Mono madness .......life in the lateral only lane

awsmone

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2014
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Canberra Australia
I just wanted to share my initial experience with using a mono cartridge

I have a lot of old records including original Decca DG and mercury mono records

I always found them noisy and so so

Two in particular though I was intrigued what they would sound like with a mono cartridge

Songs of the Auvergne with Davrath and La filled de Gardee which I was told the mono version blew away the stereos

I have both in both versions

By chance I got a very basic AT 3 mono off a colleague for 90 dollars

I thought this a very minimal investment to explore Mono, if I didn't like it well no harm done to the wallet

This cartridge is one of the 4 pin monos

Thus you connect to your stereo tonearm

However I soon discovered that didn't make life perfect

As I got big hum with the big bakoon phono

After hours of alternate grounding solutions i turned to the all knowing google and discovered these twin grounded mono cartridges can have an issue with grounding to the tonearm or phono stage due to differential grounds between the two pins
MY phono and pre don't have a mono sum mode which might have allowed me to just connect one channel, as with one channel playing there was no hum at all
By chance I suddenly remembered my SONY PSX9 has an inbuilt head amp as it was designed for Japanese broadcast studios with an excellent step up

I added an extra interconnect run to line out rather than phono out on the PSX9

Viola! No hum.......total silence I mean nothing nada

The sound was, astonishing
Big, bold vibrant, macro dynamics and micro dynamics

And very very quiet

I put on a modern mono Jazz with Stan Getz and was staggered at the drama and bass and macro

Timbrally it was spot on also which surprised me for such a cheap cartridge

This thing was a joy

I then tried Dvorak 8th mono

More of the same

The Song of the Auvergne

The voice so expressive staggering

Finally the La fille de Gardee

I have a wide band Decca SXL of this in stereo and this is pretty dynamic

But the mono is just several notches more

Ok so I passed for a breath....

If the PSX9 was this good, maybe another phono which didn't hum might be even better

I had pulled out my esoteric e03 to put in my second system

Why not try that

Back in it went, and I hooked up yet another set of cables

To my slight disappointment there was a small amount of hum

This might have been due to the close proximity of the phono to the PSX9

I haven't had a chance to optimise position yet

I thought this as the hum seemed to oscillate in volume

However it was nothing like as bad as the two box bakoon, and not noticeable when music was playing

What did this bring

Well greater resolution and depth of the images and space between images

A little more microdynamics and timbral rightness

But I have to admit the HA55 all FET phono in the PSX9 was damned musical, and as quiet as the grave

It was hard not to just enjoy anything that was played through it

I ended up throwing every mono I could lay my hands on at this thing

I was pulling records from everywhere in my music library which has nearly 7000 records

I know others have talked about monos

I have to say everything they ever said was correct

Even if your dubious about it

Try a cheap mono cart to begin

Just beware of grounding issues

If you have a mono switch this won't be a problem as you just connect one set of leads and short the other

If you don't there might be problems

I haven't tried on my other three turntables as I just replace the head shells with the PSX9 and the others don't have that facility other than the linear tracker which I have optimised for the Madrigal and don't won't to undo that

Interested in others suggestions on a killer mono cartridge

Please not the AT03 mono has vertical compliance which means you can use for stereo records, and useful if its pretty worn out

As the AT03 .... well I a bit surprised, my experience of cheap moving coils has not been favourable, but this thing has been a surprise packet, maybe just a happy symmetry, next I want to try the denon 102 which was the Japanese radio favourite and I think a true mono coil with only two pins,

I have been told the AT 33 stereo is a real sleeper.....hmmmm
 

astrotoy

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May 24, 2010
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Glad you are discovering mono. In addition to La Fille mal Gardee which was engineered in both mono and stereo (1962) by Arthur Lilley, many earlier Deccas (from 1954 to 1958) had two different sets of engineers and producers. Kenneth "Wilkie" Wilkinson often did the mono versions, while lesser engineers were assigned to the stereo versions which were considered less important and profitable (since the records were only being released in their mono versions until 1958 and after) and somewhat experimental. John Dunkerley, Decca engineer from the late '60's and onward, whom I interviewed at length for my Decca book, told me that these earlier Decca releases were actually different in their mono and stereo versions, since each producer-engineer team would decide on which takes to use and where edits would be made. So if you have the famed SXL2020 Espana, Wilkie's version is the mono one, different from the stereo one engineered by Gordon Parry. My database shows a ton of albums, including many famous Decca releases that had completely different teams for mono and stereo versions. Some of the stereo versions were never released. Of course, one great advantage is that the mono versions can often be found in the $1 bins, while the stereo versions are $$$.

Larry
 

awsmone

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2014
1,616
513
435
Canberra Australia
Glad you are discovering mono. In addition to La Fille mal Gardee which was engineered in both mono and stereo (1962) by Arthur Lilley, many earlier Deccas (from 1954 to 1958) had two different sets of engineers and producers. Kenneth "Wilkie" Wilkinson often did the mono versions, while lesser engineers were assigned to the stereo versions which were considered less important and profitable (since the records were only being released in their mono versions until 1958 and after) and somewhat experimental. John Dunkerley, Decca engineer from the late '60's and onward, whom I interviewed at length for my Decca book, told me that these earlier Decca releases were actually different in their mono and stereo versions, since each producer-engineer team would decide on which takes to use and where edits would be made. So if you have the famed SXL2020 Espana, Wilkie's version is the mono one, different from the stereo one engineered by Gordon Parry. My database shows a ton of albums, including many famous Decca releases that had completely different teams for mono and stereo versions. Some of the stereo versions were never released. Of course, one great advantage is that the mono versions can often be found in the $1 bins, while the stereo versions are $$$.

Larry

Thanks Larry

extremely interesting

I do have that espana, but haven't tried it yet

I agree, when i had little money i used to buy the monos, and they were cheap as chips as we say

Now as with the mercuries I am very happy

A friend who worked as a stage manager at the sydney opera house, was really floored by the monos

He even went out and bought some of the records i played for him

I guess the issue with playing monos with stereo cartridge is your only getting a fraction of the available dynamic range 70%

thx for your input
 

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