Why evaluating the sound of a single speaker is essential

[moleman]

Welcome to ASR!

This is discussed earlier in this thread. The short answer depends on the recording. For the most part, listening to summed mono is fine. For speaker evaluation, working with reference music or pink noise is best. Amir listens to one channel of the stereo mix but has curated his selections (so potential negative mix-down issues are avoided).

Thanks so much!

 

[Holmz]

If you want my off-the-cuff opinion I'd say mono listening would probably make it easier to hear distortion and tonal colorations, but there are certain things that might only show up in stereo. In the case of apparent changes in imaging, I wonder if maybe there was something going on with crosstalk or channel-specific phase distortion happening to throw off the image...

If something like that is happening you will never know based on mono...

And a cabinet resonance could make a focused image jump to a speaker.
If tonal frequency response flatness is the main point, then a mono speaker may be ideal.