Sometimes mono recordings sound way better than stereo recordings to my ears. On vinyl there’s just no contest. Vinyl mono blows away the equivalent stereo recording. Not surprising because a true mono cartridge only tracks lateral modulations. But even on high resolution streaming mono can surprise you. Here’s a case in point. A lovely Ben Webster album on Verve recorded in mono in 1957 with the Oscar Peterson Trio. Remastered in 24-bit 192khz on Qobuz. And it sounds fabulous. You have to learn how to listen in mono. There’s no left right separation. That’s all bogus anyway. Some engineer decided to put the piano on the left and the sax on the right. Big deal. It’s not a law of physics. It’s random. In listening to mono, you get over these childish audiophile notions. Listen instead to the richness of Ben Webster’s sax. His rhythm and tempo. Most important his soul. The album is called Soulville. Most appropriate. As the Duke (Ellington) once famously said “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing”. This recording has plenty of swing and soul. I’d trade that for fake stereo any day of the week. On the big SL driven by the fire breathing dragons, the mighty ARC 750SEs, this recording blooms and blossoms. Listen and you’ll understand why mono remains supreme.
