How to do mono properly?

Posted by: JeremyB on 24 May 2001

Does anyone have experience of the best way of producing mono from a stereo source?

Stereo LPs seem obvious - just use a mono cartridge (or play a mono recording), the standard is still compatible and the process is lossless. But what about the two CD channels? Simply combining (summing) the two channels would appear to remove some L = -R and R = -L information which I'm guessing should still be there from the musical point of view.

Sorry if this sounds like a backwards step but I find myself caring less and less about 2-channel (sometimes it is a distraction?), let alone multi-channel. Plus when I go to concerts the orchestra sits rather close together rather than two groups 10 feet apart. Even when I sit off to one side and right at the back the sound is still better than my hi-fi. Same in the pub on Friday night when I'm sitting at the bar. And an excellent piano concert I went to on Sunday only had one Piano in it.

Anyone else troubled with these thoughts?

Jeremy

Posted on: 24 May 2001 by Rico
Oooh, Jeremy - that's at least 20 FEP's** for you!

I mean, starting a discussion on how to get rid of those annoying L/R artifacts has even more cred that forgetting your 32.5 was in 'mono' for a month.

Whaddy'a reckon, el presidenté?

**FEP's = Flat Earth Points.

Rico - all your base are belong to us.

Posted on: 24 May 2001 by Tony L
quote:
Anyone else troubled with these thoughts?

I know exactly what you mean, though for me mono is not the answer. Live music does not image in a pinpoint way, at best there is an indication of something being a bit "over there", though not in the way the hi-fi does it. The problem is with the source, most microphones used for recording are pretty directional, usually pointed directly at one instrument, therefore the feeds from them do not blend into a natural acoustic space. There are techniques that achieve this better (crossed pair / binural) but their application is limited to very "simple" musical events. So, stereo does not sound natural. Trouble is neither does mono.

With mono, a lot of the acoustic of a good recording is lost, IMHO it sounds worse than stereo, and everything obviously comes from one point, which is again sounds artificial, though I do accept and agree with all your criticisms of stereo. I like the room filling aspects of stereo, but hate the multi point source aspects (and annoyingly Kans image very well indeed), my solution is to not sit between the speakers. I do nearly all of my listening off access, and get the feeling of stuff happening in various degrees of "over there", though don't get distracted by artificial sense of stereo soundstage etc. Might be well worth your while listening to Shahinian speakers, as these do go for room filling rather than pin point imaging.

Tony.

Posted on: 24 May 2001 by Nigel Cavendish
One speaker and the balance control.

cheers

Nigel

Posted on: 24 May 2001 by Chris L
Just out of interest, how many FEP's would be awarded for, say, a Thorens TD125 (on some kind of granite plinth, of course), playing through some home brew valve amplification, into (staying with the mono theme) one Klipsh horn 'speaker, built into a custom concrete cabinet?

With the traditional bell wire as speaker cable - obviously!

I would have thought that would be off the scale wink

Chris L

Posted on: 24 May 2001 by Eric Barry
Can't use a true mono cart on stereo lps because the stylus only wants to move in one dimension.

But if you put the speakers close, you will be less distracted by soundstage. IF your system sounds like two groups of musicians, one at each speaker, you have centerfill problems and need to play with toe-in and distance between the speakers.

--Eric

Posted on: 25 May 2001 by Ron The Mon
On most other threads I'd be embarrassed to say so, but when I first hooked up my Kans as active, I didn't notice for about three months that I connected the left tweeter to the right speaker and the right tweeter to left speaker!!
It still sounded great!!

Ron The Mon

Posted on: 26 May 2001 by Ron The Mon
Jeremy,
While over a friends house today I noticed he had a DJ mixer with a mono "knob" which progressively changes from stereo to mono instead of either/or. It reminded me that I once had a MacIntosh pre-amp(tube model from the sixties) and an Apt Holman(Apt-1?) which had a progressive mono. I liked the sound of orchestral music and acoustic jazz in semi-mono. I used these pre-amps with ESLs and it may be what you'd like for your CLSs. You could easily have a device made as I believe only a dual potentiometer and wire is needed for parts. It would not degrade the sound of your system in standard mode as you'd use it in tape-monitor mode only.

Ron The Mon

Posted on: 28 May 2001 by Arthur Bye
The article that Shareza refers to above about the mono Helicon was written by Michael Fremer and is actually pretty interesting from a Flat Earth point of view. He earned bonus FEP's on this one. He's probably gonna get hammered for what he said. He even has a decent review of the Stageline in there too.

Arthur Bye