How are you playing your precious MONO Vinyl?

rhg3

I’m glad, I have fun and have the time, but note, in eagerness I make my share of errors, I am always glad when others catch them. 

danmar123

Nice setup!

for those here who want to know the difference, i.e. "that’s good enough for my small need".

You are a good one to tell us what happens in your system with your particular Mono LPs.

a. play the stereo cartridge with the preamp in Mono position

b. play the mono cartridge, perhaps name a few LPs it makes an ’easily noticeable’ improvement

b1. leave switch in Stereo position (no need to use mono position with a true mono cartridge) (especially interesting for others who don’t have a stereo/mono switch, i.e. you don’t need both

b2. move to Mono position, in your case, is it just habit, or do you hear a benefit?. 

Before I had a mono cartridge, I definitely heard improvement engaging the mono switch on my preamp when playing mono records with my stereo cartridge. It mostly came in the form of noise reduction, but it didn't benefit in other ways like the true mono cartridge does. I never engage the mono switch when playing the mono cartridge since that's pointless to do. Even Boulder in their manual says the mono switch is for playing mono records with stereo cartridges.

Elliot, You wrote,

"Everyone, 

the Aurorasound EQ-100 is uniquely different, from the manual:

"When a stereo cartridge is used, any vertical signal on a record is cancelled by an internal circuit of EQ-100. Only the R+L horizontal signal are detected to assure a superior sound stage with less noise."

Cancelling any vertical input seems to me FAR better than producing the noise and then summing the noise in both channels, that is my biggest objection and what I referred to as MUD on top of the Mono Content (Dual Mud?)."

First, the long sentence about how the Aurora works can be applied to any stereo preamplifier when the mono switch is activated. That is what they all do, and that is why HF noise from the LP surface irregularities is reduced, not enhanced, compared to playing a mono LP in stereo mode with a stereo cartridge.  Then in your second paragraph you revert back to this idea of "summing". Just forget it. It's a semantic twister. None of this is to say that I disagree with your contention that using a mono cartridge is superior to using a stereo cartridge plus mono switch. I am in no position to disagree, because I don't use a mono cartridge at all.  Although I do own a Shelter mono cartridge that has been sitting in a box for about 5 years.

For you guys who do use a mono cartridge to feed a stereo phono stage, consider that the two channels of your phono are unlikely to be absolutely identical in all measurable aspects of their performance. Thus the output from one channel may differ very slightly from that of the other channel, thus introducing, say, phase differences or slight differences in distortion or frequency response. Thus there could be an audible difference possibly between activating the mono switch and not activating it. And results might differ from one system to another, particularly because humans are reporting on what they hear. Nevertheless, I urge those of you with mono cartridges to try it both ways, mono switch on vs mono switch off, and report back.