A high-end audio reviewer friend of KeithR, Jeff_T and mine introduced me tonight to the wonder of mono recordings. He played a female vocal with simple acoustic accompaniment (Julie London). He had the same song recorded in both mono and stereo versions.
The stereo version sounded like an audio system conjuring up and recreating the sound of a venue and the voice of a recording. The mono version sounded like an audio system beaming a live singer into the room.
The latter is hyperbole, of course, but the mono version sounded simpler, more real, and more in-the-room present. The mono version more effectively suspended disbelief than did the stereo version.
Then he played a big symphony orchestra recording. Here the mono version didn’t work for me at all.
The entire recording sounded like a miniature version of an orchestra being projected from a television set between the speakers. It sounded like we were listening to midgets in a diorama, rather than full-size musicians on an orchestra stage. The sound was constricted and the performance seemed to be emanating from a box.
When our ears listen to a live single performer singing and playing a guitar we have two sound receptors (our ears) acquiring sound from a single source (a mono performer). Why did anybody ever think that a girl with guitar performance is going to sound better if you record it in two channels rather than if you record it with one channel in the way we actually hear it live?
Why did anybody ever think that a two channel recording of a single vocal performer sounds better than a recording of that performer in mono?
Isn’t recording a single vocal performer in mono more consonant with how we would experience such a performance live?
The stereo version sounded like an audio system conjuring up and recreating the sound of a venue and the voice of a recording. The mono version sounded like an audio system beaming a live singer into the room.
The latter is hyperbole, of course, but the mono version sounded simpler, more real, and more in-the-room present. The mono version more effectively suspended disbelief than did the stereo version.
Then he played a big symphony orchestra recording. Here the mono version didn’t work for me at all.
The entire recording sounded like a miniature version of an orchestra being projected from a television set between the speakers. It sounded like we were listening to midgets in a diorama, rather than full-size musicians on an orchestra stage. The sound was constricted and the performance seemed to be emanating from a box.
When our ears listen to a live single performer singing and playing a guitar we have two sound receptors (our ears) acquiring sound from a single source (a mono performer). Why did anybody ever think that a girl with guitar performance is going to sound better if you record it in two channels rather than if you record it with one channel in the way we actually hear it live?
Why did anybody ever think that a two channel recording of a single vocal performer sounds better than a recording of that performer in mono?
Isn’t recording a single vocal performer in mono more consonant with how we would experience such a performance live?
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