Must say that I’ve always assumed that stereo was better than mono. Hey, there’s two channels rather than one, right? I grew up with records and producers trying to figure out how to use stereo - bass and drums on the right, guitar and vocals on the left? Hendrix panning from one side to the other? But I just assumed mono mixes were basically primitive versions made for early transistor radios or car radios with just one speaker.
I read an article the other day about Buffalo Springfield’s second album. Apparently Stills and Young forcefully objected to the stereo mix their record company had done of that album. They much preferred the mono mix and wanted only that version released (and this is back in the '60’s).
So I sat down to actually listen to the mono vs stereo mixes and have to agree with Stills and Young. The mono mixes are far superior to the stereo mixes, at least for that album.
All of which brings me to a question: how can a mono mix be superior to a stereo mix? With all the attention (we) audiophiles pay to definition, imaging, separation, etc, how is it that a mono mix - which doesn’t have any of that - sound better?
(The only way I can describe “better” in this case is that vocals and some instruments, like bass, were lost in the stereo versions. They receded into the background, “lost in the mix” as the musicians say. But isn’t that just bad mixing, not the fault of stereo itself?)
Check out the original (not remaster) mono of Jeff becks truth. It’s superb mono. Some of the best I’ve heard.
Of course the early beatles were all recorded in Mono. So that’s how to listen.
Mono is a totally different sound.
I don’t need to understand the theory. I just listen. That’s all you have to do.
Younger people who have their hearing attuned to digital will struggle with mono. That is because mono sounds very analogue.
If I’d been brought up on digital I’d be the same way. Our hearing gets attuned.
Older people are lucky as they have been in both analogue and digital worlds.
Mono is wonderful.
Forget all this audiophile rubbish talk as that’s just subscribing to a stereotype (or monotype)
Just listen.
Yes the hendrix UK track mono releases are superb. Better than stereo.
With mono you really are better trying to listen to the original vinyl.
Giles Martin did concede that he gives his work a digital sound. Not to do so would be commercial suicide.
Mono remasters will inevitably loose that traditional sound as they do get the digital style treatment
There is a good argument to be made for listening to the original mono mixes if this was the original version and preferred by the artists.
On the other hand, it makes no sense to compare good original mono mixes to early gimmicky stereo mixes with instruments panned hard left and right, from a time when they were meant to sell stereo systems to consumers who didn’t know better (and often enough engineers were still figuring it out themselves).
Certainly up to the mid-to-late 60s the engineers and artists paid much more attention to the mono mix, probably because that’s the one that would be played on the radio. Very few people had stereo systems then so it was often an afterthought and very gimmicky. The first Bob Dylan albums a case in point. The mono version is strong and dynamic and sounds excellent. The stereo version is much flatter and has the sort of guitar on one channel singer on the other split you mentioned.I have stereo and mono versions of Highway 61 Revisited, Bringing it all Back Home and Blonde on Blonde, and the mono mixes are preferable.
I don’t know why they would struggle with mono, when many listen to small portable speakers that have very little channel separation. And of course, not everything comes down to digital vs. analog.
The early (even up to CSNY days) stereo was mixed to emphasize the separation of instruments (and voices) so that one would know it was stereo. Even when this wasn’t the goal, engineers had much less experience with stero mixes than with mono ones. Properly remastered stereo (if the original tape/digital source is still available) ouight to be better.
In one of the early courses I did on mixing - the tutor said ‘Mixing is like creating a landscape painting - the left to right of the canvas is the stereo field - top to bottom is the frequency range. The mixing engineer is like a painter working out where to put things on the canvas so they can all be seen (heard) clearly’
A mix engineer will decide how to fit the different sources together on the canvas - and this will often include removing frequencies from an instrument (which in solo will make it sound worse) - so it fits better with others on the canvas.
When mixing in mono you need to work harder to get this frequency separation - so that you can hear all the instruments in the mix (if things overlap they will mask each other).
Stereo makes mixing easier - because you can also use the position in the stereo field to separate things.
Some engineers start with a mono mix - and get separation before they put things in the stereo field.
So I can imagine situations where a great mono mix may be better.
In the remaster of Buffalo Springfield in the What’s that Sound boxset the remastering was overseen by Neil Young so he did not abandon the stereo mixes completely.
The article I read that started this thread was referencing the original releases. It’d be interesting to listen to the remastered mono on the box set vs the original mono and/or stereo mixes. Young is definitely into audio quality with his whole support of the Pono technology.
I have the mono box sets of stones, Beatles, kinks, little Richard and some jazz and all are consistently better than the stereo hard left and right cuts.
There are some that swear by one big mono speaker that is more convincing than two small stereo ones.
I listen to Roon radio where there can be a mix of mono and stereo tracks and the mono can be very good. There are a lot of mono albums on Qobuz and I’ve had the experience of realizing I was listening to mono unexpectedly. So I am happy to listen to either. Currently listening to Lady sings the Blues, hi fi version 96/24.
I guess you had clicked the grey button to reply to my post and not the blue one at the bottom for the thread, because I had your post in my replied-to notifications
