Why Does Mono Sound Bad To Me?

I was hoping someone had made a Beatles toaster, but all I could find was this:

 

I don't think mono sounds bad but that I much prefer stereo. I have a limited amount of mono discs with most being SACDs or XRCDs. Most are considered the best digital versions and do sound good. I just prefer the way stereo music (when done correctly) fills the room and has a more "interesting" quality to it.

 

I wouldn't go that far (yet)! Using currently available software, upmixing mono recordings to stereo is currently a very tedious, time consuming process. Some currently available applications include tools which can help with extracting or suppressing specific vocal and/or instrumental sounds. One company's applications (Audionamix's ADX TRAX, ADX TRAX Pro, and ADX TRAX Pro SP) actually automate part of the separation process. While some truly amazing upmixes are possible using today's tools, at present the results are still highly dependent on the musical structure and fidelity of the mono source material. As the tools improve, the ability to use this technology on a wider range of recordings will improve as well.

 

You've discovered the true shortcomings of mono. For starters, a mono mix is compressed and due to it's single channel nature, with a dedicated mono mix(and not stereo folded down), when they mix it, if they want some faction to be brought forward, it is at the expense of the other sounds in the recording.

Listening to mono through almost any kind of headphone is cruel and unusual punishment. The sound, to me, is concentrated to the center between my eyes. As with cramming all that information into a single channel, it also produces an overwhelming effect in our heads. With 2 ears, we are used to having 3-dimensional hearing and with mono through headphones, it slams our hearing down to one-dimensional.

Now, when we hear a mono recording through 2 speakers in a room, 3-dimensional sound is somewhat restored and the acoustics of the room also plays a big part. It is common for neither speakers nor amplifier channels to be perfectly match. The closer you get to the 2 speakers, the more centered the sound will be. Whether stereo or mono, if you are outside the listening room, and you can still hear the sound well, then the sound is again concentrated to a single source but you still have the spaciousness of hearing the sound reflected off of different surroundings.

A true mono mix may differ from the true stereo mix and can even be a totally different recording or session. If the mono mix and the stereo is taken from the same multi-track master, because stereo is 2-channel, the sound is spread out and sounds which were not present or prominent in the mono version may still be heard from the stereo mix, even if in another room.

No. I don't think that it is just you, many others probably feel the same way about mono in headphones.

 

Interesting thread.

Even though I own an original pressing of "the white album" in stereo, I was convinced to get the mono remaster based on samples someone uploaded and made available for comparison? Even through my laptop's audio and headphones I could tell there was a certain type of "meat" I wasn't getting with the stereo version (though the stereo was arguably more detailed; easier to delineate the instruments and their lines).

Granted, I am no stranger to mono. The only time mono bothers me is when there is a phase issue; but, if there is... ...it doesn't matter if it's earphones or speakers. A phase issue will piss my ears off. I have to correct that in order for it to be tolerable. Far more irritating to me than good mono through earphones, is extreme stereo panning through earphones or speakers from the earlier days of stereo. You know the ones; all instruments to the right... vocals to the left... hard panned. Uuugggghhhh... haaaaaaaatttte that.

 

I think the exact opposite.

This is getting quite silly. Every one of us could go on for an eternity describing the many ways in which we prefer stereo or mono mixes/versions. It doesn't stop at The Beatles, either. It goes on and on with The Rolling Stones, Motown, Stax, Atlantic, The Beach Boys, Steppenwolf, The Honey Cone, Donovan, Sly & The Family STone, Jefferson Airplane, Paul Revere & The Raiders, et al...it never ends!

Mono on headphones doesn't bother me one bit. Mono on stereo speakers doesn't bother me in the least.

 

OMG!!! Where do people get this stuff???

And that doesn't happen with stereo mixes??? Bullcrap! Most stereo mixes in the sixties bring the vocals too far forward! Half the time they drown out the instrumental backing! It's one reason I prefer the 70s aesthetic: vocals were usually pushed back in the mix.

 

I was listening to the stereo version of A Saucerful Of Secrets yesterday on headphones (unusual for me) and came to a surprising conclusion. The stereo mix of that album actually feels like it makes my ears pop - there's many instances where the sound just drops out of one side or the other without even a suggestion of ambient noise, and I hate it. It's just plain uncomfortable. Not a problem over speakers, but it's just funny how everyone's all, "Oh mono in headphones, icky poo." Well, stereo can suck over headphones too, all it takes is the right mix!

 

Yeah? My dad can beat up your dad with both hands tied behind his back!

 

But the albums would have been sourced from much higher-resolution professional digital than the 16/44.1 from your consumer cd player, so it seems like a major step backwards to get the cd's (apart from the pressing quality).

 

Just clap on the cans and queue up "Remember A Day" and any opponent will drop!

 

Bill, you make a very good point, and honestly, I would have probably kept the vinyl, as I did know they were sourced from a higher-resolution source, but the vinyl had all sorts of strange things going on, small bumps, strange warps, surface noise which was so unexpected, as I owned the Mobile Fidelity pressings that were whisper quiet, which certainly was not the case with that new stereo Beatles Box.

 

For me its not about sonics. In my view and I think most, stereo is sonically preferable although sonics in mono can still be great. Its about the mixes, they will be different (unless the mono is a stereo fold down).

The Beatles are a good example, the mono mixes to many (including me), are far better mixes, Help and Beatles For Sale excluded. Not necessarily sonicallly superior, but better shall we say musically. The Beatles themselves were involved with the mono mixdowns, usually not so with the stereo mixdowns, with the exception of Let It Be & Abbey Rd. Therefore the monos are the way they heard their albums.

In my view, the White Album is sonically better in Stereo, however sounds a far better album (including more coherent) in mono.

 

That's unfortunate. I got mono Pepper's, Mystery Tour, and Revolver from the 2015 (?) remasters. I think SP and Revolver were from the original masters, and MMT might be a digital dub-- not sure. Anyways, they sound amazing, they image like a shimmering hotdog down a hallway on my old Pickering V15 cartridge tracking at 4 grams, and I don't recall any problems with the pressings.

 

I always want whatever the hit single mix is, even if the sound quality isn't the best.

 

Ah. Those were pressed at Rainbo, I believe. From what I recall of when they debuted the QC was a hot mess. A big thread somewhere around here with tons of comments and photos about how terrible they were. The mono box, pressed in German, was great.

 

I have heard the same thing about the mono pressings, however, for me I grew up with the stereo versions, and mono would just never do, no matter how good they are.

 

When you say far higher resolution.What do you mean by this.? 16/44.1 is high resolution and rarely if ever a factor in reducing sound quality.If the said album was recorded originally in 24 bit digital,then that is virtually identical in sound quality when converted to 16 bit CD quality.If the recording was laid down via analogue tape,then no loss of resolution would occur if transferred correctly to digital..
I feel 16/44.1 is wrongly maligned and suggesting it is low resolution is incorrect.

 

OP should listen to a first press Blue Note in mono...

then you will understand...you only get the stereo versions if you can't find (or afford) the mono

 

What is a mix then? Ofcourse when you mix multi-channels into 2 or more channels, you are compressing. The person doing the mix raises or lowers the levels of the various tracks to emphasize or de-emphasize them. The finished recordings are EQ'd to fit a frequency range. The most excessively EQ'd recordings were those done for the CD-4 discrete quadraphonic records. Eventhough the carrier frequency was 30khz, they kept the recording frequency lower than the traditional 20khz, so that was another form of compression.

Now we're talking about the stereo mixes of the past. When you mention 'instrumental backing', do you understand what the term "backing" means. Yeh, right, in the background. Same as background vocals. Dating back to ancient mono recordings which had vocalists and live mixing, where was the vocalist(s)? In front of the band, correct? Now, if the main focus of the recording is the vocal, wouldn't they put an emphasis on the vocalist(s). If the vocal was considered a refrain, then they vocal does not have the same emphasis as the band.

Rushing to join the stereo era, many record companies took their 2-track session masters and released them as a stereo recording, which had the vocal and any added sound in one channel while they put the instrumental backing in the other channel. This was really off-balance and the recording should probably only released as a mono recording, but they wanted to emphasize stereo and that's what they did. Even dating back to the late-60's, many recording studios had either single or 2-track equipment. Movie studios, on the other hand, recorded in 3 or more channels optically or magnetically. That is the reason that we have true stereo soundtrack recordings from 30's movies like "Fantasia" and "The Wizard of Oz". As with the commercial 3-track recordings in studios, the vocal was often given it's own track. This was the birth of true stereo with the vocal(s) up front and center.

Later progression to 4-track recording allowed even more separation, but the vocal(s) most often still had their own channel(s). Exceptions occurred with the final mix, like with The Beatles, recording 4-track but still placing the vocal(s) in right or left channels without centering them.

Stereo recordings should have the vocals up front and center. If they aren't, what's the purpose of a vocal then?

Going back to the original topic of this thread, mono in stereo headphones. One thing I've also noticed myself is that besides the sound seeming like it centered on the tip of my nose, speaking of vocals, they sound like they are off in the distance. Playing through speakers, the vocals seem normal to me.

 

That's gonna be a character for my next book!

 

I'm listening to Miles Davis' Bags Groove APO SACD which is mono and it sounds quite good . I was hesitant to buy this SACD from a fellow member in the classifieds but I'm glad I did!

 

Your post is correct except for the last sentence which is purely subjective.

I disagree wholeheartedly. The sense of space and cohesion (especially in musically crowded moments) which is augmented in the stereo mix is much more appealing to me than listening to the mono mix.

There's no right or wrong. I, for one, am glad the choices are out there to please everybody.

 

The panning on the stereo version is utterly WHACK to me. Its just annoying and distracting. Mono all the way for me.

 

That's not what compression is. Compression is when louder sounds are limited, and softer or low-level sounds are boosted by natural or electronic means. An example of natural means is when magnetic tape is saturated with signal. In basic terms, if you mix a lot of tracks to one or even two tracks, you may get a congested mess, but it will not be compressed. What engineers do is compress certain elements in a mix so that they 'sit" well with each other, so a, say, drum track won't overpower the lead vocal, and to make that lead vocal louder, and to keep that vocalist from oversaturating the tape. Radio uses compression to get a more powerful on-air signal.

I used simple, basic explanations because there are many way in which a recording or mix engineer can naturally compress without using compression that involves analog tape saturation, but that is out of the scope of this thread, and we are getting off-topic, anyway.

Suffice it to say that mixing to mono does not compress any more than mixing to stereo does.

Again, that is not compression! But, you know what? Many people have been on this forum for years and still do not understand what audio compression is, or what the many forms of it sounds like. You are not alone.

Now we're talking about the stereo mixes of the past. When you mention 'instrumental backing',

Don't patronize me! That's very disrespectful, and may cause me to ignore you.

I am fully aware of the history of stereo, and what "background" means, thank you! You know what? I'm going to do a Joe Madison on you. Bye!