Weekly Q&A: Answers | Week of October 30, 2023

How to Get the Best Sound from Mono Recordings...

Q: Like many of your readers, I have and enjoy mono records, classical and jazz LPs from the pre-stereo era, as well as late 50s and later jazz and rock albums whose mono mixes are better than the stereo. Would appreciate your advice on getting the best sound out of them. I assume a dedicated mono cartridge is best, but may not be practical for many of us. Mono switch on phono stage seems to help a lot. Why is this feature not included on all phono stages, including some expensive ones? Thanks for your comments.

-Fred

A: Generally speaking, as you know, it is possible to play a mono LP using a stereo phono cartridge. You can also sum the channels to get closer to true mono. “Closer”, because the stereo cartridge still will be subject to extra groove modulations that aren’t really part of the mono signal. So, when you play a true mono record, better performance can be obtained by using a true mono cartridge, which will automatically give the same left and right output and also ignore ver…