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Who still listens mono, and why?


MeloManiac

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I've been doing some research on Japanese tube amp builder Susume Sakuma (http://www10.big.or.jp/~dh/),

If I understand well, he preferred listening to music in mono, even if it was recorded in stereo. If I got this wrong, please correct me.

 

To my millennium ears and brain, mono is boring and flat, but I'm intrigued by this. Is this a nostalgic eccentricity, or is there more to it? Or lies the secret exactly in the Sakuma-san amp?

 

 

 

 

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Mono is awesome... I don't down mix stereo recordings, but original recordings in mono sound extremely clean in my system and I truly enjoy them.

In many ways mono recordings sound more resolved than stereo.

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Pulled a Sherwood S3000III from a pile of accumulated gear. Needed nothing but the on off switch worked back and forth to get it powered up.
The thing sounded real good.
Then lost a bid for the matching multiplex unit.
So I guess I will put it back into the 3rd system. Good old mono.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

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13 hours ago, ILI said:

To my millennium ears and brain, mono is boring and flat, but I'm intrigued by this. Is this a nostalgic eccentricity, or is there more to it? Or lies the secret exactly in the Sakuma-san amp?

 

To me, there's no comparison b/w mono and properly recorded stereo.  Stereo wins hands down.  HOWEVER, some of the early stereo recordings were so absurdly mixed that they are unlistenable .  The only way I can listen to them is in MONO. 

 

Some early Beetles, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan come to mind where the voice comes entirely from one speaker and instrumental accompaniment entirely from the other.  These songs are WAY more enjoyable after engaging the MONO switch.

 

I'll never again own an integrated amp or pre-amp that lacks a mono switch (or tone controls, for that matter).

 

 

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14 hours ago, ILI said:

To my millennium ears and brain, mono is boring and flat, but I'm intrigued by this.

I have a Marantz 6011 AVR in a 5.1 setup and from time-to-time I'll run All Speakers Stereo and sometimes Mono.  The Mono sounds pretty good to my ears, surprisingly good.  It sounds best in Mono when I am about the house and not sitting directly in front of the speakers.

 

If you've tried it and don't like it, no problem.  I think we all have our preferences for different listening situations, just find the one that sounds the best to Your ears, in Your home, with Your equipment.

 

 

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On 4/22/2019 at 7:18 AM, Schu said:

Mono is awesome... I don't down mix stereo recordings, but original recordings in mono sound extremely clean in my system and I truly enjoy them.

In many ways mono recordings sound more resolved than stereo.

Many of the early Beatles recordings sound better in mono. It took them a while to get over the ping pong effect of their mixes. The Jazz guys had it down in the 50's though. Listen to Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, that stereo recording is still on my audiophile list 60 years later.

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17 hours ago, ILI said:

I've been doing some research on Japanese tube amp builder Susume Sakuma (http://www10.big.or.jp/~dh/),

If I understand well, he preferred listening to music in mono, even if it was recorded in stereo. If I got this wrong, please correct me.

 

To my millennium ears and brain, mono is boring and flat, but I'm intrigued by this. Is this a nostalgic eccentricity, or is there more to it? Or lies the secret exactly in the Sakuma-san amp?

 

 

 

 

Japanese music and Japanese speakers are tinny sounding..........even in mono. Eccentric indeed.

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15 hours ago, Schu said:

Mono is awesome... I don't down mix stereo recordings, but original recordings in mono sound extremely clean in my system and I truly enjoy them.

In many ways mono recordings sound more resolved than stereo.


I cut my audiophile teeth on my father's 20 watt MONO tube amp, tube preamp and Pickering cartridge on a turntable into a 15" Altec Lansing Studio Monitor speaker!

Pretty sweet system to listen to The Archies when I was a young teen! 😉 

John Kuthe...

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10 hours ago, parlophone1 said:

And do any of you listen the mono recordings with a mono cartridge?

 

Yes - use a dedicated SME 3012 arm with an Ortofon mono SPU. I listen to mono about 2/3 of the time as many of my favorite recordings are early and sound way better in mono. 

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One album I did like that had different sounds going back and forth was Pink Floyd  dark side of the moon. Lots of times in my late teens blown out on weed and booze it sounded so fine. The start of money was the best. Most of the time I’m not a big fan of recordings like this but they were the exception!

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On 4/22/2019 at 1:13 AM, ILI said:

I've been doing some research on Japanese tube amp builder Susume Sakuma (http://www10.big.or.jp/~dh/),

If I understand well, he preferred listening to music in mono, even if it was recorded in stereo. If I got this wrong, please correct me.

 

To my millennium ears and brain, mono is boring and flat, but I'm intrigued by this. Is this a nostalgic eccentricity, or is there more to it? Or lies the secret exactly in the Sakuma-san amp?

 

Maybe listening to just one speaker allows him to better focus on the music as a whole, rather than as several musicians in separate spots across the sound stage.  At least one member of this forum stated that the high resolving power of his new system didn't give him the sound he wanted.  He said that he preferred to hear his tunes as "a kind of musical stew", so he could simply experience the music, rather than hearing all the members of the band playing separately.

 

That's just one possibility.  He may have any one of a number of reasons to prefer mono.

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I watched an interview with John Lennon and Paul McCartney on AXS tv a few years back. Both of them said they prefer the mono releases of their work because of its similarity to a live performance. The white album in mono sounds fantastic. Better to my ears than the stereo version so I went out and bought The Doors self titled first LP in mono. It sounded like crap. There's obviously a lot of variation in recording studios and mastering but if done right mono can't be beat. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/22/2019 at 6:29 PM, ClaudeJ1 said:

Listen to Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, that stereo recording is still on my audiophile list 60 years later.

 

Agreed Claude.  That and Brubeck’s Time Out, which includes Take Five, are the two records I recommend if someone wants to see if they will like Jazz.  If they don’t like either of those, Jazz is probably not their cup of tea.  Heck, even if they do like them, a lot of Jazz still might not appeal to them.

 

In my experience, recordings that were originally recorded in monaural sound best when played from a single channel, rather than left and right channels playing the same signal.  IMO, the worst is a pre-stereo recording that has been rebastarded to stereo.

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On 4/22/2019 at 4:13 AM, ILI said:

I've been doing some research on Japanese tube amp builder Susume Sakuma (http://www10.big.or.jp/~dh/),

If I understand well, he preferred listening to music in mono, even if it was recorded in stereo. If I got this wrong, please correct me.

 

To my millennium ears and brain, mono is boring and flat, but I'm intrigued by this. Is this a nostalgic eccentricity, or is there more to it? Or lies the secret exactly in the Sakuma-san amp?

 

 

 

 

 

The combo sounds great to me. MacIntosh made a small mono unit. Still listen to my vintage speaker in both. Old jazz and blues takes me back to nostalgia, although not that old...yet.

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On 4/23/2019 at 2:20 AM, parlophone1 said:

And do any of you listen the mono recordings with a mono cartridge?

My best friend does. The grooves in the vinyl are cut differently in mono vs. stereo, so a cartridge optimized for that is best.

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5 hours ago, DizRotus said:

 

Agreed Claude.  That and Brubeck’s Time Out, which includes Take Five, are the two records I recommend if someone wants to see if they will like Jazz.  If they don’t like either of those, Jazz is probably not their cup of tea.  Heck, even if they do like them, a lot of Jazz still might not appeal to them.

 

In my experience, recordings that were originally recorded in monaural sound best when played from a single channel, rather than left and right channels playing the same signal.  IMO, the worst is a pre-stereo recording that has been rebastarded to stereo.

When you hear a mono recording on MEH's you will change your mind. The Phantom image is so STRONG, that most people think the center one is being used and there seems to be ZERO sound coming from left and right, I'm not kidding. I have to, quite often, unplug it or have them stick their head in it the center MEH to realize it's not being used (movies only).

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