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Re: [ARSCLIST] Early stereo LPs: subject to mononuclearosis?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Cox" <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> On 27/08/06, Tom Fine wrote:
> > 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).
>
> I think either a corner horn, or a big box with a 15 inch Tannoy Dual
> Concentric driver would be suitable as a single speaker.
>
> You need to shift some air to get smooth bass. A stereo pair does double
> the area of the bass speaker.
>
>
> > 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.
>
> Yes, and if you are listening to a mixture of mono and stereo recordings
> (maybe even on the same CD), it is hardly worth the trouble to switch
> things around.
>
The other problem with bass (in indoor sound systems) is this! Since
the speed of sound is 1100 feet per second (close enough for
government work, as we used to say in the USAF) then a 55Hz note
has a sonic (not electric) wave length of 20 feet. Obviously,
normal-sized rooms will have all sorts of odd cancellations and
reinforcements from reflected sound waves...meaning that certain
bass notes will either be INaudible or all TOO audible depending
on where you are positioned in the room!
...stevenc
http://users.interlinks.net/stevenc/