Mono or Stereo?

[elperromagico]

Poll question: Mono or Stereo?

Which do you prefer?

[arcos]

1. 5.1 nt

[elperromagico]

2. Oh, go back to Hollywood, lib'rul hippie.

:P

[fujiyama]

15. Aren't you special?

With your fancy smancy surround sound. Damn yuppies!

I'll go with DTS myself! ;)

[sendero]

3. How...

.... could anyone pick mono? That's just crazy talk!

[pss]

4. Mono...

I'm deaf in my left ear.

[elperromagico]

16. That's why most of the Beach Boys' records were mixed in mono.

Brian Wilson is deaf in one ear - his right ear, I believe - so stereo doesn't mean much to him.

[tridim]

7. Have you ever heard a stereo song in a restaurant

with one speaker in the dining room and one speaker in the kitchen? Some of the Beatles remasters are completely split between channels. That's the only reason I can think of. :)

[elperromagico]

17. You're right. A lot of the Beatles songs can be mixed

to feature vocals only with just a minimal amount of effort.

I find a lot of those early Beatles stereo mixes to be painful listening with headphones - the lead vocals are on the right or left, the drums are anywhere, and the bass is anywhere. These days, you'd put them at or near dead center.

But these days, you have 96 tracks. Back then, they had 2 or 4... if they were lucky, 8.

[asthmaticeog]

5. Stereo is an abomination!

If the Good Lord had meant for us to hear the playback of recordings in stereo, he would have given us two ... fuck, hold on, I have to go re-think this.

[Dirk39]

6. Mono and stereo, both are o.k., but 5.1. sucks...

Hello from Germany!
Hello from Neuman, Telefunken and Sennheiser!

I hope it just dies like Quadrophony during the seventies (anybody around to remember quadrophony, the next big thing during the seventies?).

I don't want to be surrounded! I want to be exposed. I want a distance between me and the music and then maybe something will overcome this distance, but I don't want to be right in the middle of it just from the start.

And I think all of the sound techniques we ever had were artificial.
Mono, Stereo, HiFi-Stereo: they all were marketed as "natural" sound, most ridiculous in 5.1 cinema, but didn't have to much to do with it right from the start.
I cannot imagine that future records will be released in 5.1 sound, completely replacing stereo records, just the way stereo records did replace mono-records. We have two ears, so two speakers are o.k.

Stereo did a lot for clearness and did somehow replace the other senses - this is the reason, stereo records are mostly exaggerated.
If you don't see the drummer on the left and the violins on the right, your ears have to replace your eyes. But who - as a listener - wants to sit in the middle of of an orchestra or band?

Maybe if some real artists produce works of art making the audience a part of it, it will work, but if Nintendo and Hollywood are doing it,it will work too, but as a nightmare.

On edit:
there is one american engineer, Henry Kloss, selling over-engineered and over-priced mono radios and cd-players like butter in Germany! Tivoli


Or I am getting old,
Dirk

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Eh...5.1 is just quadrophonic with an added front center channel, anyway..

My preference is for stereo, for music AND gaming, with good headphones (Sennheisers are the best, in my opinion, particularly at the price).

[Osamasux]

11. Oh yeah, the old KLH radios.

They were around 30(?) years ago. Kloss sold his company, but now they have had a rebirth under his new company, Tivoli. The perfect accompaniment to working in the garage, don't you think. (Great dials, too.)

Those Marantz quadraphonic receivers were interesting, but impractical. Quad turned out to be pretty dumb once you put on something other than the demo records.

[Dirk39]

12. I love (some) american engineers...

Not to mention the unforgettable Leo Fender, who did just everything right. I still cannot understand, how a single person can create something so beautifull that stands the test of time till today.
But even people like Sadowsky with the instruments, he's building, or someone like Steve Rabe, who did chose to go back to the garage at least two times in life to create something new.

Although the U.S. industry might undergo a crisis that's even more dramatic than the same crisis, many european industries undergo now, this garage thing is still soooooo american.

Jealous in Germany,
Dirk

[Speck Tater]

8. Stereo: A blonde on the left, a redhead on the right.

And maybe a subwoofer too.

[Dirk39]

10. Hey you unamerican commies!

http://www.tivoliaudio.com/product_image.php?imageid=92
lalalalala, lalalalalalala,lala.

This is one of the best products within years. It has one speaker, an audio-in, not remote, no digital tuner, but the best analogue tuner ever.

All you pacifist french fries german beer italian espresso 5.1 stereo-DUers: You hate yourself for your freedom!

http://www.tivoliaudio.com/product_image.php?imageid=61

Lalalalala in Germany,
Dirk

[progmom]

13. It depends

I want to listen to things recorded in mono (or electronically simulated stereo...blech!) in mono. Things in stereo in stereo.

[Thor_MN]

14. I had mono, but I got better....