Mono vinyl, how do you know if really single channel mono or if stereo recorded to mono

Toward the end of the 60s and in the early 70s, stereo had taken over at least nearly completely if not totally.  For many of the premier rock groups, it was then popular to record in an exaggerated stereo effect. In some cases, the apparent source of the instruments and/or voices would be rapidly shifted from one side to the other.  You can hear a lot of that on the later Beatles albums, when they were in their LSD and Ravi Shankar phase.  The Who did it too on DSOTM.  This studio engineering became part of the creative effort, for a while.  It's not a knock on stereo technology per se; the recording engineers were simply playing with their new toy in consultation with the recording artists.

"Ella and Louis" on Verve.  If ever you wouldn't care a fig about stereo vs mono, it is when listening to that recording.  Just sublime.  It was recorded in the 50s, only in mono.  It's been re-issued more than once in fake stereo. It's a must.

Elliot mentioned Julie Christie.  Is that OK?

See Julie Christie either as Lara in Dr Zhivago, or in Shampoo with Warren Beatty.

Tablejockey, No, I am referring to June Christy, not Julie London. I well know the difference between them, and I own albums by both artists. June Christy started her career shortly after WW2, before Julie London hit the scene. She was briefly married to the bandleader, Stan Kenton. She started her career singing with the Kenton band. She was later superseded in that band by Chris Connors. June Christy’s album “Something Cool” is a jazz vocal classic and one of my favorites. Which is why I own both stereo and mono versions.

Sorry, June Christy, not Julie Christy.  I think I was mixing her up with the British actress of the same era.

Elliott, I have two recordings of Julie Christy's "Something Cool", both on Capitol.  One is stereo and the other is mono.  If you listen carefully, you can detect that Julie does not even sing the songs in exactly the same way on both LPs, and there are differences in the musical lines.  So, what you say is true, and I have read it elsewhere.  In some cases, during those transition years, studios made two entirely different recordings, one for each mode.

The Miyajima website has a nice short summary of what stylus widths work best with what vintage of mono LP. But unless one has a collection that includes 78s and/or very early LPs cut pre-1950 or in the early 50s, I don’t think this is much of an issue. Once you do decide whether you need a mono cartridge and then whether you need a "true mono" cartridge vs a stereo cartridge that has been converted to mono operation by bridging the two channels internally, then be very careful how you read the manufacturers’ descriptions of their mono cartridges. Nearly all of them are guilty of obfuscating to one degree or another, in order to allow the reader to believe that their product is "true mono". Not many actually are, Miyajima, at least one model of Denon, EMT, and a few others being the exception. For example, if you read the blurb on the Ortofon Quintet Mono, you would be forgiven for thinking they are describing a true mono cartridge. But my research suggests the Quintet Mono is a bridged stereo type. Not that there is anything really wrong with that, particularly if you are listening to modern pressings of mono tapes that were made using a stereo cutter.


I don’t know why many listeners hear a difference between using a mono cartridge, which is typically one of those bridged stereo versions of a mono cartridge, and just using the mono switch on the preamplifier (which also results in bridging of two stereo channels), but it could be that bridging before RIAA correction and before amplification of the signal makes a difference, in favor of the mono cartridge. I own a mono cartridge (Shelter 501 v2) but don’t use it much since I am satisfied with using the mono switch. I probably ought to make more of an effort.