Is Mono the new advancement in sound? - from Cookie's Corner

[Tim Link]

I think about this topic once in a while. How good could modern recordings sound if they were truly optimized for playback on high performance mono systems?
Occasionally I'll put on some mono recordings of old and compare listening with just 1 speaker or 2. I think they sometimes really shine with just 1 speaker. Would hifi have ever
become a passion if it had stayed mono?

I think so! My father told me he had a co-worker that was in to hifi way back in the late 50s ( I think ) and that guy was highly resistant to stereo.

Cookie's Corner - #203 - Is mono the new advancement in sound?

From Cookie Marenco - Founder and Producer Blue Coast Records and Music

cookiescorner.substack.com

 

[olds1959special]

I think about this topic once in a while. How good could modern recordings sound if they were truly optimized for playback on high performance mono systems?
Occasionally I'll put on some mono recordings of old and compare listening with just 1 speaker or 2. I think they really shine with just 1 speaker. Would hifi have ever
become a passion if it had stayed mono?

Cookie's Corner - #203 - Is mono the new advancement in sound?

From Cookie Marenco - Founder and Producer Blue Coast Records and Music

cookiescorner.substack.com

I use a stereo to mono converter box for my center speaker. I can play stereo recordings and the sound will be mono in my center speaker. It's a horizontal speaker on my desk, and the tweeter is right in the middle. I feel the LCR experience is better than just LR in this setup, especially when the rear speakers play the ambience recovery channel (google Hafler circuit,) which will often be void of vocals. The center speaker helps to replace that.

There is nothing wrong with listening in mono by itself either, especially for vocal heavy recordings, considering that the mouth of the singer is basically a single point source.

 

[Tim Link]

In the article she says a lot of these home trained producers are preferring a mono or highly centered stereo sound. I wonder if this comes down to the fact that a lot of people are now listening on headphones, which translate to mono very well, but when playing stereo are like having speakers placed very wide with no crosstalk.

 

[JohnnyNG]

Don't know about that premise but I have lots of mono LPs that I enjoy just as much as my stereo ones. Spatial effects are cool but not the entire experience. Had a full Atmos setup for years in a dedicated room and now I'm back to two, and often one, channel.

 

[olds1959special]

Before the late 50's everything was in mono.

 

[sergeauckland]

I play a fair bit of mono, mostly pre-stereo jazz LPs, and I prefer playing mono with a 2 loudspeakers, creating a phantom centre image. I've tried using just one 'speaker, but having the sound coming directly from the box isn't as pleasant as the phantom image.

S

 

[olds1959special]

I play a fair bit of mono, mostly pre-stereo jazz LPs, and I prefer playing mono with a 2 loudspeakers, creating a phantom centre image. I've tried using just one 'speaker, but having the sound coming directly from the box isn't as pleasant as the phantom image.

S

Try 3 speakers. Then your phantom center image with be a real center image.

 

[Tim Link]

Try 3 speakers. Then your phantom center image with be a real center image.

Or 5 speakers across the front. That way the phantom images between the centers and sides will be real center/side images. Or how about 9 speakers across the front. Wait... We're getting further and further from just 1 speaker!

Actually, I tend to think of systems that rely on more speakers but not so much on phantom imaging as "multi-mono" arrangements. Some stereo mixes that have everything hard panned left or right are sort of like dual mono systems. You can really place the speakers wherever you want for such recordings. You can sit wherever you want when listening and it doesn't matter too much.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I think so! My father told me he had a co-worker that was in to hifi way back in the late 50s ( I think ) and that guy was highly resistant to stereo.

I was there and welcomed stereo. Not everyone did.

 

[DVDdoug]

Two channels is not enough!

Note that downmixing to mono is not "perfect" for for a couple of reasons (besides loss of the "soundstage" information).

1. When the centered sound is mixed the (digital or electrical) amplitude is doubled compared to a single channel. That's +6dB. But with normal stereo where the sound is mixed in the air the power is doubled compared to one speaker (+3dB). So in mono, the centered vocals, bass, and everything else in the center is boosted by +3dB relative to how they were mixed.

2. Something learned from Floyd Tooele's book is that with stereo, both ears aren't centered and then distance-difference creates phase cancelation dip around 1-2kHz (which affects vocal) intelligibility. Of course the mixing engineer normally compensates for that so it sounds correct in stereo. Then if you play in mono that mid-frequency "correction/compensation shouldn't be there.

Try 3 speakers. Then your phantom center image with be a real center image.

That's not "correct" either... But I do like to use a "theater" or "hall" setting on my AVR for some delayed reverb in the rear and the "feel" of a larger room. Of course that's hi-fi heresy too since I'm not listening "accurately as intended" or as was heard in the studio.

 

[pma]

I prefer playing mono with a 2 loudspeakers, creating a phantom centre image

Same here.

 

[skankhobag]

Mono was a thing only because inventors after Edison hadn’t figured out a way to simultaneously record more than one channel on a single device for decades.

Bell Labs first created a 3 channel system in 1934 and the first multichannel audio system ever played in public were 3 channel systems that toured the country with the screenings of Walt Disney’s “Fantasia”.

It took another 20 years or so before stereo recordings and playback systems became a thing.

3 channels up front should have been the next step, but a center channel wasn’t deemed as important as 4 channel surround sound.

The funny thing is that I’ve never never seen a surround system properly installed by a person who’s not an audio nut. Hell, I was once in a recording studio that “upgraded” to a surround system and it wasn’t properly installed.

In my home theater, I started with stereo and upgraded to stereo subs and a center channel before adding surrounds. Since I’d generously treated the walls and ceiling to create a LEDE (live end/dead end) acoustics architecture, the dispersed reflections from the area behind the listening position create a very pleasing surround effect.

If everything was to be played in mono, though, a monopolar center channel with bipolar/dipolar left and right speakers in an untreated room would be optimal to create a wide soundstage. Two subs would still be optimal to get the best in-room bass response.

 

[Tim Link]

I prefer playing mono with a 2 loudspeakers, creating a phantom centre image.

I find it depends on the recording. Maybe the mood I'm in too. I was perceiving more clarity and a nicer tonal brightness with just one channel playing on some mono recordings.

1. When the centered sound is mixed the (digital or electrical) amplitude is doubled compared to a single channel. That's +6dB. But with normal stereo where the sound is mixed in the air the power is doubled compared to one speaker (+3dB).

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it doubles in the air as well if everything is in-phase, which means one location in space. As you mention, our ears are not co-located so the phantom center has cancelation dips and phase add peaks. When signals are not time aligned the response is frequency and location dependent, with maximum +6 dB peaks and potentially limitless depth nulls. This averages out to +3 dB when the peaks and nulls are close enough together and the response is smoothed.

In the example below you can see that below the first interference null the total sum is 81 dB which is +6 dB higher than the single signal.
With smoothing you can see in the higher frequencies that the summed signal is averaging about +3 dB. Even with 1 octave smoothing the dip around 2K is showing. The first cut is the deepest, so they say. In this case it's more about how wide it is.

2. Something learned from Floyd Tooele's book is that with stereo, both ears aren't centered and then distance-difference creates phase cancelation dip around 1-2kHz (which affects vocal) intelligibility. Of course the mixing engineer normally compensates for that so it sounds correct in stereo. Then if you play in mono that mid-frequency "correction/compensation shouldn't be there.

Talking to some people in the industry, they don't always compensate for the stereo cancelation dip. For one thing, it varies depending on a lot of factors, including each individual's HRTF and the exact arrangement they are using. One person I know says he's heard of no one ever addressing that particular issue with EQ, at least not claiming to do so. It's actually hard to EQ up cancelations. You EQ up and it just cancels harder. The stereo mix is often checked to make sure it mixes down mono as well unless it's some specialist hifi type recording. They should have a warning on those. "Do not mix down to mono!"

 

[RexrothPigeon]

the mouth of the singer is basically a single point source.

only if the singer stands perfectly still and doesn't move around the stage or even turn their head...

 

[Tim Link]

only if the singer stands perfectly still and doesn't move around the stage or even turn their head...

I think the singer's mouth is still a point source no matter how much they move. It just becomes a moving point source.
If there's a single mic. picking them up, it'll come through in the recording as a non-moving point source that's changing in volume and perhaps tone depending on the microphone's directivity response.

I've mentioned this elsewhere but if you have some recordings that used widely space microphones, like some orchestral recordings, you can flip the phase of one of your speakers and the imaging isn't disturbed nearly as much as you might expect. The panning is timing and volume based in that case, so flipping the phase is not nearly so destructive as pure volume panned recordings where left and right channels are perfectly in phase at all frequencies, causing everything to become completely frequency decorrelated when you flip the phase of one speaker.

 

[kemmler3D]

I'll just be that guy, and point out there's nothing "new" about mono. It's been here the whole time. And when I was reading up on mixing in the early 2000s, the advice was prevalent then to at least check and make sure your mixes sounded OK in mono.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I think the singer's mouth is still a point source no matter how much they move. It just becomes a moving point source.

People have two ears, so as a sound is projected in varying directions, reflections change and it takes on stereophonic qualities that can no longer be reproduced in mono (unless your speaker somehow moves around correspondingly hahaha)

ON EDIT: I see, you are assuming a single mic recording setup. I'm not comfortable making that assumption, but if we make it, you are correct

 

[Nopiano]

only if the singer stands perfectly still and doesn't move around the stage or even turn their head...

Isn’t it still a point source, even if coming from various locations within a limited zone? However, even if fixed in one place we hear the room contribution in real life, and I’m sure stereo must convey that randomness of echo, reflection etc., more accurately. I confess I can’t explain why though! (I think I’m expressing that the voice itself might be mono but the room ambience, background noise etc is stereo.)

 

[Bland_username42069]

I must admit if there is a stereo and a mono version of a record I will always go for the mono version especially for jazz.

If it’s a bunch of Germans in the 70s trying to go Sirius B with synths then that’s going to need at the very least stereo but preferably quad.

 

[Tim Link]

Isn’t it still a point source, even if coming from various locations within a limited zone? However, even if fixed in one place we hear the room contribution in real life, and I’m sure stereo must convey that randomness of echo, reflection etc., more accurately. I confess I can’t explain why though! (I think I’m expressing that the voice itself might be mono but the room ambience, background noise etc is stereo.)

Yes, a point source in a room will end up coming from various locations due to reflections. And I think you're right about 2 speakers being better than one in terms of creating a more random reflection effect. But the direct sound from the source also has a strong influence on our perception of the sound quality. If two identical sources are going at once you get that really strong interference pattern that a reflection could never quite match. It's very unnatural because no two sources in nature ever (hardly ever) become so closely synchronized as to create a phantom image. I'm not sure where I'm going with that, but whether a mono signal sounds better played thorugh one speaker, two speakers, or many speakers simultaneously probably depends on a number of factors in any given situation.

I currently have some highly beamy speakers that produce a superior effect on some mono recordings when I just listen to one speaker or the other rather than both at once. It produces a better balanced tone to my ears. If these speakers were tuned with more treble emphasis, or if it were a really bright recording, I might prefer it the other way around.