a mono switch. Since then I’ve looked for the mono version of anything I’ve bought if available. I have found that a lot early “stereo” records are improved by the use of the mono swtch.