MONO recordings through one speaker.
- Thread starter Rexton
- Start date
Tony L
Administrator
I’d look back to the Gilbert Briggs-era and build the Tannoy into a huge corner horn as part of the room! He published several designs in his ‘Loudspeakers’ book including much use of bricks etc, i.e. actually making the speaker part of the structure of the house! I suspect that is the only way I’d get the size and scale I’d want from mono. I’m perfectly happy listening to mono vinyl on a stereo system as to my ears it shifts more air and widens the soundfield.
ToTo Man
the band not the dog
I often read that a mono recording played on stereo loudspeakers should sound like it's coming from a narrow column that's dead centre between the two speakers. Whenever I play a mono recording it occupies the entire space between the two speakers, like a wall of sound. The further the speakers are apart, the wider the mono 'wall of sound' becomes. Is this what's supposed to happen? (For clarity I'm referring to digital mono files, not mono vinyl played on a stereo cart).
paulfromcamden
Baffled
daytona600
Registered User
WE +1 if you can find one with 212 Mono
Have 15inch 104bd Coaxial great with Mono
Have 15inch 104bd Coaxial great with Mono
Tony L
Administrator
Technically it should all come from a small single point in the centre, there is no width or height information encoded in the signal (there is depth). In practice it doesn’t due to the distortion added by non-point-source speakers and the inevitable effects of room acoustics. In practice this helps IME as it gives a larger and more subjectively natural perspective. Mono is a highly unnatural experience IMHO. No music exists as a point source, even something as simple as a solo flute is always a source in a larger space, so I far prefer mono recordings played back via a stereo. I find mono recordings very hard to listen to via headphones.
PS Yes, that WE horn is the way to listen to mono. I bet that sounds absolutely stunning!
ToTo Man
the band not the dog
Yes, I find mono over headphones a very 'between the ears' listening experience, though hard-panned stereo sounds equally as unnatural to me. When I started mixing mulitrack recordings on headphones as a teenager I quickly learned never to pan an instrument 100% to the left or right!
I own that book but not the wood working or building skills
on my big Tannoys I get a dead central slightly limited in width presentation, altough it does depend upon the recording and cart used.
Wow!
WE +1 if you can find one with 212 Mono
Have 15inch 104bd Coaxial great with Mono
Even bigger WOW, that looks amazing!
martin clark
pinko bodger
..Or Voight Corner Horn.
Our late & much-missed pfm member passkin had one - then, later a pair built, iirc.
Our late & much-missed pfm member passkin had one - then, later a pair built, iirc.
Is there depth? If it is heard subjectively, it can only be an illusion, not something that reliably reproduces the original sound-field (assuming an acoustic recording).
I did set up my speakers (Harbeth 40.2) using a mono recording to give as narrow an image as I could on the basis this should give the best stereo image separation. However the speakers are too heavy to experiment with position as much as I would have liked.
Tony L
Administrator
May well be psychoacoustic or whatever, but the microphone(s) certainly captures the room reverb/acoustic space of the recording environment and we are able to interpret that information, e.g. it is easy on many mono jazz recordings to tell which instruments were closer/further from the mic as the amount of room reverb differs, and that is depth information. The thing they can’t capture is width or height, and the latter is contentious in stereo anyway (my view being height does certainly exist, but is likely phase error in the recording, or the inevitable error in multi-driver large-baffle speakers).
Ted-M
pfm Member
I listen to mono at home, my phono stage get's mono'd with a special adapter, and then goes into a single active speaker (Genelec 8020). I really like it, I'd actually like a much bigger single speaker as Tony suggested. Quite fun window shopping pairs speakers knowing you only need to stump up 50% of the price!
George J
Herefordshire member
Up until a few months ago I listened to all music [if listening seriously] through my single 1957 ESL [mono voicing and it changed slightly when the stereo phenomenon came along, with a darker sound as stereo of the day was tending to bass lightness]. So my mono ESL is voiced lighter than later ESLs. You can tell the change as my speaker has two black inputs from the amplifier whereas stereo voiced speakers had black and red so as to co-ordinate phase on two channels! Peter Walker apparently thought that in mono phase invertion did not matter. A view I happen to agree with ...
The best mono speaker ever was short-lived in that format, and was the original 1957 ESL.
No reason to fear the width of presentation as the back-radiation of the speaker more or less precisely replicates from reflection of the back wall the listening room as heard in a concert venue but with no sense of pin-point placing left and right, the sense of spread found in live concerts of classical music. Is it perfect ... well no. But it was and still is the best so far.
Currently my Quad II Forty amp needs work. Faulty valve base under the Rectifier. In the current times, I am not prepared to spend the money for a service, until I feel confident that no disaster [financially speaking, such as the need for a replacement car] might jump out of the undergrowth.
However the 1957 Leak Trough-Line [88 to 100 Mc/s tuning range] remains the best VHF tuner I I have ever used. Amazing ambience to compliment simply the most natural timbres I ever heard on VHF/FM Radio Three. Simply streets ahead of any LP I ever heard, and good enough to get the magic and listen as if being there.
Best wishes from George
The best mono speaker ever was short-lived in that format, and was the original 1957 ESL.
No reason to fear the width of presentation as the back-radiation of the speaker more or less precisely replicates from reflection of the back wall the listening room as heard in a concert venue but with no sense of pin-point placing left and right, the sense of spread found in live concerts of classical music. Is it perfect ... well no. But it was and still is the best so far.
Currently my Quad II Forty amp needs work. Faulty valve base under the Rectifier. In the current times, I am not prepared to spend the money for a service, until I feel confident that no disaster [financially speaking, such as the need for a replacement car] might jump out of the undergrowth.
However the 1957 Leak Trough-Line [88 to 100 Mc/s tuning range] remains the best VHF tuner I I have ever used. Amazing ambience to compliment simply the most natural timbres I ever heard on VHF/FM Radio Three. Simply streets ahead of any LP I ever heard, and good enough to get the magic and listen as if being there.
Best wishes from George
George J
Herefordshire member
They are still made by the independent German branch of QUAD [who do have the original factory jigs and so forth] and if you went into it, the only difference is the transformer windings. For a price I am fairly sure the German QUAD division [independent of the now Chinese owners] could replicate a perfect and even possibly more accurately made original 1957 ESL.
I have one already so no need to try, but it might be worth some investigation.
Best wishes from George
I have one already so no need to try, but it might be worth some investigation.
Best wishes from George
wd40addict
pfm Member
You definitely can hear depth on some mono recordings. A while ago a friend bought round some 78s which included one of Lonnie Donegan's hits. When we played the B side the studio acoustic opened up in front of us and you could hear almost holographic depth. We were amazed and played it again to check! There was no sign of this effect on the A side, or indeed any other record we played that evening.
I wonder if, as an unloved B side, it had just been recorded as quickly and simply as possible with a single microphone?
I do use my stereo speakers for mono playback so not totally in the spirit of this thread.
I wonder if, as an unloved B side, it had just been recorded as quickly and simply as possible with a single microphone?
I do use my stereo speakers for mono playback so not totally in the spirit of this thread.