SH Spotlight If you have a turntable you need to play your mono records in true MONO. How to do it cheaply..

You probably won't care

 

i have the same problem. Cant find them at all!!!!!!

 

It's actually not one cable. You have to combine 2 y cables. One is a mmf Y splitter and the other is a ffm Y splitter You can get em from Amazon very cheap. However I wouldn't Google those initials as you might get something entirely different. The cables combined form an X. People say a Y cable but it's actually a double Y or an X. See pic on page 6.

 

Yes I realised after the research that I preferred the ffm results to mmf!!

 

It will play "For The Lonely" over and over and over again.

 

Yes, Fairchild Fashion Media is a very interesting company, isn't it?

 

I was using an x cable for awhile, but I finally just drilled a hole and put a switch in my DIY preamp. Now I can have mono with ease!

Been playing my mono albums even more lately! It's very nice

 

Just tried these cables; great sound BUT there is a much louder hum coming from the speakers when volume is turned up!! Not too noticable when playing but very annoying when nothing is playing. Is this normal. Worries me so have taken them out for now. Any advice?

 

Actually, stereo cartridges were always designed to be backward compatible with monophonic records. Accordingly the two coils in the cartridge are 180 degrees out of phase to enable the horizontal movement of the stylus to produce the proper wave output with a monophonic recording. Consequently, any vertical stylus movement would produce equal and opposite (noise or distortion) signals with a monophonic record - which is eliminated by summing the left and right outputs. That is why most "vintage" receivers and pre-amplifiers had A+B summing switches to accomplish this - thus producing a signal exactly identical to a monophonic cartridge.

Finally to enable a stereo cartridge to properly register the vertical component in the (45 degree) stereo record grooves - the two stereo channels must be cut 180 degrees out of phase to compensate for the opposite polarity of the two cartridge coils. This was the ingenious way audio engineers accomplished total compatibility between monophonic and stereophonic disks - however, for optimum monophonic reproduction, A+B is the way to go!

 

I can't really afford 2 decks and finding a place for one meant moving other stuff. Are there any turntables where it is easy to change cartridges from mono to stereo and back. My amp is an Arcam 9 with no mono/stereo switch and I can't find a new amp at an affordable price with such a switch.

 

This. Still.

 

Thanks for the link, I had no idea such a beast existed. I shall try and obtain one as changing cartridge or 2 turntables is going to be a bit of a pain. Steve's help at the start of this thread is also helpful. Like British Rail I will get there in the end. Just takes time and money.

 

It's an amazing little gadget. And inexpensive!

 

Thank you very much sounds well worth it.

 

It is. And it's really easy to install.

 

How are the newer mono releases cut?

Does one require any special setup using a stereo cartridge?

 

I'm lucky enough to have 2 turntables (but sadly no microphone). However, I don't have the real estate to have both TT's in active service, so I don't have the luxury of a dedicated mono table like some other more fortunate people here. My phono stage - a PS Audio GCPH - is tucked away in a cabinet and changing cables is a b@stard of a job, so plugging in the Y adapter is a major PITA.

The GCPH has a mono switch on it - and it can be activated by remote control. Now we're talking! Does activating this switch achieve the same results that plugging my phono cables into the Y adapter recommended at the start of this thread by Steve Hoffman would otherwise achieve?

Apologies if this has been answered previously, but I don't have time to scroll through the 42 pages from there to here. There's too much great live music in Sydney to go and see! Chris Abrahams was on fire last night!

 

Hi ABG, welcome to the forum, hope you enjoy it here and continue to participate. Yes, it is a long thread!

The mono adapter/double-Y's described here is a workaround for vinyl lovers who do not have a mono button on their amps. You are fortunate; the mono button on your amp is easier to use and will achieve exactly the same result as the adapter.

Now you can enjoy listening to your mono vinyl the way it was intended. Note that it won't make any difference to mono recordings played on CD.

 

I think mono records are cut in effectively the same way now as they were in the past (78's were cut differently).
A cartridge set up to play stereo records will work perfectly with mono records. To hear mono records to it's potential you need to set your stereo to mono. This can be achieved by using the mono button on your amp if you have one (the easiest).

If you amp doesn't have a mono setting, then using an adapter as described in this topic will achieve the same thing. If you are fortunate to have a setup dedicated to mono, the stereo cartridge can be wired with a "jumper" cable connecting the left&right +ve signals so it will permanently play in mono.

 

I beg to differ here. There are numerous examples of mono songs on CD that were not mastered properly IN TRUE MONO. Many of these are needledrops of rarer tracks that were transferred using a stereo cartridge, allowing left and right noise to come through as well as the basic mono track itself. A mono switch - or a y-cable adapter - will allow the mono tracks from a CD player to sound in true mono.

 

Forgive me if this has already been asked, but has anyone with nice interconnects that they really like noticed any degradation in SQ from the use of the box &/or lower quality interconnects going from the box to preamp?
I tried the inexpensive double Y cable & found that it sounded worse in mono than stereo did from a mono record so I stopped using it, thus the above question regarding the stereo/mono box.

 

On the flip side, there are plenty of stereo transfers of mono tapes on CD, and summing to mono can often cause problems with those.

 

Hello ABG & Lucpac...
Not sure why both of your recent comments on SH's "true mono thread" are coming into my alerts right now ? ?
It just says that you two have replied to the thread (?) No one else... and, I never even replied to this thread of Steve's...
Totally confused , never happened before..