Stereo or mono plus subwoofer?

[Miguelón]

Hello, one of my Genelecs G Three stopped working being recently purchased.

Because dealer is in Finland and I’m in Spain, they propose refund or replacement which will be about one month.

So far so good, me and my girlfriend we usually listen in mono with only one speaker on, because many time on the day we let music at ambient level and even when sitting to listen our room doesn’t allow sweet spot by far (4 meters distance by 1 meter separation of speakers).

So we have the opportunity to accept those 600€ from dealer and advance the purchase of a subwoofer, which was postponed to march -April 2025 by financial reasons.

What do you suggest?

1- replace the G Three and continue with some stereo, buy the sub after

2- buy now the sub, and have full range frequencies but continue in mono

Thanks for opinions!

 

[staticV3]

me and my girlfriend we usually listen in mono

It looks like you gave the answer yourself

 

[Miguelón]

I see, question is a little biased by my desire of first going to the sub…

I was just waiting with some argument against soundstage destruction, or something wrong in mono playback, but when moving far from the sweetspot stereo can be more an inconvenient than advantage.

To listen properly in stereo we should take away a coffee table, advance the sofa and move the TV (is on stand with wheels). So we don’t do it often, only for operas or live concerts.

By absence of other answers I suppose there is no technical reasons to mono playback and is just a matter of taste or convenience

 

[DVDdoug]

me and my girlfriend we usually listen in mono with only one speaker on,

I assume you have an easy of switching your source to mono? The left & right channels are (obviously) different so simply switching off one channel looses some of the audio. Depending on the mixing & panning you could completely lose an instrument or a back-up singer, etc.

 

[Miguelón]

I assume you have an easy of switching your source to mono? The left & right channels are (obviously) different so simply switching off one channel looses some of the audio. Depending on the mixing & panning you could completely lose an instrument or a back-up singer, etc.

Yes, the WiiM has a mono mode, I suppose they mix both channels and normalize volume, because I don’t hear any augmentation on intensity. It sounds very good, I don’t know if all mono mode are equally treated.

Analogue fusion of Y cables is better, worse or doesn’t matter?