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Re: [ARSCLIST] Early stereo LPs: subject to mononuclearosis?
Definitely harder because mono is designed to be from a single point source. But, most modern stereo
speakers are too directional and placed in a room in a way as to not do mono well on their own. You
can certainly tell how uneven your room is -- and where the bass traps and resonances are -- by
listening to a full-range mono recording. The greatest mono systems of yore had a big (very big by
today's standards) speaker firing wide and filling the whole room. Or they had corner horns (I'm
still not sold on those but I've heard excellent sounding setups in the right kind of room).
In the studio, I set up a separate mono monitor, an old Marantz speaker, in the middle of my two
near-field monitors. It fires wide enough to fill the sound-field at 6-8 feet but it certainly
wouldn't fill a large space. But I find it more focused and easier to discern problems with mono
sources. Plan B is to just turn one of the near-field channels off, but I don't like listening with
one ear closer than the other. For pleasure listening, as long as I'm sitting still, two speakers
work fine, in the living room or the studio.
----- Original Message -----
From: "phillip holmes" <insuranceman@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 4:44 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Early stereo LPs: subject to mononuclearosis?
If you have two speakers with nearly identical response curves (ditto everything else), you don't
need one speaker. Also, you need proper relationship between the two speakers and the listener
(not too close). I get a very realistic mono center image. It's harder to do good mono on a
stereo than good stereo, in my opinion.
Phillip
Tom Fine wrote:
-- Tom Fine
PS -- regarding the point of mono out of 1 speaker or two. This is an interesting question today
and I'd be very interested what others think.