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

[olds1959special]

I love my Yamaha NS-C225 center speaker! In my "Hafler circuit" setup I decided to figure out a way to play my center speaker louder. I just got it worked out using my Apogee Duet 3 which has a convenient mono button. I created a multi-output device with my Duet 3 and MiniDSP 2x4 HD with drift correction. This way, I can turn use the center speaker on it's own and also turn it up independently as much I need to.

 

[Chrispy]

Cookie is just churning. She also swore to me overpriced idiotic designer cables make a difference.

 

[olds1959special]

Cookie is just churning. She also swore to me overpriced idiotic designer cables make a difference.

They make a huge differen$e! These are the cables I use for my Yamaha center speaker:

Ansuz Speakz D-TC Supreme/Speaker Cable | House Of Stereo

Speakz D-TC SUPREME Speaker Cable World-class performer in signal transmission The Ansuz Speakz D-TC Supreme is the ultimate speaker cable. Equipped with Ansuz most sophisticated and most advanced noise reduction and resonance control this cable is a world-class, top-of-the-line signal cable...

houseofstereo.com

These are not overpriced at $70,000.00 a pair, considering that they make the sound warm, rich, and holographic, in a way no other cable can. Try it for yourself and hear the results. I promise you won't be disappointed!

Seriously though, stereo is still better than mono, that's why they switched over to stereo in the late 50's. The reason I use mono is to fill in the lost vocals from my Hafler circuit setup that happens with stereo recordings sometimes, and I need my mono speaker to be turned up at least as much as the L/R. I do enjoy the center mono speaker experience and may use it on its own occasionally.

 

[Chrispy]

They make a huge differen$e! These are the cables I use for my Yamaha center speaker:

Ansuz Speakz D-TC Supreme/Speaker Cable | House Of Stereo

Speakz D-TC SUPREME Speaker Cable World-class performer in signal transmission The Ansuz Speakz D-TC Supreme is the ultimate speaker cable. Equipped with Ansuz most sophisticated and most advanced noise reduction and resonance control this cable is a world-class, top-of-the-line signal cable...

houseofstereo.com

View attachment 498721

These are not overpriced at $70,000.00 a pair, considering that they make the sound warm, rich, and holographic, in a way no other cable can. Try it for yourself and hear the results. I promise you won't be disappointed!

Seriously though, stereo is still better than mono, that's why they switched over to stereo in the late 50's. The reason I use mono is to fill in the lost vocals from my Hafler circuit setup that happens with stereo recordings sometimes, and I need my mono speaker to be turned up at least as much as the L/R. I do enjoy the center mono speaker experience and may use it on its own occasionally.

LOL

 

[olds1959special]

I set up my center subwoofer to work independently along with my center speaker for a full-range center speaker. Works great and I can adjust the volume separately from the L/R speakers/subs and rear speakers/sub.

 

[mhardy6647]

In the limit as the number of discrete channels approaches infinity, we asymptotically approach monaural.


In all seriousness, though:
Really well reproduced mono (using one really good loudspeaker) is... really good.

 

[xanalog]

I was there and welcomed stereo. Not everyone did.

You were also there when multi-channel was introduced and I think you also welcomed that transition.
I am still stuck on stereo...

In the limit as the number of discrete channels approaches infinity,...

...Better have your nuke-generator ready for turn-on!

 

[Kal Rubinson]

You were also there when multi-channel was introduced and I think you also welcomed that transition.
I am still stuck on stereo...

Yup. I was impressed subjectively and objectively.

 

[Cbdb2]

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.

Nothing wrong but putting 3 singers in the middle (mono) never sounds as clear/detailed as putting 3 singers left center right. The same goes for other sources.

 

[Tim Link]

Nothing wrong but putting 3 singers in the middle (mono) never sounds as clear/detailed as putting 3 singers left center right. The same goes for other sources

If there's just one singer it might be best for tonal clarity if they just play out of 1 speaker. With 2 speakers we usually want the single singer in the middle where there's no speaker. So at least 3 speakers seems like a winner for music. But because of issues with listening in square rooms (I think) a lot of people find the center speaker to sound like a misfit from the other two, even when all three speakers are of the same type, which is why so many multi channel music mixes barely use the center channel at all. They are going more for envelopment than clarity. I've heard so many reports of people saying they hate music with the center channel. The center is too clear and "up front." So they end up using the center wide feature on their upmixer, preferring to hear the crosstalk cancelation dips.

 

[xanalog]

Although I've never been a big fan of 'stuffing' my music into my ears, how would headphone listening of monaural music compare with stereo or binaural recorded experience?

 

[Tim Link]

Although I've never been a big fan of 'stuffing' my music into my ears, how would headphone listening of monaural music compare with stereo or binaural recorded experience?

Mono recordings work great on headphones. There is no crosstalk interference so you just get a nice clean signal that seems to be coming from the middle of your head. It might seem to be out in front of you if you're lucky.

Stereo recordings can seem too widely spaced, 180 degrees on headphones. But the sound tends to end at each ear and stretch across the inside of your head, which is only about a 6" wide sound stage. It has a wide angle but is really close and small. I find it works fine, but maybe that's just because I don't expect it to sound like a vast sound field out in front of me. It depends a lot on how a particular headphone works with my ears, and to some degree what I am seeing. If I'm in a big room or outside I sometimes get a better stereophonic effect.

Binaural recordings can be hit or miss. If the dummy head used to make the recording happens to be a good match to your head and ears, and if your headphones are not destroying those relationships, you may get a really spectacular effect. Just don't move your head too much unless you've got some kind of head tracking thing keeping the imaging stable in the space around you.

 

[mhardy6647]

Although I've never been a big fan of 'stuffing' my music into my ears, how would headphone listening of monaural music compare with stereo or binaural recorded experience?

Right in the middle of one's head.

 

[xanalog]

Right in the middle of one's head.

ty, looks to be a bit off-center!

 

[pablolie]

Count me out. Stereo is where it's at for me. Mono was once a necessary evil, dictated by the limited tech at the time. It clearly was a huge conduct to bring music to the masses during a very important time period with many innovations in music, hence the nostalgic power. And of course they produced music to sound as good as possible given the limitations of radio. Radio was kind of the Spotify medium for music back then (artists were actually ecstatic when their songs got played on radio, prolly making $0 off the radio play... unlike now, when everybody seems to groan about how little streaming services *pay* artists that get exposure for their often tediously repetitive efforts).
But to inflict mono into the available tech we have these days seems bizarre to me.
I am not saying I can't enjoy great music out of a 50 year old AM receiver, but I'd rather not.

 

[krabapple]

Cookie is just churning. She also swore to me overpriced idiotic designer cables make a difference.

Cookie has touted some, hmm, debateable audio ideas over the years, for sure.

 

[krabapple]

I love my Yamaha NS-C225 center speaker! In my "Hafler circuit" setup I decided to figure out a way to play my center speaker louder. I just got it worked out using my Apogee Duet 3 which has a convenient mono button. I created a multi-output device with my Duet 3 and MiniDSP 2x4 HD with drift correction. This way, I can turn use the center speaker on it's own and also turn it up independently as much I need to.

You know we -- meaning the industry -- can do better than the Hafler circuit, for some time now, yes? Multiple iterations of Dolby Pro Logic upmixing, for example.

 

[Tim Link]

I don't think Cookie is trying to make a case for going back to mono. She's commenting about a trend she's noticing.
I'm not advocating for mono either. I do however think that there may be benefits to listening to old mono recordings through just 1 speaker.
Since most mono recordings are older, I also wonder what the limits are to a really well made mono recording played back through a really good speaker in a room with great acoustics.
I don't tend to think of mono as having really extended frequency response and low noise floor. I think of it as sounding like it was recorded in the 1950s or earlier.

 

[pablolie]

...
I don't tend to think of mono as having really extended frequency response and low noise floor. I think of it as sounding like it was recorded in the 1950s or earlier.

Bullseye. It's interesting to experience the original.

The miracle is that the music was so good -even when recorded to sound great over mono AM- that we still can enjoy it over modern systems.

Motown is a notorious example. All their 60s hits were -let's admit it- abhorrently recorded even by the standards at the time. Bill Evans' 1961 "Waltz for Debby" was recorded in a friggin' night club, and yet sounds 1000% better than any Motown recoding until the 70s came along. But Motown knew exactly what they were doing - not sure how much AM air play "Waltz for Debby" got. And come on, early Motown is utterly epic when it comes to talent, that's why we still listen to it.

Where I grew up, we did a lot of AM listening when I was a little kid, until FM came along... when was it... mid to late 70s? I was barely a teen, but I remember how good "What a fool believes" sounded through my Dad's stereo with a shiny FM receiver sounded. It was like "Forget the AM stations".

 

[mhardy6647]

ty, looks to be a bit off-center!
View attachment 499107

All heads differ.