Dumb Question about Mono Vinyl Playback

Expensive though!

 

Is it good practice to use the mono button when playing with the audio technica vm610 mono cartridge?
Thanks
Sam

 

I have a good number of President 68' Mono records and a truckload of Mono 45"s.

My 28 year old NAD Amplifier has a Mono switch but I tend to not use it when playing my vintage Mono stuff in the belief that Iam losing out sonically by doing so.

(Coincidentally I don'the knowith what this 3 way You connector is all about either)

Do I just need to hit the Mono switch for better sound?

Down the track when I upgrade my turntable it seems I should get one with easily removeable carts for Mono & Stereo vinyl if iam understanding Steve correctly?

 

You are only losing out on the noise and distortion of the stylus tracing the unused vertical plane of the grooves.

Sometimes that distortion may make the audio sound brighter, but it's not an accurate representation of what was originally on the record.

So generally it's better to engage mono mode on your amplifier when listening to mono records.

 

I have a conical stylus that loves early stereo (wide groove) tracks AND mono which is wide groove (early stuff up til the 70s.)
I sometimes switch on MONO on my preamp.
I sometimes don't if it makes things sound too "closed in."
I sometimes switch in the KAB subsonic mono summed in line filter which is hooked up to my insert able "tape monitor" loop.
Sometimes I don't use ANYTHING but leave the set in stereo.
ALL these are used by ear---if it sounds best...
BUT way more likely than not I will turn the balance control way over to the left and only use half my system.
This eliminated comb filtering and the bad effects of using two speakers for mono.
The result is a mono "image" that is three dimensional and "fat" and has "body."
When I use two speakers this effect vanishes.
Mono is amazing.
Used properly as designed.
ONE point source.
Just my two cents.

 

I have explained what is going on with a mono switch or a double "Y" connector at least twice before in this thread, but since it is still not understood by some I will try to do it again. In the real world anytime you have an incoming signal it is composed of the signal you want (S) (in this case the music you want to hear) and unwanted signal that we call noise (N). We often talk about the signal to noise ratio (S divided N or S/N) which naturally you want a large as possible. Now we come to the special case of playing a mono record with a stereo cartridge. What you have is left channel signal and noise (SL and NL) and right channel signal and noise (SR and NR). Now if you have a mono record then SL is the same as SR, they are equal, and SR=SL=S. So if you add them SL + SR = 2S. Now for the tricky part. It turns out that NL does not always equal NR. Sometimes they are the same, sometimes they cancel each other and most of the time they add up to something less than 2N. Now I am not going to go into a lot of complex math (that I am sure most of you do not care about) so please trust me when I tell you that when you add the NL and NR that instead of 2N what you get is about 70% of the noise you would get if NL = NR, which is 70% of 2N or 1.4N. Thus be using the mono button on your preamp or phono amp or by using the double "Y" connector you get a reduction in the noise level. If the noise from the vertical plane is not always the same from the left and right channel then you also get a reduction of it. If you use a mono cartridge then it does this for you.

 

Except if a CD of a mono source was mastered with one channel louder than the other, or with a cheesy simulated stereo effect, and you just want to hear it in pure mono.

I also have a few CDs with needledrops of rare 45s on them which were done without combining to mono. In that case, hitting the mono button makes them sound better.