[thunderbrick]

Did a little used LP shopping yesterday (thanks for the lead, Scott F!)  and found a trashed Reprise mono copy of Duane Eddy "The Biggest Twang of Them All" for $2, and a mint Santana "Marathon" for the same.

On my 1.6s the Duane Eddy was quiet, played great, but the stunning part is that this mono disc sounded 95% like stereo!     The music was a little (?) hokey, but I kept 'looking' at the instrument spread and thought "this CAN'T be mono!"  Depth, width, soundstage, you name it, in spades.

Santana was better, but not by a huge amount.    Go figure!   

[SteveFord]

The first two Jefferson Airplane releases on Sundazed (180 gm) are mono and sound really good, too. 

[Rclark]

 Is mono superior to stereo?

[SteveFord]

It's just different and an awful lot of the rock recordings were done in mono and then kind of turned into stereo later on - early Airplane, early Beatles, etc.
Originally, things were supposed to go from mono to three channel but we ended up with stereo due to cost concerns.
It's funny how things have jumped around with the number of channels but 2 channel (or 2.1) has hung in there.
I have the Airplane's first album (in mono) on right now and it sounds just fine.

Here's a good start for an overview of how things progressed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonic_sound

[thunderbrick]

 Is mono superior to stereo?

Dunno, but the disc sure as hell didn't sound like it came from a single speaker in the center of the room. 

[rw@cn]

 Is mono superior to stereo?

It can be. Here is a very simple explanation. Many early recordings were done to mono or three track with the plan to mix to mono. Later they were made into "stereo" and this group or recordings are usually inferior to mono.

[PSB Guy]

Is mono superior to stereo?

On some recordings, absolutely. One good example is the original stereo mix of the Beatles' "Rubber Soul", which is hard panned left and right with nothing in the centre. Many people (myself included) find it disconcerting and prefer the mono mix. There are many other examples...

Cornelis

[thunderbrick]

+1!  Many examples in early rock.  Distracting as hell.

[Rclark]

 You know, I have Pink Floyd, Piper at the Gates of Dawn on both mono and stereo. I think it's my only mono recording.

 I couldn't tell a difference in percieved quality but I haven't yet really compared the two. I should do that.

 The only reason I used the mono disc was when I was having problems with my amp and used it to check to see if both channels were producing the same level of sound. Not listened critically.

 Plus it's only an album I keep as an oddity, nothing I'd really listen to.