I've no current experience of mono playback but I'm interested in correct this when I can.
One of the questions that this discussion has brought to my mind is - how effective is mono at providing the auditory cues necessary for our psychoacoustic mechanisms to create a realistic illusion?
I can well believe that well recorded mono through a good playback system may well provide the vast majority of these cues with the result that nothing is felt to be lacking.
In fact it may well be that stereo can result in an artificial, unrealistic sound as it requires any more options to get right at recording, editing & playback stages for a realistic illusion - many more chances to mess it up.
Has anybody got experience of the same recording in well recorded mono & well recorded stereo?
Is soundstage depth or layering evident in mono or does this dissappear? I ask this because I suspect that a lot of soundstage depth (not width) might be created by cues which are not related to stereo, directional signals but rather with other aspects withing a well reproduced signal which allow our Auditory Scene Analysis mechanism to create the auditory scene without too much difficulty
Related to this is a recent discussion I was reading about pops & clicks on vinyl reproduction & the question was asked "why accurate reproduction of pops & clicks is important" The answer given was that "it means that they are perceived as separate to the music & thus easier to ignore" - to my thinking this is a case of ASA in action, separating the signal into whatever layers are in the signal - foreground, background, central, peripheral, etc