Why mono?

Hey Jazzdoc,

Have you tried putting the coils of a stereo cartridge in series to sum for mono?

dave

Much of the benefit form a true mono cartridge or a mono wired stereo cartridge comes from the idea that only lateral movement of the stylus generates sound. A true stereo cartridge generates information in both the lateral and vertical direction and since mono recordings have no musical information in the vertical plane any vertical movement shows up as noise.

In theory the various ways of summing the signal outside the cartridge should also cancel any information in the vertical plane but in reality these all come with their own sets of compromises and never seem to sound as good (quiet?) as a cartridge set up for mono.

The easiest experiment to do to see if a dedicated mono cartridge is for you is to wire a stereo cartridge in series and use a single channel of your phono to see how things sound.

dave

Hey,

It is done externally with a jumper.

Leave the Red wire connected as is, Move the green headshell lead to the blue cartridge pin and place a jumper from green to white. and use only the right channel of your phono pre.

This will sum any lateral movement and cancel any vertical movement of a stereo cartridge.

If you want this signal to feed a stereo pair of speakers place a Y connector at the Right channel output of your pre to get L & R signals for your amp.

dave