My New System... Mono!

rskarvan

Madmax, I've heard tube-mono through an electro-voice 15" speaker. It sounded VERY GOOD.

I think you are absolutely on the right track.

We have two ears. But, they are designed to hear one source.
Having two speakers just complicates and confuses things.

The music wasn't played in stereo.
The brain and ears weren't designed to hear two different sources.
The guitar, piano, drums, voice, etc... none are stereo.

You definitely are on the right track to audio purity.
I would even recommend going one step further and listening through a single driver - eliminating the crossover, tweeter, and bass woofer.
The sound will be more true.

JimBRICK

mono eh.......................dont start me on another hunt

Yashu

I am intrigued by this idea of mono with "imaging".

Are you saying that with a recording done just right, a single speaker could "trick" the ears into hearing a soundstage? I am not sure it works that way.

Something tells me that it would work in a similar way to a picture of something, vs. actually being there to see it with your two eyes.

Let me put it another way:

Mixing anything down to mono... whether it is a recording done with one mic, or a mixdown of something... you are taking the information stored in the form of perspective and threading it through a single point. Listening in mono is not going to give you a 3d-like image no matter how it is recorded, it is going to let you hear what it might be like to see a live show with one deaf ear. What makes matters worse, is that your speakers are going to be standing still... this means that, unlike, say, someone blind in one eye, motion will not be able to be used to offer multiple perspective, meaning you are going to hear all the sound, no matter what kind it is, come from one single spot dead center. Why would you want to thread an entire band or orchestra through a pinhole?

beardog03

I disagree..

I have heard mono systems that were so ......how do I put this..?
Imaged?...that I was blown away..

It does take placement to a different level though..

1 & 1 does make two....I imagine that the recordings make a huge difference though

madmax

To get image it takes the proper room. Think of a trumpet player playing in a room. It sounds a certain way and is what we expect. Let that trumpet player play outside with nothing for the sound to reflect off of. It will not sound as we expect in a room. Now, a single speaker would sound pretty bad if it were sitting outside but in a room it will have reflections. We like to think our stereo systems do not use the room much but they do. A mono speaker must certainly use the room to have an image as far as I can tell. The key seems to be getting enough of an image without everything sounding the same because of the room. As you can probably tell, I'm still working my way through many of the concepts. I haven't found much info on the internet to guide me. I guess back in those days they just hooked up a speaker, sat it in a place that sounded good and left it at that.
madmax