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

Didn’t want to start a new thread because it ties in with this original so nicely. Pretty excited to get my new Who Sell Out Mono pressing. I was thinking that with newly pressed albums like The Who, some Donovan titles were pressed recently, and anything Mono over the last couple years. My question, are they actually pressed for mono playback or simply a dedicated mono mix pressed to be played by stereo cartridges? I noticed my mono cartridge sounded great on the Beatles box and the mono Hendrix - Axis pressing. The Nilsson Mono albums that were reissued sounded better with the stereo set up. That’s what got me thinking about playback again. I’m curious about this.

 

Original mono records were cut with a mono cutting head for the mono cart's that were common at the time.
I believe that many mono reissue albums are cut with a mono signal into a stereo cutting head for stereo cartridges (common now).
The bottom line is that your playback with individual mono albums will need experimentation to work out the best reproduction strategy for each disk.

 

All my cables are balanced XLR, from turntable to phono pre-amp to line stage. Are there any issues with the double Y connectors in XLR ( not RCA ) when playing mono records???? Thinking of putting double Y connectors from phono pre-amp to linestage.

 

Is it, precisely, halved?

 

The double-Y-cable hint really is helpful.

 

Technically, resistors should be in the summing circuit (ie, more sophisticated than double-y). My recollection of explanations is that it's about impedance and outputs being seen as inputs, but I must admit it's a bit above my knowledge. The Rane technical note "Why Not Wye?" has a circuit for XLR summing to mono.

 

I ended up getting a mono/stereo RCA switch from Sweetfoot Pedals. Here's some info on it. Had it about a year, it's very good, inexpensive ($31.50), has a small footprint (it sits on my Art DJ Pre II preamp), and is stylishly designed and presented.

 

I'm the one who talked him into making one just for turntables, and never bought one! Thanks for posting.

 

I recently moved to a more modern amp from a Pioneer sx-780 that had a mono switch. I have a lot of mono LPs so I just ordered one of those switches (thanks to this thread). The double Y cable seems too tedious for the amount of back and fourth I would do. Will report back results. Thanks!

 

Highly recommend combining with this thread.
Lots of real world feedback.

Modern mono lps : are you using mono cartridges?

 

I just got the Sweetfoot Pedals switch. Works real nice! My only gripe would be that I thought the artwork on the top of it was for illustrative purposes only. I ordered the all black box thinking it would be all black, but it has that illustration glued onto the top. Had I known I would of asked to see if he could send me the box without the illustration.