When I worked in the hi Fi trade many years ago I came across a customer who had an astonishing mono system. Apart from the biggest record collection going back over many years and some records larger than a now standard 12" discs. He owned a single loudspeaker which was a Tannoy in a hand made Guy Roy Fountain enclosure driven from a mono valve amp. Over the years I knew this man he taught me more about listening to music than I learnt as a sales person. The art of listening is to enjoy the composition and composer rather than the mono stereo debate. When I sit in a bath and enjoy music on my old Mono radio it does not detract from my music pleasure.
A man after my own heart :-) Interestingly, my first Shure SME tone arm came from a broadcasting studio and was slightly longer than the standard arm because it had to accommodate 16 inch recordings.
This dispute is largely a result of an artificially created hype. If you listen to Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out in stereo US you won't want the mono versions anymore. Many Beatles albums sound better in stereo. And if you don't like wide panning, there's an equalizer for that.
I have a bunch of old classical recordings on LP. I liked to go with the ones that used a single pair of mics, or as few as possible. You could “see” each instrument in the orchestra left to right- front to back because everything arrived at the mic as you would hear it. The extreme opposite would be Frank Zappa once saying that he would like to record an orchestra with each instrument being separately mic’d, and he would then place them where he wanted in the mix.
That was because of the limitations of recording on 3 or 4 tracks. Eight track machines were rare for a long time. The first Ampex 8-track recorders was purchased by Les Paul for $10,000 in 1957 for his home recording studio by David Sarser. Frank Zappa had his 8 track machine built for him and that was several years before Queen.
Queen made good use of stereo starting with their second album, when they purposely position things a certain way and manually turned the planning during mixdown. The Beatles made good use of it during Sgt. Pepper thanks to bouncing from one 4-track to another. Otherwise, 4-track recordings are quite limited to what you can do in a stereo picture, unless you're recording a band in natural stereo.
I've been listening to old high-fidelity 33 1/3 and slightly newer stereo / mono recordings on a webcor musical was a decent push-pull amp and my God I can't believe the natural bass , the highs and I'll be even got a blown or a broken right tweter I just cannot believe this record player sounds so enchanting
I love hearing how you all "picture" the music. The compulsion so many audiophiles have for dimentionality and imaging fascinates me; Imaging isn't anything I really give any special attention. I'm reminded of visual art and how most westerners in the 18th and 19th centuries believed the the more lifelike the resemblance, the better the painting.
@Larry Niles I beg to differ (ain't too pround to beg, sweet darlin'...). Following a melody; feeling one's body pulse in time with a rhythm, feeling tonalities tamper with one's mood, gritting teeth in response to the textures...this is as close to sympathetic magic as many of us can get. Music is dense with potential and I'm sure those things matter to you. My feeling is that all those qualities play a more important role in music than imaging or spatiality. Music doesn't rely on pictures why do you?
@Jonathan Strum Sure. And a sonic equivalent to Wyeth (or any 17th-century Dutch still life painter) is awesome to hear. That said, Mark Rothko and Philip Guston were painters, active at the same time as Wyeth and are infinitely more compelling, IMO.
Is mono better than stereo? ... No. However, it is true that many early recordings were used to maximize the "separation" of different instruments rather than use the format to construct the image of the performance itself. Many people did not even understand that the purpose of stereo was to construct this image and were just fascinated that different sounds were emitted from the two speakers. Mono IS better than poorly recorded stereo. Early Bob Dylan did not require stereo at all. How far could he be away from his harmonica or guitar? Stereo is more suited to orchestras and concert bands, but can also be effective for groups of five to ten musicians or vocalists. With groups of three or less is unnecessary other than picking up the ambiance of the room they are in. Most modern recording are isolated tracks that are mixed on a console in a studio, so the image is actually created by the mixing engineer.
I LOVE well mixed mono. I loathe a lot of early "stereo" panning particularly the early stereo Beatles as mentioned. I have recorded and mixed in & to mono and it's really hard to do well. A well recorded and mixed classic stereo image, (band on stage from the audience perspective though with the usual bass freqs up the middle), is a thing of beauty. A well mixed binaural recording with decent headphones can be wonderful, (trickier to do well though). Many quad recordings are incredible experiences that improve on the stereo while many others aren't. I'm keen on 5.1 music though - too much scope for dicking around. Well explained Paul. Thanks for a rare dose of bias confirmation!
As a professional recording engineer I once carried out an experiment with a 5 piece band and each member had their own microphone.. several for the drummer... and the recordings were handled separately on 5 mono channels ... the drummer mikes were down mixed to one channel .. using an upper limit of 120dB for dynamic range I played each channel back through 5 200watt amps and speakers placed exactly where each band member was ... I tell you what ... I could NOT tell the difference between the live performance and the playback ...! This proved that there IS only one way to properly record AND play back in true audio imaging ( I refuse to call it stereo ... that's old school !!)
Clears throat... I suspect I won't live to experience it, but it seems to me that direct stimulation of the brain might just be the ultimate. Of course there will be outrage from certain quarters about "cancer" or something.
I can understand why the one who asked the question think that stereo is just a gimmick if he's using the early Beatles stereo recordings as a reference. I too hated the type of stereo that has the vocals on one channel and the instrumentals on the other. For what I understand, the original intent for what stereo recorded music supposed to be is to mimic what a conductor in an orchestra is listening to. I would recommend him to listen to some of the early stereo recording demo records of orchestra music from the late 1950s. That will sure open his ears up.
Get yourself a good classroom record player with 6" by 9" full range speaker , that will give good sound and it will be mono. I had 1938 General Electric floor standing radio with a full range 15" speaker best sounding AM broadcast and shortwave sound I've heard. And to this day it can't be beat by anything!
I had to check the comments for this because I knew that was off. Ive been an audiophile(budget friendly) for a decade already and I'm 24. Was starting to feel like I missed out on some opportunities if half a decade was all it took to land me a career in this XD
Around the time surround sound came out I had this idea to do just the oppisite. Seperate sound using both mono and stereo. More recently I have been considering doing this in a custom build or homemade jam box. Unlike a boombox that has depth, a jam box is tall and flat. My idea would include the basic 4 inch speakers as mid range and the tweets but in the center a single 8 inch sub woofer powered by a seperate amp. This would be the mono working with the stereo to get a dedicated sound from each speaker 5 total. So my answer to this question of mono vs/ stereo is why not do both?
What a coincidence. Just yesterday (before seeing this vid) I noticed how different the Beatles recordings were. I recently installed a relatively cheap set up with an old Aurex power/pre combo powering a set of mk2 ELAC debut 5's and the matching sub... and the difference is crazy, to the point where what didn't bother before does now! Not that I prefer one or the other, perhaps I don't really have the gear to A-B recordings for preference, still, thought I'd thank you for answering the coincidental issue lol.
George Martin once said,“You've never really heard Sgt Pepper until you've heard it in mono.” It's been known for some time now that the mono mixes were the only mixes that the Beatles themselves oversaw. Mono was the standard, back then: it was the one the band itself knew, having grown up with it. The only Beatles album that was designed and conceived in stereo was Abbey Road, the last one they made.
Nope. Yellow Submarine, Let It Be, and Abbey Road never had mono releases. Also, The Beatles (The White Album) was originally released in the U.S. in stereo only, so by 1968 mono was clearly no longer "the standard". It was a deprecated format clearly on its way out. Even the earliest releases by the Beatles were available in stereo versions. The market demanded it. This may have reflected some difference between the U.S. and Britain, where mono apparently held on longer.
Fact is, if guitars, drums, piano, etc. have been recorded with at least 2 mics to 2 separate channels, then you can hear the playback as if you were there when it was played live. You can't do it with a mono recording. A reverb effect (convolution included) added to a mono recording can create some 3D space artificially, but it's not as realistic, although it can sound pretty good. In my opinion, stereo music just sounds more pleasant, especially when softer and quieter background sounds (synths, guitars, voices) are as wide as possible, without messing up the stereo image.
I can run an arpeggio across the stereo field to attract attention to it, using our instinctive sound tracking reaction. Conversely, I can scatter that same arpeggio around the stereo field to make it less obvious.
You're all preoccupied with audio gimmicks. I still use Edison Cylinders on my phonograph like my great, great, great, great grandpappy did before me. And I'll do so until the day I die! Hand cranked wax cylinders forever!!! Lol
@@superlameusername362 who needs a band when you have a couple of sticks? ... one speaker, LOL. hard to take someone seriously after they recommend someone to do a pure mono setup.
The height/depth/width thing is only relevant to reproducing sources where you were up close, however in many live scenarios (that your trying to reproduce) you are often way back from the performers, so the difference between where the performers are is all but zero. With a large orchestra there is a bit more scope for width, however a guitar and 2 singers, with maybe a drummer, from 20 plus meters back there is basically zero width.
If anything, stereo is a must just for halving distortion by distributing the sound on twice the number of speakers. Any level of possible spatial awareness is added bonus on top.
Stereo is very often a gimmick. The most are mono recordings with an artificial soundstage (panning, echo and reverb). True stereo recordings are rare. Then they are a recreation of a true soundstage in 3D, with Direction, Depth and Dimension. Recorded with two or just some microphones. You also have “stereo” recordings, which are multiple true stereo recordings on top of each other, where the instruments are placed through each other, and some instruments (mostly the solo artist or singer) are too big. And even with a true stereo recording, there is something wrong, as Paul said. The sound propagation or sound field is disturbed. In a live event there is no sweet spot, a 3D sound image everywhere. I think that’s why a recording never sounds (as) live.
When I produce music (which i really must upload some day) I prefer to have most, if not all instruments panned in the center and then use effects to widen the sound-stage, such as reverb, flanges, stuff like that. That way it would sound as good in mono. Things such as an orchestra any kind of acoustic band sounds good if recorded with stereo microphones but when I hear music where instruments are hard panned to the left or right, it just sounds un-balanced. Speaking of unbalanced one thing I can't stand is mono recordings that have been processed to sound like stereo. It might sound okay through speakers, but though headphones it un-listenable.
I can see preferring the Beatles in mono because their stereo is so cheesy. The 50th anniversary Sgt. Pepper remix is a big improvement of the stereo in my opinion. But life ain't all Beatles. There's so much good stereo out there, as in damn near anything that wasn't recorded in the 60's. Even a lot of 60's stuff is pretty good in stereo. I recently bought the Analogue Productions SACD of Jimi Hendrix's "Axis: Bold as Love" album, which has both stereo and mono mixes, and to me the stereo is far superior to the mono.
Totally agree on the Sgt. Peppers 50th anniversary debate. However didn’t the engineers revisit the original mono recording as a lot of people had commented that the original ‘snap’ and ‘guts’ had disappeared through stereo mixing and later remastering etc?. I believe that with the 50th anniversary re issue there is a definable immediacy about the whole album that was there in the original mono recording,it just sounds excellent even through my phone. I’m a big fan of stereo like yourself though and like Paul says depth of field can only be created through stereo and placement of instruments which creates this illusion coming at your ears
Back in the late 50's when stereo LP's came on the market (stereo R2R came earlier, like around 1953 but it was super expensive in the day though) so most HiFi enthusiasts still had a mono system as it took literally 2 of everything but the tape deck itself. Stereo LP didn't come until 1958 and all we had at that time was 2, or 3 channel decks to record stereo to for many studios. 4 track came along and it was all many had in the 60's, though some of the earliest 4 track machines were from 1959 or so. During that time, stereo was rather wide with many instruments on one channel or the other and many bands, recording engineers treated stereo as an afterthought as well. It would take until the advent of the 8 track machines and later 16 and 24 track machines before stereo became less of a gimmick as in some cases, a ping, pong effect was used on many a pop album. That was where stereo was often treated as a gimmick. Play a Jazz or classical piece and it was treated more legitimately. to faithfully replicate the stereo image of a 4 piece jazz quartet, or an orchestra. To that end, mono when well done is very good. I use my mono switch and if everything is set up right, it comes out as a phantom source in between my two speakers. But a lot of my older jazz pressings ARE mono, but I have more stereos than mono's in my collections, be it jazz or pop or whatever. The thing is, by the 70's the gimmicky stereo was long past. The wide stereo was prevalent for a good while, especially for pop/rock material to get kids excited for stereo I believe. You just need to listen to good stereo to see what all the fuss is about. I like both in actuality. In the end, it is all about enjoying the music, right?
I enjoy having two turntables; one with a mono cartridge and the other with a stereo cartridge. I play my old mono records in mono and newer stereo records on the stereo table. It’s all about the music!
Yes, if you are recording and reproducing a solo voice or a solo small instruments. No, in all other cases! And of course, as Paul says, mono means one speaker. And stereo - again as he says- is not equal to two-channel. Stereo (from the Greek word for a solid, 3-D object) is the representation of sound in space. Those funny pop/rock two channel recordings with the instruments to the extreme left or right are not really stereophonic, because they do not give you a 3-D image. As for a mono source -it just cannot create 3D sound; what people perceive, is a creation of their minds.
I agree with the caller... It seems I'm way more OCD or something than I originally thought back then as a youth... but bad stereo placement used to drive me nuts in the 70s and/or with Vinyl. So I was good with Mono. Then they started with the whole 5.1 thing.... more OCD frustration. I finally have a technically sound system in an acoustically sorted room and once I got it all right my OCD washed away and all that remains is Stereo music....
Hi ,, I've spent my whole day on line/ UA-cam for some answers,,& I'm still stumped..what I do know is I like my high end played on quilty paper tweeters ,& midbas.in my home,,car,, truck.i like to be in the canter of the music,,I do like the fade from front to back,,side to side,,if I have to choose I would pick clearity of my music over the voulum of it,,I listen to jazz,, classical,, big band,,& rock,dubstep,yep dubstep,some of that imageing is a real treat,, it's all over the spesturm,Paul.w
It's all concentrated in one basic main speaker that's my love for it I still like stereo but there's something about a good old High Fidelity tube amplifier
A perfect stereo recording would be with one pair of microphones distanced exactly as far apart as the speakers it was going to be playing back on, in a room with very good acoustics.
i think you hit it at 5:00 in. Every instrument needs its own drivers and own musical track. That's the right way to get the sound stage to actually be perceived as different instruments in space. No need to use computers to watch your head position so it can control time delays. Need to get to a midi like recording format. I used tascam 238 8 audio recording channels played back using separate amps and speakers, marshall 4x12 and ampeg 8x10 ect . Love the idea. Can you imagine the wall off sound which would be needed for all 25 channels.
I remember when I was building a budget home theater. When it came to my first piece of audio equipment. I went with the home theater receiver first. Next I was going to start buying my speakers. However my budget only allowed me to purchase one speaker at a time. I decided my first speaker was going to be the center speaker. My receiver that I had allowed me to ajust each individual channel or even go as far as turning off each individual channel. So for the longest time all my sound was in mono. Crazy thing was that my source Blu-ray player upscaled all the audio to dts master audio. But my receiver played dts master audio in mono since I only had that channel turned on at the time. I was surprised at how good mono sounded. My next speaker was the powered subwoofer. That added alot to the mix and brought everything to life. I certainly believe mono can sound good. But its hard to beat a true stereo sound if that's how the artist intended it to be. Pretty much if the artist created a mono recording. Then listen to it on a mono system. If the artist created a stereo recording. Listen to it on a stereo etc. Sorry for the long comment. Hope it makes some kind of sense. Thanks for reading.
Your comment remind about how I enjoy literature. As I learn in college and in literature club, there are many 'rules' for literature, like background, symbols, character, plot, and etc. Then, as I learn more about those rule and think about them, I couldn't enjoy literature no more. When I read the literature I think more about those rules and made me uncomfortable. In the end, I decided to enjoy the literature as a literature, not a bunch of rules. Yes, by understanding the rules I might be able to understand those 'hidden message' the writer intended to share. But, I don't want to follow those rules to find the message. I just want to enjoy them in my own style, as the writer write them in their own style. So, what I meant here is that we can enjoy something and ignoring how anybody think about that thing. We could ignore all og the technical and non-technical rules and yet still enjoying the music. We even could ignore the musician intention in the recording. Anyway, thank you for sharing your thought. With respect, Roy
My onkyo tx sr608 blew a few channels i had one in my Amazon cart someone swooped before i could snag it I need pc input what receivers are comparable to my onkyo that will let my plug into pc input please help been searching all morning
Either mono or stereo can be better depending on the details. I would never give one an edge over the other without qualifying the statement. If you get a chance, listen to any Water Lily Acoustics recording. Kavi Alexander uses minimal mic techniques and top-level equipment including custom electronics by Tim de Paravicini. The sound quality is beyond description and the sense of space is impeccable.
I think done properly, and this is really hard to do, a single channel recording, single microphone, played back by carefully selected components will beat a Stereo every time.
Great, informative videos. Thumbs up. This might seem like a simple question, but why do modern subs have two ports on the back? Both my Jamo and Klipsch subs have it. Since we only use the LFE port, what's the point of the other one ? Thanks and Regards, Ehsan
Depends on the artist and the recording. Miles Davis' Bags Groove is a really good mono recording and most folks way older than me swear that Louis Prima and Count Basie sound best in mono, which I also agree.
@Richard Watson Jr. If it's electricity generated by fossil fuels then you are releasing energy that had its origin in our local nuclear fusion power plant: the sun. If it's "renewable" energy, then you are releasing energy that had its origin in our local nuclear fusion power plant: the sun. China, and the USA are approximately eight light minutes from the sun (quite a long way to walk).
If done well its remarkable effective. Dolby have some very good Atmos demos showing what can be done with the format. But I think the sound engineers working in the movie industry more often than not don't make use of its capabilities as well as they could.
Only thing about stereo if one speaker is not working you miss out on half a song and mono broadcast to so what fm broadcast do mix the left and right together so pocket mono radio hear the left and right on one speaker like beatles this is why fm mono is better than normal mono
Going back some years ago I had the opportunity to listen to a mono system consisting of a single 5in Vifa midrange speaker ( considered the best of it's kind in the world at the time ) mounted open air on a flat particle board about 2ftx3ftx1in with wool padding on both sides. Speaker was mounted at an uneven location on the board. It was driven by a single ended, single channel I think 2A3 tube amp. Hi end turntable, tube preamp and cartridge. Source was a 78rpm record circa mid 1930's. Recording was of a female child's voice singing. Stand back about 6 feet or so, close eyes and you'd swear that kid was right there in front of you.
Presumably ignoring the surface noise. IIRC I never heard a microgroove before the age of ~12 years. Some of those old 78s were quite remarkable. I was really pissed off when I held a party in 1969 and some pissed twat smashed my four 12 inch Tchaikovsky 78s. For fun...
I once bought a cassette from a singer that I like to listen to for my Nakamichi DR2. when I let it play it turned out to be a mono recording. I was disappointed. just do stereo.
Mono Ortofon or GE cartridge mounted in a mono arm, playing through a mono preamp and basic to a G 610 or K horn playing a mono disc. A stereo LP is a compromise regarding information in the groove. But, the 1st amp I ever built was a Williamson 20/20... so I am a stereo fan who gets goose bumps when I hear a good mono set up. But, I suppose the haters here have never experienced a good mono set up, and think their cheeseball Pro-Ject turntable playing through a Class D amp is hifi.
while I agree that mono can not compete with stereo for imaging that is only because I understand triangulation, the same is true that stereo can not give a true auditory image in comparison to real life. Stereo imaging is two points that are typically in the same vertical plane so in an auditory sense we have two reference points which is 2d, not 3d
Properly it should be stere- before a vowel so stereo-acuity ought to be stere-acuity, but English is funny that way. Stereo as we use it here is an abbreviation of stereophonic, literally "solid sound", but sound is anything but solid. And phonic is an adjective, not a noun. Oh dearie, dearie me...
Call me silly if you like. In the case of the Beatles being delivered in stereo and you want to go back to its original intended state, isn't it better to have tracks isolated to separate tracks so that it can breathe and have high resolution without competing for space? In that instance, it might be better just to put the two speakers together that were originally made for stereo and have it put together in the center. It would be monolike with higher resolution, just saying (or asking based upon a theory in my head.)
OK silly ;-) Actually, I spent a bit of time thinking about this and you would ever so slightly increase the dynamic range. Stephen WONG might mutter about comb effects (they're real), but I wouldn't worry too much about that. I would worry about moving my speakers about (they're heavy) so mine will stay firmly in place until we move house. I listen to a surprising amount of mono recordings, especially early electrical recordings from the 1930s.
Hey John, because of my poor excuse for a writing without properly proofreading, it was more of a question than a statement. Just a theory in my head and more or less asking everybody's viewpoints on my idea. The theory hasn't been tested by me. I'm asking for people's opinions or experience on my crazy idea.
Mono vs Stereo is a massive topic and it basically revolves around mastering and sound engineering. With a mono recording you usually have a band in a room with 1 mic. It is a pain in the butt to do because everything has to be positioned and recorded perfectly because you can't edit the audio the same way. What you record is what you get. But when a mono recording is done right, you get room details and a certain harmony/naturalness to the music that you simply can't achieve with stereo. The problem with stereo is that you are taking multiple instruments as separate tracks and then you try to throw those individual tracks together to make a cohesive harmony with 3d spacing. It can be done, but its hardly a perfect process and mistakes are often made. However, when stereo is done really really well, it offers a really unique listening experience.
when doing a mono recording, they could still record the instruments/tracks separately, then mix together and output in like any other recording. if you're talking about symphonies you can get the same "room details and a certain harmony/naturalness to the music" as you could with mono just using two mics vs one. i mean, you do have two ears. more up to the quality of the recording equipment and the skill of the engineer/placement. now when it comes to club sound systems they still run everything in mono so no matter where you're at you're hearing all the music in case for some reason it IS one of the tracks that have different sounds in the left and right channels, or it's unbalanced.
Many full orchestra are recorded with just 4 mics, usually ribbons. left, right and center audience and center conductor. The L & R are rarely hard panned. A lot of modern pop stuff has hard panning and some automation that can make one feel a little woozy. Good engineers mix in mono and then carefully pan. Avoids phase issues etc.
You can do whatever you want without any interference from me. OTOH we occasionally see commentards here who will get their knickers in a twist if you have the speaker off-centre by 1.6180339887...
You don’t need a mono system to enjoy HiFi records. All you need is a good mono cartridge. Listened to a great 1955 recording of The Weavers at Carnegie Hall last night.
Just changed my audio on my android via Accessibility settings for when I watch lowfi stuffs on UA-cam with earphones so I don't make my ears left right balance worsening overtime 😅👍
Comparing mono to stereo is like comparing 2D to 3D. Stereo gives spacial information mono simply cannot.To me, there's no comparison. There are bad stereo mixes; but when I hear harmonies coming from 5 different places or the same note sung or chord played in 2 or 3 places, I love it.Bass or drums through only left or right is poor recording, and headphones really make it sound bad.
This dispute is largely a result of an artificially created hype. If you listen to Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out in stereo US you won't want the mono versions anymore. Many Beatles albums sound better in stereo. And if you don't like wide panning, there's an equalizer for that.
The 1956 recordings taped in Vienna. Some readers may be unaware that four years later, the same performers re-recorded Symphonies 5 and 6, along with Symphony 4, in stereo (and mono) at Walthamstow Town Hall in London. I have both sets on CD and a couple of them on LP as well. In the USA, the 1956 Mravinsky/Leningrad Tchaikovsky recordings were originally issued on LP by American Decca under license from DGG, they might be easily overlooked as the Decca covers looked different and lacked the DGG graphic design.
I'll stay with mono sound because all is present and in stereo one sound fades while the other sticks around and in top of that it sounds a bit distorted so not a fan of stereo although I don't hate it but definitely not preferred
Ok, lets clear the air here............. First off, ANY recording made through a mixer CAN NOT create a TRUE stereo image (with height/width/depth and REAL room acoustics). What it does do, is create a stereo SOUNDSTAGE, and the two should not be confused... Stereo image can only be made with a stereo pair of mics and with NO mixing what ever.... THAT folks, is 'true stereo'... Not lots of 'mono' channels be it multi miked over an orchestra or jazz group or inputs to a mixing console in a studio and 'assembled' into a two channel 'mix down' with artificial reverb.....
A cheap way for true Mono is to move 1 speaker to the middle and disconnect the other. The Beatles Mono mixes were mixed and should be played on 1 speaker. I prefer the Stereo mixes but not all.
I used to be all in stereo, then i started listening to stuff like Steely Dan and Dire straights in DTS NeuralX, wow. Listening to stereo even with excellent soundstage isnt quite the same anymore. No offense to those that live and die by it, just the times are a changing constantly. It is also quite the experiance to watch the music around you in VR as you hear it coming in from all around you. But thats just me :P
So how does DTS Neural X work through a single channel? Monophonic = single channel. Stereo = "Giving the impression of a spatial distribution in reproduced sound; spec. employing two or more channels of transmission and reproduction so that the sound may seem to reach the listener from any of a range of directions."* If DTS Neural X is not stereo, it must be mono. According to you. * From the Oxford English Dictionary.
@@jonathansturm4163 Hardly mono or stereo. DTS-HD Master Audio is a lossless compression codec containing a lossy DTS Digital core, thus allowing for bit-to-bit representation of the original movie's master soundtrack. DTS-HD Master Audio supports variable bit rates up to 24.5 Mbit/s. The format supports a maximum of 192 kHz sampling frequency and 24-bit depth samples from 2 to 5.1 channels, and 96 kHz/24bit resolution up to 7.1 channels.[5] DTS-HD Master Audio is capable of virtually any number of discrete channels but is limited by storage media.[6] As a 3D audio delivery format, a DTS:X encoded DTS-HD Master Audio stream is able to contain up to 7.1 channels as well as nine objects and its associated metadata at 96 kHz/24 bit.[7]
@@jonathansturm4163 where did i try to define stereo? I merely stated a prefrence over both stereo and mono for me. as I "Did" state above No offense to those that live and die by it.
@@punknpunt352 You contrasted stereo with DTS. Since DTS _is_ stereo, your comment was incoherent. _Wireless World_ 26 Jan. 1927 is the primary source of the definition for stereophonic.
Yeah, mono is better than stereo in terms of sound stage solidness. Reason behind, mono system has no comb filtering/interference. Whenever same sound source is sent to more than one speaker (driver) there will be comb filtering. But one needs mono recording from beginning to eliminate comb filtering, mixing a pair of stereo mics on the mixer will introduce comb filtering.
Almost true. You do have phase coherent and mono-compatible recording/mic'ing techniques that can be converted to mono without any combfilter effects. One of these techniques is called mid/side (m/s for short) and is actually a 3 channel recording technique which has to be run trough a decoding matrix in order to flip the phase on one of the sides on a figure-8 mic in order to render properly (in adition to a cardioid mic placed on the same axis to handle the "mid"-portion of the signal). This will make it so the content exclusive to the stereo portion gets canceled out if played in mono and what you're left with is a fully compliant mono signal as if it was recorded in mono. In fact, the remaining signal was actually recorded in mono.
@@TheNadasvada Yes, I'm well aware of MS recording mic placement technique, I was ignorant on the phase coherent part. But the stereo/mono debate remains, even with a good mono source, if it is sent to a pair of speakers, comb filtering will harm sound being heard. So, send a mono sound source to one (center) speaker will deliver a better result.
TheNadasvada for most real world systems , sure, but narrow-dispersion near-field monitors in an acoustically treated room can reproduce not only a perfect center image, but actual 3D sound. True 3d sound requires basically an anechoic chamber (it has been done!) but recording studios can get somewhat close. Treated Hifi listening rooms are generally another step down from near field studios in terms of image coherence simply due to distance between the speakers and the listening position and the tweeter dispersion characteristics. And then way, way, way below that is your typical “good speakers in a living room” setup where vocals come from some vague location between the left and right speaker.
Quad was a gimmick, stereo is not. To properly listen to mono you need a mono cartridge but not a mono system. Just feed the cartridge to one channel of your stereo and listen through that speaker. The only way I know to do that with digital is to us a splitter in reverse, or in my case using a computer as my digital source, set the computer output for mono. You've all seen the old 78 rpm records, they sound absolutely fantastic, when properly equalized, through one speaker. I say when properly equalized, the RIAA curve we use now was not standardized until the mid 1950's. Before then each record company had their own equalization curve. This is why tone controls were first put on preamplifiers, to "re-equalize" for different recording curves. If you don't want to play 78s from the '40s, tone controls are unnecessary. And, yes, these equalization curves are necessary to make a playable record. All the Beatles records, except for the last two (I think), were recorded in mono, and should be listened to in mono. Those "stereo" abominations with the voices on one side and instruments were just a scheme to sell more records that were now supposedly in stereo.
@ John LeBeau The last three Beatles albums were released in stereo only. Sgt Pepper was recorded on a four track machine to one inch tape. The multi-layering was achieved by track bumping and the use of multiple recorders too IIRC.
@@SilentShadow-ss5xp Perhaps not, but it's a cheap and acceptable solution. And, my apologies, when I say quad I am referring to the first quad systems from the '70s, not the current surround systems. There was great pushback from the mono stalwarts when stereo first came out, they probably thought it was a gimmick.
@@SilentShadow-ss5xp "Quad isn't a gimmick..." When quadrophonic arrived, I purchased a suitable cartridge (Grace F8F) and borrowed the extra gear. I purchased Bob Dylan's _Planet Waves_ and Frank Zappa's _Apostrophe_ and listened to quadrophonic stereo for, oh I dunno, two days? Then I returned the borrowed amplifier and speakers and never listened to more than two channel sound (music at least) since.
@@johnlebeau5471 And I didn't really answer that. IIRC, the first album was recorded in mono, and thereafter all the recordings were multi-track recordings that could be mixed to stereo.
We hear in stereo that’s why we have two eras,, let’s all save up and bye him a Cristal radio and a eyer pease or better still send him back in time he mite be happy then. ( Stereo the work of the smoke and mirrors ) give me a good stereo setup and good recording every time
Personally I don’t want to say either one is bad, A good stereo recording and a good mono recording both kick ass. Toss that Yorx receiver in the garbage and get a good system
thank you, your comment is like a light in a sea of darkness scrolling through this comment section. (and after watching the video) don't even know why i'm still here. :smh:
Of course to get true 3D we need two of something, as in nature. Two Ears and two eyes provide us with 3 dimensions. I guess 2 speakers (in stereo) is transposing what naturally is.
I would imagine that it's going to take some technology akin to Star Trek's holodeck to finally get that truly immersive experience... But until that day we will have to make do with what is available now. 😐 (sigh)
Mono is for the purists, but stereo is a necessity for any form of a 3-dimensional image! The more channels the easier to control the imaging.(ie surround sound) My favorite and one of the simplest way to extract more imaging cues from the stereo signal is the David Hafler setup. Give it a try!
@@sc51153826 Mmmm... Food for thought. At the time it was touted as unsuited to studio multi-tracked recordings, so I only listened to live recordings. Might just try it with some of Eno's stuff; I wouldn't put it past him to have deliberately engineered some of his material for it. I do have a spare pair of speakers, but the cable's in the lock-up. Next weekend perhaps.
When I worked in the hi Fi trade many years ago I came across a customer who had an astonishing mono system.
Apart from the biggest record collection going back over many years and some records larger than a now standard 12" discs. He owned a single loudspeaker which was a Tannoy in a hand made Guy Roy Fountain enclosure driven from a mono valve amp.
Over the years I knew this man he taught me more about listening to music than I learnt as a sales person.
The art of listening is to enjoy the composition and composer rather than the mono stereo debate. When I sit in a bath and enjoy music on my old Mono radio it does not detract from my music pleasure.
A man after my own heart :-) Interestingly, my first Shure SME tone arm came from a broadcasting studio and was slightly longer than the standard arm because it had to accommodate 16 inch recordings.
This dispute is largely a result of an artificially created hype. If you listen to Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out in stereo US you won't want the mono versions anymore. Many Beatles albums sound better in stereo. And if you don't like wide panning, there's an equalizer for that.
I love how hard he has to try to be polite in replying to this.
His pronunciation of "New" is pretty funny, too. Nee South Wales? But we loves him :-)
People ask dumb Questions on this channel its unreal
@@jonathansturm4163 He is saying Neath, South Wales, e.g the Wales the country in the United Kingdom.
I have a bunch of old classical recordings on LP. I liked to go with the ones that used a single pair of mics, or as few as possible. You could “see” each instrument in the orchestra left to right- front to back because everything arrived at the mic as you would hear it. The extreme opposite would be Frank Zappa once saying that he would like to record an orchestra with each instrument being separately mic’d, and he would then place them where he wanted in the mix.
One of the first bands that made good use of stereo was queen. Heck they did it better than most bands these days.
That was because of the limitations of recording on 3 or 4 tracks. Eight track machines were rare for a long time. The first Ampex 8-track recorders was purchased by Les Paul for $10,000 in 1957 for his home recording studio by David Sarser. Frank Zappa had his 8 track machine built for him and that was several years before Queen.
Queen made good use of stereo starting with their second album, when they purposely position things a certain way and manually turned the planning during mixdown. The Beatles made good use of it during Sgt. Pepper thanks to bouncing from one 4-track to another. Otherwise, 4-track recordings are quite limited to what you can do in a stereo picture, unless you're recording a band in natural stereo.
Add Steely Dan to that.
Steve Hillage did a fantastic job with stereo imaging in his recordings from the 70s.
I've been listening to old high-fidelity 33 1/3 and slightly newer stereo / mono recordings on a webcor musical was a decent push-pull amp and my God I can't believe the natural bass , the highs and I'll be even got a blown or a broken right tweter I just cannot believe this record player sounds so enchanting
I love hearing how you all "picture" the music. The compulsion so many audiophiles have for dimentionality and imaging fascinates me; Imaging isn't anything I really give any special attention. I'm reminded of visual art and how most westerners in the 18th and 19th centuries believed the the more lifelike the resemblance, the better the painting.
Ever hear of Andrew Wyeth and magic realism? I'd give a lot to own one of his works...
@Larry Niles I beg to differ (ain't too pround to beg, sweet darlin'...). Following a melody; feeling one's body pulse in time with a rhythm, feeling tonalities tamper with one's mood, gritting teeth in response to the textures...this is as close to sympathetic magic as many of us can get. Music is dense with potential and I'm sure those things matter to you. My feeling is that all those qualities play a more important role in music than imaging or spatiality. Music doesn't rely on pictures why do you?
@Jonathan Strum Sure. And a sonic equivalent to Wyeth (or any 17th-century Dutch still life painter) is awesome to hear. That said, Mark Rothko and Philip Guston were painters, active at the same time as Wyeth and are infinitely more compelling, IMO.
Is mono better than stereo? ... No.
However, it is true that many early recordings were used to maximize the "separation" of different instruments rather than use the format to construct the image of the performance itself. Many people did not even understand that the purpose of stereo was to construct this image and were just fascinated that different sounds were emitted from the two speakers.
Mono IS better than poorly recorded stereo. Early Bob Dylan did not require stereo at all. How far could he be away from his harmonica or guitar? Stereo is more suited to orchestras and concert bands, but can also be effective for groups of five to ten musicians or vocalists. With groups of three or less is unnecessary other than picking up the ambiance of the room they are in. Most modern recording are isolated tracks that are mixed on a console in a studio, so the image is actually created by the mixing engineer.
I enjoy some of that old hard-panned stuff myself. it dates itself, but that's ok
I LOVE well mixed mono. I loathe a lot of early "stereo" panning particularly the early stereo Beatles as mentioned. I have recorded and mixed in & to mono and it's really hard to do well. A well recorded and mixed classic stereo image, (band on stage from the audience perspective though with the usual bass freqs up the middle), is a thing of beauty. A well mixed binaural recording with decent headphones can be wonderful, (trickier to do well though). Many quad recordings are incredible experiences that improve on the stereo while many others aren't. I'm keen on 5.1 music though - too much scope for dicking around. Well explained Paul. Thanks for a rare dose of bias confirmation!
As a professional recording engineer I once carried out an experiment with a 5 piece band and each member had their own microphone.. several for the drummer... and the recordings were handled separately on 5 mono channels ... the drummer mikes were down mixed to one channel .. using an upper limit of 120dB for dynamic range I played each channel back through 5 200watt amps and speakers placed exactly where each band member was ... I tell you what ... I could NOT tell the difference between the live performance and the playback ...!
This proved that there IS only one way to properly record AND play back in true audio imaging ( I refuse to call it stereo ... that's old school !!)
Clears throat... I suspect I won't live to experience it, but it seems to me that direct stimulation of the brain might just be the ultimate. Of course there will be outrage from certain quarters about "cancer" or something.
That's really interesting. I was thinking this must be the only way to reproduce an accurate sound image from a band playing.
Sounds like a high school part time job
Danny Woods ..... is still at HS I think
I can understand why the one who asked the question think that stereo is just a gimmick if he's using the early Beatles stereo recordings as a reference. I too hated the type of stereo that has the vocals on one channel and the instrumentals on the other. For what I understand, the original intent for what stereo recorded music supposed to be is to mimic what a conductor in an orchestra is listening to. I would recommend him to listen to some of the early stereo recording demo records of orchestra music from the late 1950s. That will sure open his ears up.
Get yourself a good classroom record player with 6" by 9" full range speaker , that will give good sound and it will be mono. I had 1938 General Electric floor standing radio with a full range 15" speaker best sounding AM broadcast and shortwave sound I've heard. And to this day it can't be beat by anything!
Half a decade? More like half a century :-)
That half a decade thing caught my attention too. Half a century, I'll buy.
@@ehwestonful No need to buy... It's a gift :-)
I had to check the comments for this because I knew that was off. Ive been an audiophile(budget friendly) for a decade already and I'm 24. Was starting to feel like I missed out on some opportunities if half a decade was all it took to land me a career in this XD
Around the time surround sound came out I had this idea to do just the oppisite. Seperate sound using both mono and stereo. More recently I have been considering doing this in a custom build or homemade jam box. Unlike a boombox that has depth, a jam box is tall and flat. My idea would include the basic 4 inch speakers as mid range and the tweets but in the center a single 8 inch sub woofer powered by a seperate amp. This would be the mono working with the stereo to get a dedicated sound from each speaker 5 total.
So my answer to this question of mono vs/ stereo is why not do both?
What a coincidence. Just yesterday (before seeing this vid) I noticed how different the Beatles recordings were. I recently installed a relatively cheap set up with an old Aurex power/pre combo powering a set of mk2 ELAC debut 5's and the matching sub... and the difference is crazy, to the point where what didn't bother before does now! Not that I prefer one or the other, perhaps I don't really have the gear to A-B recordings for preference, still, thought I'd thank you for answering the coincidental issue lol.
George Martin once said,“You've never really heard Sgt Pepper until you've heard it in mono.” It's been known for some time now that the mono mixes were the only mixes that the Beatles themselves oversaw. Mono was the standard, back then: it was the one the band itself knew, having grown up with it. The only Beatles album that was designed and conceived in stereo was Abbey Road, the last one they made.
Nope. Yellow Submarine, Let It Be, and Abbey Road never had mono releases. Also, The Beatles (The White Album) was originally released in the U.S. in stereo only, so by 1968 mono was clearly no longer "the standard". It was a deprecated format clearly on its way out. Even the earliest releases by the Beatles were available in stereo versions. The market demanded it. This may have reflected some difference between the U.S. and Britain, where mono apparently held on longer.
Fact is, if guitars, drums, piano, etc. have been recorded with at least 2 mics to 2 separate channels, then you can hear the playback as if you were there when it was played live. You can't do it with a mono recording. A reverb effect (convolution included) added to a mono recording can create some 3D space artificially, but it's not as realistic, although it can sound pretty good.
In my opinion, stereo music just sounds more pleasant, especially when softer and quieter background sounds (synths, guitars, voices) are as wide as possible, without messing up the stereo image.
Paul, how about the sounding from a stereo player out to mono device like only 1 channel pre-amp & 1 power amp? Means stereo virtually.
I can run an arpeggio across the stereo field to attract attention to it, using our instinctive sound tracking reaction. Conversely, I can scatter that same arpeggio around the stereo field to make it less obvious.
You're all preoccupied with audio gimmicks. I still use Edison Cylinders on my phonograph like my great, great, great, great grandpappy did before me. And I'll do so until the day I die! Hand cranked wax cylinders forever!!! Lol
Ha! You're still stuck on all of this audio mumbo-jumbo. I just read sheet music. That's all I need.
Peasants! I just hire a bunch of street musicians to perform in my house. Cannot afford big band still.
@@superlameusername362 who needs a band when you have a couple of sticks? ... one speaker, LOL. hard to take someone seriously after they recommend someone to do a pure mono setup.
The height/depth/width thing is only relevant to reproducing sources where you were up close, however in many live scenarios (that your trying to reproduce) you are often way back from the performers, so the difference between where the performers are is all but zero.
With a large orchestra there is a bit more scope for width, however a guitar and 2 singers, with maybe a drummer, from 20 plus meters back there is basically zero width.
If anything, stereo is a must just for halving distortion by distributing the sound on twice the number of speakers. Any level of possible spatial awareness is added bonus on top.
Stereo is very often a gimmick. The most are mono recordings with an artificial soundstage (panning, echo and reverb).
True stereo recordings are rare. Then they are a recreation of a true soundstage in 3D, with Direction, Depth and Dimension. Recorded with two or just some microphones.
You also have “stereo” recordings, which are multiple true stereo recordings on top of each other, where the instruments are placed through each other, and some instruments (mostly the solo artist or singer) are too big.
And even with a true stereo recording, there is something wrong, as Paul said. The sound propagation or sound field is disturbed. In a live event there is no sweet spot, a 3D sound image everywhere. I think that’s why a recording never sounds (as) live.
When I produce music (which i really must upload some day) I prefer to have most, if not all instruments panned in the center and then use effects to widen the sound-stage, such as reverb, flanges, stuff like that. That way it would sound as good in mono. Things such as an orchestra any kind of acoustic band sounds good if recorded with stereo microphones but when I hear music where instruments are hard panned to the left or right, it just sounds un-balanced. Speaking of unbalanced one thing I can't stand is mono recordings that have been processed to sound like stereo. It might sound okay through speakers, but though headphones it un-listenable.
Mono processed into fake stereo does _not_ sound OK. It sounds bloody awful. And there's no longer a stereo/mono switch on amps.
Great presentation. Nice sound man 👨 👍
I can see preferring the Beatles in mono because their stereo is so cheesy. The 50th anniversary Sgt. Pepper remix is a big improvement of the stereo in my opinion. But life ain't all Beatles. There's so much good stereo out there, as in damn near anything that wasn't recorded in the 60's. Even a lot of 60's stuff is pretty good in stereo. I recently bought the Analogue Productions SACD of Jimi Hendrix's "Axis: Bold as Love" album, which has both stereo and mono mixes, and to me the stereo is far superior to the mono.
Totally agree on the Sgt. Peppers 50th anniversary debate. However didn’t the engineers revisit the original mono recording as a lot of people had commented that the original ‘snap’ and ‘guts’ had disappeared through stereo mixing and later remastering etc?. I believe that with the 50th anniversary re issue there is a definable immediacy about the whole album that was there in the original mono recording,it just sounds excellent even through my phone. I’m a big fan of stereo like yourself though and like Paul says depth of field can only be created through stereo and placement of instruments which creates this illusion coming at your ears
Back in the late 50's when stereo LP's came on the market (stereo R2R came earlier, like around 1953 but it was super expensive in the day though) so most HiFi enthusiasts still had a mono system as it took literally 2 of everything but the tape deck itself. Stereo LP didn't come until 1958 and all we had at that time was 2, or 3 channel decks to record stereo to for many studios. 4 track came along and it was all many had in the 60's, though some of the earliest 4 track machines were from 1959 or so. During that time, stereo was rather wide with many instruments on one channel or the other and many bands, recording engineers treated stereo as an afterthought as well.
It would take until the advent of the 8 track machines and later 16 and 24 track machines before stereo became less of a gimmick as in some cases, a ping, pong effect was used on many a pop album. That was where stereo was often treated as a gimmick. Play a Jazz or classical piece and it was treated more legitimately. to faithfully replicate the stereo image of a 4 piece jazz quartet, or an orchestra.
To that end, mono when well done is very good. I use my mono switch and if everything is set up right, it comes out as a phantom source in between my two speakers. But a lot of my older jazz pressings ARE mono, but I have more stereos than mono's in my collections, be it jazz or pop or whatever.
The thing is, by the 70's the gimmicky stereo was long past. The wide stereo was prevalent for a good while, especially for pop/rock material to get kids excited for stereo I believe.
You just need to listen to good stereo to see what all the fuss is about. I like both in actuality. In the end, it is all about enjoying the music, right?
I enjoy having two turntables; one with a mono cartridge and the other with a stereo cartridge. I play my old mono records in mono and newer stereo records on the stereo table.
It’s all about the music!
Yes, if you are recording and reproducing a solo voice or a solo small instruments. No, in all other cases! And of course, as Paul says, mono means one speaker. And stereo - again as he says- is not equal to two-channel. Stereo (from the Greek word for a solid, 3-D object) is the representation of sound in space. Those funny pop/rock two channel recordings with the instruments to the extreme left or right are not really stereophonic, because they do not give you a 3-D image. As for a mono source -it just cannot create 3D sound; what people perceive, is a creation of their minds.
I agree with the caller... It seems I'm way more OCD or something than I originally thought back then as a youth... but bad stereo placement used to drive me nuts in the 70s and/or with Vinyl. So I was good with Mono. Then they started with the whole 5.1 thing.... more OCD frustration. I finally have a technically sound system in an acoustically sorted room and once I got it all right my OCD washed away and all that remains is Stereo music....
why wen i put my radio in stereo i only hear one speaker in mono i hear 2 speaker help please
Hi ,, I've spent my whole day on line/ UA-cam for some answers,,& I'm still stumped..what I do know is I like my high end played on quilty paper tweeters ,& midbas.in my home,,car,, truck.i like to be in the canter of the music,,I do like the fade from front to back,,side to side,,if I have to choose I would pick clearity of my music over the voulum of it,,I listen to jazz,, classical,, big band,,& rock,dubstep,yep dubstep,some of that imageing is a real treat,, it's all over the spesturm,Paul.w
Another good debate made clearer, tks Paul!
I would love mono on fm broadcast because its a mixed stereo sound in one so stereo imaging isnt cancelled out
It's all concentrated in one basic main speaker that's my love for it I still like stereo but there's something about a good old High Fidelity tube amplifier
A perfect stereo recording would be with one pair of microphones distanced exactly as far apart as the speakers it was going to be playing back on, in a room with very good acoustics.
i think you hit it at 5:00 in. Every instrument needs its own drivers and own musical track. That's the right way to get the sound stage to actually be perceived as different instruments in space. No need to use computers to watch your head position so it can control time delays. Need to get to a midi like recording format. I used tascam 238 8 audio recording channels played back using separate amps and speakers, marshall 4x12 and ampeg 8x10 ect . Love the idea. Can you imagine the wall off sound which would be needed for all 25 channels.
"midi like recording format" sir, do you have any kind of understanding of midi or digital audio?
sounds like you just need better speakers.
I remember when I was building a budget home theater. When it came to my first piece of audio equipment. I went with the home theater receiver first. Next I was going to start buying my speakers. However my budget only allowed me to purchase one speaker at a time. I decided my first speaker was going to be the center speaker. My receiver that I had allowed me to ajust each individual channel or even go as far as turning off each individual channel. So for the longest time all my sound was in mono. Crazy thing was that my source Blu-ray player upscaled all the audio to dts master audio. But my receiver played dts master audio in mono since I only had that channel turned on at the time. I was surprised at how good mono sounded. My next speaker was the powered subwoofer. That added alot to the mix and brought everything to life. I certainly believe mono can sound good. But its hard to beat a true stereo sound if that's how the artist intended it to be. Pretty much if the artist created a mono recording. Then listen to it on a mono system. If the artist created a stereo recording. Listen to it on a stereo etc. Sorry for the long comment. Hope it makes some kind of sense. Thanks for reading.
Your comment remind about how I enjoy literature. As I learn in college and in literature club, there are many 'rules' for literature, like background, symbols, character, plot, and etc. Then, as I learn more about those rule and think about them, I couldn't enjoy literature no more. When I read the literature I think more about those rules and made me uncomfortable. In the end, I decided to enjoy the literature as a literature, not a bunch of rules.
Yes, by understanding the rules I might be able to understand those 'hidden message' the writer intended to share. But, I don't want to follow those rules to find the message. I just want to enjoy them in my own style, as the writer write them in their own style. So, what I meant here is that we can enjoy something and ignoring how anybody think about that thing. We could ignore all og the technical and non-technical rules and yet still enjoying the music. We even could ignore the musician intention in the recording.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your thought.
With respect,
Roy
My onkyo tx sr608 blew a few channels i had one in my Amazon cart someone swooped before i could snag it
I need pc input what receivers are comparable to my onkyo that will let my plug into pc input please help been searching all morning
Damn. I could listen to this guy all day.
Fix that intermittent shop lamp! :)
Either mono or stereo can be better depending on the details.
I would never give one an edge over the other without qualifying the statement.
If you get a chance, listen to any Water Lily Acoustics recording.
Kavi Alexander uses minimal mic techniques and top-level equipment including custom electronics by Tim de Paravicini.
The sound quality is beyond description and the sense of space is impeccable.
I think done properly, and this is really hard to do, a single channel recording, single microphone, played back by carefully selected components will beat a Stereo every time.
Not for a symphony orchestra. Maybe for a couple of instruments or vocalists.
Great, informative videos. Thumbs up.
This might seem like a simple question, but why do modern subs have two ports on the back? Both my Jamo and Klipsch subs have it. Since we only use the LFE port, what's the point of the other one ?
Thanks and Regards,
Ehsan
Depends on the artist and the recording. Miles Davis' Bags Groove is a really good mono recording and most folks way older than me swear that Louis Prima and Count Basie sound best in mono, which I also agree.
I love a good mono mix and recoding.
Stereo means solid soundstage....which separates the instruments and vocals as the Producer intended
Was this recorded in your new building? If so it's sad to see that one of your ceiling lights is intermittent already.
@Richard Watson Jr. If it's electricity generated by fossil fuels then you are releasing energy that had its origin in our local nuclear fusion power plant: the sun. If it's "renewable" energy, then you are releasing energy that had its origin in our local nuclear fusion power plant: the sun. China, and the USA are approximately eight light minutes from the sun (quite a long way to walk).
What is your take on Dolby Atmos to try and simulate 3D sound?
If done well its remarkable effective. Dolby have some very good Atmos demos showing what can be done with the format. But I think the sound engineers working in the movie industry more often than not don't make use of its capabilities as well as they could.
are you also referring to FM radio broadcast ?......
Neath in South Wales is in the uk. Hope you don’t think it’s in Australia. I live about 30 miles from there.😏
Only thing about stereo if one speaker is not working you miss out on half a song and mono broadcast to so what fm broadcast do mix the left and right together so pocket mono radio hear the left and right on one speaker like beatles this is why fm mono is better than normal mono
sgt.pepper is great in mono , same for pet sounds , even piper at the gates of dawn. nothing wrong with mono.
Why struggle creating a 3D audio image with only 2 speakers? Don’t we have Dolby Surround for that!?
Going back some years ago I had the opportunity to listen to a mono system consisting of a single 5in Vifa midrange speaker ( considered the best of it's kind in the world at the time ) mounted open air on a flat particle board about 2ftx3ftx1in with wool padding on both sides. Speaker was mounted at an uneven location on the board. It was driven by a single ended, single channel I think 2A3 tube amp. Hi end turntable, tube preamp and cartridge. Source was a 78rpm record circa mid 1930's. Recording was of a female child's voice singing. Stand back about 6 feet or so, close eyes and you'd swear that kid was right there in front of you.
Presumably ignoring the surface noise. IIRC I never heard a microgroove before the age of ~12 years. Some of those old 78s were quite remarkable. I was really pissed off when I held a party in 1969 and some pissed twat smashed my four 12 inch Tchaikovsky 78s. For fun...
Beatles were recorded in "LCR", and yes, it maybe considered a goofy way to interpret "stereo".
I once bought a cassette from a singer that I like to listen to for my Nakamichi DR2. when I let it play it turned out to be a mono recording. I was disappointed. just do stereo.
Mono Ortofon or GE cartridge mounted in a mono arm, playing through a mono preamp and basic to a G 610 or K horn playing a mono disc. A stereo LP is a compromise regarding information in the groove. But, the 1st amp I ever built was a Williamson 20/20... so I am a stereo fan who gets goose bumps when I hear a good mono set up. But, I suppose the haters here have never experienced a good mono set up, and think their cheeseball Pro-Ject turntable playing through a Class D amp is hifi.
while I agree that mono can not compete with stereo for imaging that is only because I understand triangulation, the same is true that stereo can not give a true auditory image in comparison to real life. Stereo imaging is two points that are typically in the same vertical plane so in an auditory sense we have two reference points which is 2d, not 3d
stereo does not originally mean 2 speakers : the greek root word means "solid" like in 3-dimensional .
Properly it should be stere- before a vowel so stereo-acuity ought to be stere-acuity, but English is funny that way. Stereo as we use it here is an abbreviation of stereophonic, literally "solid sound", but sound is anything but solid. And phonic is an adjective, not a noun. Oh dearie, dearie me...
Call me silly if you like. In the case of the Beatles being delivered in stereo and you want to go back to its original intended state, isn't it better to have tracks isolated to separate tracks so that it can breathe and have high resolution without competing for space? In that instance, it might be better just to put the two speakers together that were originally made for stereo and have it put together in the center. It would be monolike with higher resolution, just saying (or asking based upon a theory in my head.)
OK silly ;-) Actually, I spent a bit of time thinking about this and you would ever so slightly increase the dynamic range. Stephen WONG
might mutter about comb effects (they're real), but I wouldn't worry too much about that. I would worry about moving my speakers about (they're heavy) so mine will stay firmly in place until we move house. I listen to a surprising amount of mono recordings, especially early electrical recordings from the 1930s.
Hey John, because of my poor excuse for a writing without properly proofreading, it was more of a question than a statement.
Just a theory in my head and more or less asking everybody's viewpoints on my idea. The theory hasn't been tested by me. I'm asking for people's opinions or experience on my crazy idea.
Great Explanation ! 👍👍
Mono vs Stereo is a massive topic and it basically revolves around mastering and sound engineering. With a mono recording you usually have a band in a room with 1 mic. It is a pain in the butt to do because everything has to be positioned and recorded perfectly because you can't edit the audio the same way. What you record is what you get. But when a mono recording is done right, you get room details and a certain harmony/naturalness to the music that you simply can't achieve with stereo. The problem with stereo is that you are taking multiple instruments as separate tracks and then you try to throw those individual tracks together to make a cohesive harmony with 3d spacing. It can be done, but its hardly a perfect process and mistakes are often made. However, when stereo is done really really well, it offers a really unique listening experience.
when doing a mono recording, they could still record the instruments/tracks separately, then mix together and output in like any other recording. if you're talking about symphonies you can get the same "room details and a certain harmony/naturalness to the music" as you could with mono just using two mics vs one. i mean, you do have two ears. more up to the quality of the recording equipment and the skill of the engineer/placement.
now when it comes to club sound systems they still run everything in mono so no matter where you're at you're hearing all the music in case for some reason it IS one of the tracks that have different sounds in the left and right channels, or it's unbalanced.
Many full orchestra are recorded with just 4 mics, usually ribbons. left, right and center audience and center conductor. The L & R are rarely hard panned. A lot of modern pop stuff has hard panning and some automation that can make one feel a little woozy. Good engineers mix in mono and then carefully pan. Avoids phase issues etc.
Some of my old classical stereo recordings were made with a crossed pair of mikes. Agree there's little worse than gratuitous overuse of hard panning.
Why can't you play a mono source and use just one of your speakers centered ?
You can do whatever you want without any interference from me. OTOH we occasionally see commentards here who will get their knickers in a twist if you have the speaker off-centre by 1.6180339887...
You don’t need a mono system to enjoy HiFi records. All you need is a good mono cartridge. Listened to a great 1955 recording of The Weavers at Carnegie Hall last night.
Just changed my audio on my android via Accessibility settings for when I watch lowfi stuffs on UA-cam with earphones so I don't make my ears left right balance worsening overtime 😅👍
Comparing mono to stereo is like comparing 2D to 3D. Stereo gives spacial information mono simply cannot.To me, there's no comparison. There are bad stereo mixes; but when I hear harmonies coming from 5 different places or the same note sung or chord played in 2 or 3 places, I love it.Bass or drums through only left or right is poor recording, and headphones really make it sound bad.
This dispute is largely a result of an artificially created hype. If you listen to Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out in stereo US you won't want the mono versions anymore. Many Beatles albums sound better in stereo. And if you don't like wide panning, there's an equalizer for that.
Paul has learned a lot in 5 years.
He's just a little hazy on where the decimal point belongs :-)
I had a AM radio in my AMC Gremlin that came from the factory with no carpet. I thought it sounded fine.
Not a one of the several radios I've owned had carpet...
Mavrinsky, leningrad phil, mono, dg tchaikovsky symphonies 5&6🐳
The 1956 recordings taped in Vienna. Some readers may be unaware that four years later, the same performers re-recorded Symphonies 5 and 6, along with Symphony 4, in stereo (and mono) at Walthamstow Town Hall in London. I have both sets on CD and a couple of them on LP as well. In the USA, the 1956 Mravinsky/Leningrad Tchaikovsky recordings were originally issued on LP by American Decca under license from DGG, they might be easily overlooked as the Decca covers looked different and lacked the DGG graphic design.
I'll stay with mono sound because all is present and in stereo one sound fades while the other sticks around and in top of that it sounds a bit distorted so not a fan of stereo although I don't hate it but definitely not preferred
Ok, lets clear the air here............. First off, ANY recording made through a mixer CAN NOT create a TRUE stereo image (with height/width/depth and REAL room acoustics). What it does do, is create a stereo SOUNDSTAGE, and the two should not be confused... Stereo image can only be made with a stereo pair of mics and with NO mixing what ever.... THAT folks, is 'true stereo'... Not lots of 'mono' channels be it multi miked over an orchestra or jazz group or inputs to a mixing console in a studio and 'assembled' into a two channel 'mix down' with artificial reverb.....
That's a very good point and very true.
Thank you Marcus....many people throw those terms around not understanding the meaning and the differences between them....
A cheap way for true Mono is to move 1 speaker to the middle and disconnect the other. The Beatles Mono mixes were mixed and should be played on 1 speaker. I prefer the Stereo mixes but not all.
anyone else searching this cause they want the full experience of your laptop/pc's volume
I used to be all in stereo, then i started listening to stuff like Steely Dan and Dire straights in DTS NeuralX, wow.
Listening to stereo even with excellent soundstage isnt quite the same anymore. No offense to those that live and die by it, just the times are a changing constantly.
It is also quite the experiance to watch the music around you in VR as you hear it coming in from all around you. But thats just me :P
So how does DTS Neural X work through a single channel? Monophonic = single channel. Stereo = "Giving the impression of a spatial distribution in reproduced sound; spec. employing two or more channels of transmission and reproduction so that the sound may seem to reach the listener from any of a range of directions."* If DTS Neural X is not stereo, it must be mono. According to you.
* From the Oxford English Dictionary.
@@jonathansturm4163 Hardly mono or stereo.
DTS-HD Master Audio is a lossless compression codec containing a lossy DTS Digital core, thus allowing for bit-to-bit representation of the original movie's master soundtrack. DTS-HD Master Audio supports variable bit rates up to 24.5 Mbit/s. The format supports a maximum of 192 kHz sampling frequency and 24-bit depth samples from 2 to 5.1 channels, and 96 kHz/24bit resolution up to 7.1 channels.[5] DTS-HD Master Audio is capable of virtually any number of discrete channels but is limited by storage media.[6]
As a 3D audio delivery format, a DTS:X encoded DTS-HD Master Audio stream is able to contain up to 7.1 channels as well as nine objects and its associated metadata at 96 kHz/24 bit.[7]
@@punknpunt352 So I'm to take _your_ definition of the word "stereo" over the Oxford English Dictionary? That's quite an ego you have there!
@@jonathansturm4163 where did i try to define stereo? I merely stated a prefrence over both stereo and mono for me. as I "Did" state above No offense to those that live and die by it.
@@punknpunt352 You contrasted stereo with DTS. Since DTS _is_ stereo, your comment was incoherent. _Wireless World_ 26 Jan. 1927 is the primary source of the definition for stereophonic.
Yeah, mono is better than stereo in terms of sound stage solidness. Reason behind, mono system has no comb filtering/interference. Whenever same sound source is sent to more than one speaker (driver) there will be comb filtering. But one needs mono recording from beginning to eliminate comb filtering, mixing a pair of stereo mics on the mixer will introduce comb filtering.
Almost true. You do have phase coherent and mono-compatible recording/mic'ing techniques that can be converted to mono without any combfilter effects. One of these techniques is called mid/side (m/s for short) and is actually a 3 channel recording technique which has to be run trough a decoding matrix in order to flip the phase on one of the sides on a figure-8 mic in order to render properly (in adition to a cardioid mic placed on the same axis to handle the "mid"-portion of the signal). This will make it so the content exclusive to the stereo portion gets canceled out if played in mono and what you're left with is a fully compliant mono signal as if it was recorded in mono. In fact, the remaining signal was actually recorded in mono.
@@TheNadasvada Kewl!
@@TheNadasvada Yes, I'm well aware of MS recording mic placement technique, I was ignorant on the phase coherent part. But the stereo/mono debate remains, even with a good mono source, if it is sent to a pair of speakers, comb filtering will harm sound being heard. So, send a mono sound source to one (center) speaker will deliver a better result.
TheNadasvada for most real world systems , sure, but narrow-dispersion near-field monitors in an acoustically treated room can reproduce not only a perfect center image, but actual 3D sound.
True 3d sound requires basically an anechoic chamber (it has been done!) but recording studios can get somewhat close.
Treated Hifi listening rooms are generally another step down from near field studios in terms of image coherence simply due to distance between the speakers and the listening position and the tweeter dispersion characteristics. And then way, way, way below that is your typical “good speakers in a living room” setup where vocals come from some vague location between the left and right speaker.
Quad was a gimmick, stereo is not. To properly listen to mono you need a mono cartridge but not a mono system. Just feed the cartridge to one channel of your stereo and listen through that speaker. The only way I know to do that with digital is to us a splitter in reverse, or in my case using a computer as my digital source, set the computer output for mono. You've all seen the old 78 rpm records, they sound absolutely fantastic, when properly equalized, through one speaker. I say when properly equalized, the RIAA curve we use now was not standardized until the mid 1950's. Before then each record company had their own equalization curve. This is why tone controls were first put on preamplifiers, to "re-equalize" for different recording curves. If you don't want to play 78s from the '40s, tone controls are unnecessary. And, yes, these equalization curves are necessary to make a playable record.
All the Beatles records, except for the last two (I think), were recorded in mono, and should be listened to in mono. Those "stereo" abominations with the voices on one side and instruments were just a scheme to sell more records that were now supposedly in stereo.
@ John LeBeau
The last three Beatles albums were released in stereo only. Sgt Pepper was recorded on a four track machine to one inch tape. The multi-layering was achieved by track bumping and the use of multiple recorders too IIRC.
@@SilentShadow-ss5xp Perhaps not, but it's a cheap and acceptable solution. And, my apologies, when I say quad I am referring to the first quad systems from the '70s, not the current surround systems. There was great pushback from the mono stalwarts when stereo first came out, they probably thought it was a gimmick.
@@jonathansturm4163 Thanks, I couldn't remember when they went stereo.
@@SilentShadow-ss5xp "Quad isn't a gimmick..."
When quadrophonic arrived, I purchased a suitable cartridge (Grace F8F) and borrowed the extra gear. I purchased Bob Dylan's _Planet Waves_ and Frank Zappa's _Apostrophe_ and listened to quadrophonic stereo for, oh I dunno, two days? Then I returned the borrowed amplifier and speakers and never listened to more than two channel sound (music at least) since.
@@johnlebeau5471 And I didn't really answer that. IIRC, the first album was recorded in mono, and thereafter all the recordings were multi-track recordings that could be mixed to stereo.
We hear in stereo that’s why we have two eras,, let’s all save up and bye him a Cristal radio and a eyer pease or better still send him back in time he mite be happy then. ( Stereo the work of the smoke and mirrors ) give me a good stereo setup and good recording every time
"We hear in stereo that’s why we have two eras..."
The mono era up until 1970 and the stereo era from then forward...
what! are we going backward in technology. i think he can listen in one ear. what's the point of 11.2 surround speaker?
Time traveller from 1966?
I like this guy
To me the Best sound is play the way its wheres was recorded
Personally I don’t want to say either one is bad, A good stereo recording and a good mono recording both kick ass.
Toss that Yorx receiver in the garbage and get a good system
To see in 3D you need 2 EYES . Same for Sound !
thank you, your comment is like a light in a sea of darkness scrolling through this comment section. (and after watching the video) don't even know why i'm still here. :smh:
it takes 2 eyes set apart to judge depth.therefore it cant be done with one speaker..
If you get mono more than once you can go stereo!
The best is the original recording. Mono-blocks are better.
I think mono is for people with 1 ear right ? Why we have 2?
For balance!
The Baron what about image , soundstage. ? Mono gives you that.
@@nickpapadelias815 I think you missed The Baron's point :-)
Jonathan Sturm i think you. Missed the point of stereo
sounds like vr for audio
i perfer a stereo and make my sound input mono with a good eq
Of course to get true 3D we need two of something, as in nature. Two Ears and two eyes provide us with 3 dimensions. I guess 2 speakers (in stereo) is transposing what naturally is.
stereo isn't a gimmick, at least not to gamers where acoustic location is vital and not possible in mono systems.
once you go stereo, you'll never go back!
I would imagine that it's going to take some technology akin to Star Trek's holodeck to finally get that truly immersive experience... But until that day we will have to make do with what is available now. 😐 (sigh)
No
You've been doing this nearly half a decade wow almost 5 years I think you meant century
mono is only for hifi/HD...stereo doesnt work in particular in HD
I think old Hi-Fi can be
Mono is for the purists, but stereo is a necessity for any form of a 3-dimensional image! The more channels the easier to control the imaging.(ie surround sound) My favorite and one of the simplest way to extract more imaging cues from the stereo signal is the David Hafler setup. Give it a try!
I already did, back in the 1970s. It was interesting, but audience noises (coughs etc) are of little musical interest to me so I stopped.
@@jonathansturm4163 Me too, I don't do it anymore. but sometimes what the L-R brings out of the mix was a lot of fun. Don't use live recordings?
@@sc51153826 Mmmm... Food for thought. At the time it was touted as unsuited to studio multi-tracked recordings, so I only listened to live recordings. Might just try it with some of Eno's stuff; I wouldn't put it past him to have deliberately engineered some of his material for it. I do have a spare pair of speakers, but the cable's in the lock-up. Next weekend perhaps.
Yes, mono is far better than stereo imo!
stereo is 3d because 2 spks/channs and person listening