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Vinyl lovers--in case you haven't tried this yet

One advantage to being home sick with the flu, is that I get to spend time with recent purchases. This week I have finally installed my Lyra Helikon Mono cartridge, cleaned a bunch of old mono recordings and WOW, I am shocked at the warmth, clarity, natural, intimate sound. Perhaps many of you know this already (I bought the cartridge slightly used from a friend, after reading a glowing review by Fremer), but folks this is shockingly good sound. I put on some old Shaded Dogs, mono Archiv recordings of Bach, and frankly, I don't understand this: how can there be a wide, deep soundstage with mono recordings? I'm not missing whatever Stereo does (don't get me wrong, I'm not dumping that side of things), but would someone explain to me how a good mono recording, played with a good mono cartridge, can sound so alive, natural, and present. (As I write this I'm listening to a wonderful Alicia de la Laroccha which I picked up for a buck at Amoeba. ) If you haven't tried this yet, it's worth a listen.
Joe
jsaah

Showing 4 responses by eldartford

eldartford
4,262 posts
 
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1. I presume you are still listening through two speakers, even though the program is mono. Before stereo came along the very best systems were using two speakers for mono. This avoids the effect of listening through a "hole in the wall" and provides the wide soundstage you mention.

2. The Mono LP signal consists purely of horizontal groove modulation, whereas stereo involves both horizontal and vertical. The horizontal signal quality is greatly superior to the vertical signal quality. (This is why Edison's original vertical modulation scheme was replaced by horizontal). So, when you listen to a mono recording the signal is not corrupted by mixing with the inferior vertical signal.

The aweful quality of the vertical signal (L-R) was very evident when we were developing matrix multichannel systems. In such a system, Center Rear is the L-R (vertical) signal, and you really don't want to listen to it in raw form.
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Zaikesman...
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1..When playing a mono recording a different stylus may be better...not the large diameter one for old 78s but perhaps not line contact either.

2..Really old mono cartriges did have low compliance for vertical modulation, and we were warned not to play stereo LPs with them as damage to the LP would occur. We were told to buy a stereo pickup immediately even if we didn't buy the rest of the stereo outfit. I don't know if having vertical compliance might affect horizontal modulation performance. It's not too far fetched.

3..I think that some cartriges being sold as mono are actually stereo models with appropriate jumpers. Certainly this is less expensive to produce than different coils.

4..In the case of a mono CD, the ones and zeros for the two channels are identical (same A/D from the original master) so engaging a MONO switch on the preamp will have only a slight gain effect.
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eldartford
4,262 posts
 
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Zaikesman...Another thought. Playing a Mono LP without engaging the MONO switch on the preamp is foolish. Here is a little experiment for you.

Bridge your power amps with a speaker. (You may want to disconnect the regular speakers to avoid too low an impedance load on the power amps). Now play a mono LP without using the MONO switch. What you will hear is the vertical groove modulation which ought to be silence. You will hear noise. Do you want to mix this noise into the music?
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eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Zaikesman...Use the SS amp. Feed it the Left and Right stereo signals from the preamp. Connect a speaker from one red amp terminal to the other one. This "bridges the amp. You don't need any special bridging switch on the amp. What you will hear is the difference between Left and Right, which obviously should be silence for a mono recording.

The idea that "air" can be created by adding a bit of HF noise is a dirty little secret. And, as inpepinnovations@aol.com notes, slight imperfections of vinyl playback such as phase shift and differing frequency response can create a false stereo effect. Indeed, some mono recordings were reissued as "stereo" by deliberately introducing large amounts of these distortions.
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