Back to Mono

Having undertaken a fair amount of research of late into acoustics and speaker placement for Portable Pictures I was interested to read this piece about the merits of mono over stereo and why mono listening is perfect for the summer.

Pitchfork// Back to Mono

Having never been convinced by the enhancement given to the viewing of a film 5.1 surround sound capabilities offer I am also tempted to agree with Damon Krukowski here that the advantages of stereo recordings over mono are often overrated and in some cases mono actually sounds much better.

During their 60's heyday Brian Wilson and Phil Spector were both vehemently opposed to stereo as they felt it took control of the records sound away from the producer. Wilson said 'I look at sound like a painting, you have a balance and the balance is conceived in your mind. You finish the sound, dub it down and you've stamped out a picture of your balance with the mono dubdown. But in stereo, you leave that dubdown to the listener, to his speaker placement and speaker balance. It just doesn't seem complete to me.'