the ideal mono rig, or course starts with just how serious do you want to get? and how much mono listening will you actually do? have you already done enough to know you like it? i'm an on again<->off again mono listener. i'll go months not paying attention, then for a few weeks i'll dive deep into it. sometimes triggered by acquisitions of mono pressings. i can lose myself into the ultra musical flow connection that mono can pull off. it's special. FYI; i have about 250-300 jazz monos, 200-250 classical monos, and 100 pop/rock/vocal monos + 40-50 45rpm monos. so a reasonable, but not huge part of my 12,000 pressing total collection.
for me the ideal is a dedicated arm and cartridge for mono. and i like my Glanz MH-1200s arm and Sumile mono cartridge. it's a good match and the Sumile mono is a nice step up over the Miyajima Labs Infinity mono cartridges i had. this is mounted on the Esoteric T1 turntable, so a pretty capable rig. right now it's feeding into my darTZeel 18NS preamp phono which is very fine. my plan is to also use it into my silver wound EMIA SUT and phono pre.
i use the mono switch on my dart preamp. there is also a mono switch on my EMIA MC Trio SUT but i've not used that.
this mono rig does surpass my quite formidable stereo cartridges playing mono pressings. and that is the issue. if you have high level stereo cartridges, then that requires your mono cartridge and arm to be good enough to justify it's place in your system. otherwise, just use your stereo rig for mono pressings. the better stereo cartridges bring refinement and dynamics to many mono pressings that overcome the technical advantage of a lesser (but still very nice) mono cartridge. this happened with my Miyajima Infinity, at a particular point i had improved my stereo arms and cartridges to the point where i was not playing my Infinity any more (to be fair, the Infinity was $3200 retail, my stereo cartridges over $20k). so why have it? i upgraded to the Sumile (more refined, more mid range clarity and sparkle, sexier bass @3x $$$) which made my mono pressings better.
for awhile i did have a dedicated mono turntable, the EMT 948. it was very nice, but not in the realm of my other turntables, so i rarely listened to it. i find that the mono pressings do sound best on the best turntable. to some degree i sold my much loved Saskia idler, to have a turntable that could accommodate 3 arms instead of just one, to have a top spot for mono playing. no value in having a mono rig that is not the best performer with those pressings.
as far as ".......to transducer" you can read my system link. i don't have an interest in a separate single speaker + separate signal path set-up for mono (just for sake of doing it). the quality of my signal path and room is not a trivial thing to repeat. analogous to my separate turntable comments. it's not just the $$$'s, it's really the mental focus and effort involved in a second serious system. doing one all the way over the top is hard enough.
and mono deserves the best you can provide. YMMV........if i had multiple lesser systems maybe it would be a consideration.
