Beach Boys Shut Down Vol. 2 Mono vs Stereo?

For The Beach Boys album "Shut Down, Vol. 2", overall and track by track, which is the better mix and sounds best? The mono mix or the stereo mix? Let's break it down. Here's the track listing:

Fun, Fun, Fun
Don't Worry Baby
In The Parkin' Lot
"Cassius" Love Vs "Sonny" Wilson
The Warmth Of The Sun
This Car Of Mine
Why Do Fools Fall In Love
Pom, Pom Play Girl
Keep An Eye On Summer
Shut Down, Part II
Louie, Louie
Denny's Drums

 

I like both, but the Mono is best.

 

My general rule for 60s music is: modern stereo remixes > mono mixes > vintage stereo mixes. So, my Shut Down Vol. 2 playlist looks like this:

Fun, Fun, Fun (2013 Stereo Remix)
Don't Worry Baby (2009 Stereo Remix)
In the Parkin' Lot (Mono)
"Cassius" Love vs. "Sonny" Wilson (Mono)
The Warmth of the Sun (2012 Stereo Remix)
This Car of Mine (Mono)
Why Do Fools Fall in Love (2014 Stereo Remix w/ Intro tacked on)
Pom Pom Play Girl (2014 Stereo Remix)
Keep an Eye on Summer (Mono)
Shut Down, Part II (Mono)
Louie, Louie (Mono)
Denny's Drums (Mono)

Yeah, I'm mixing mono and stereo, so what?

 

I mix too. Though, I much prefer the stereo mix of In The Parkin' Lot. Those backing vocals need to be heard in stereo.

 

I mix too. On headphones I only listen to the early albums in stereo (especially Surfin'USA). But they also sound great in mono on my system.

 

Stereo all the way.

 

I'm currently listening to this on Spotify. It's labeled as the "2001 remaster" - would I be correct to guess these are the original stereo mixes? I'm quite accustomed to the remixes of these tracks that appear on 50 Big Ones (Fun, Fun, Fun, Don't Worry Baby and Warmth of the Sun).

I'm not all that familiar with the original Beach Boys mixes so I'm not sure if it's common for them, but Fun, Fun, Fun sounded quite strange having the vocals much, much louder than the backing track. I quite liked the mix of Don't Worry Baby used here, it's certainly very 60's in its sound. The stray hit at the very start and popping of the mics give it very raw feel as opposed to the much more polished remix (maybe the popping's there in the remix... I hadn't heard it before now though). Something I found interesting was that both of these had the backing track fade a lot quicker than the vocals, so two tracks in a row ended with the vocals fading with virtually nothing else.

 

Mono all the way

 

sounds so good in STEREO

 

i have 2 ears separated by a big head.......stereo

 

I still have the original mono from when I was 9 or 10 yrs old. I haven't heard the stereo. Mono.

 

I was just going to make a thread asking about this but my God this is not helpful at all!! Maybe @Steve Hoffman can weigh in?

 

I do like some of the early vintage stereo mixes (Lonely Sea, In My Room, Hushabye, Girls On The Beach), but not on this one. Mono all the way.

 

Should we consider Little Deuce Coupe as Shut Down Vol. 1?

 

As blasphemous as it sounds I generally prefer the vintage stereo mixes. That said, some of the stereo mixes on Shut Down II aren't amongst my favorites and I might lean more towards the mono for this one.

 

Do you get mad when a trumpet player only has one sound source for this same reason? "Hey, buddy, two ears here, better pick up that other trumpet."

 

Various - Shut Down

 

My Beach Boys stereo/mono preferences:

Chuck Britz mix era (which this is a part of) = stereo

Brian Wilson mix era (Today through Wild Honey) = mono

 

Dang! i want that!

 

Huh. The early albums sound great in stereo but I never thought to consider who was engineering the mixes.

 

Those are my preferences, too.

Though there a few 'messed up' stereo mixes on Shut Down Vol. 2 (Don't Worry Baby stands out), the mono robs the listener of the air around all those wonderful harmonies. For example, In The Parking Lot, not a song many people will pay any attention to, but they'd be missing a fantastic bit of Brian Wilson magic -- the near a cappella intro and outro, which are absolutely sublime. Things like that get squeezed down in mono too much for my taste which those rich Chuck Britz stereo mixes open it all up.

 

You’ve hit on the problem with many of Chuck’s stereo mixes - the tracking is too low relative to the vocals. When he mixed the multitracks to mono he adjusted the levels, but then in stereo the backing track is anemic and totally secondary to the vocals. I assume that was because he just didn’t spend the time on the stereo tracks that he did on the mono.

 

That's true of hundreds late '50s and '60s stereo mixes I've heard in my life. Seems to go with the territory.

 

only if the trumpet is 2 inches form my forehead, otherwise, both ears do pick up the sound.