Mono recordings - two questions...

If good value = low cost in your mind, here are some suggestions.

Mod a stereo cartridge - with a fine copper wire (maybe 24 ga or thinner, or even a single wire cut from a stranded bundle in a speaker wire) strap the hot pins (L & R) on the cartridge. Do this before reconnecting the headshell wire clips. Be certain the wire is taught between the pins and wrapped a couple of times around each pin. Trim away any excess.

Y adaptors - with a male to male Y connected to a female to male Y, insert that between your tonearm and preamp/phono stage.

Buy a new mono cartridge - Shure, Stanton, Grado, and AT all offer reasonably priced models, <$200. There is some question if all of these are "true mono" or simply strapped internally as in the mod suggested above. A true mono is the Denon 102 mono. It has only L & R connector pins. They are extra long to allow connecting all four headshell wires so you will have signal from both speakers.

What Pryso said.  So far, my research tells me that there are very few "true mono" cartridges being sold these days.  Some that probably ARE true mono are the Miyajima series, then EMT makes one or two. I am sure there are more, and now perhaps we will hear about those. If you are on a budget, don't worry about this issue at all.  Just buy a bridged stereo cartridge or do as Tim (Pryso) suggests.  (Don't try to solder the jumper wire; you'll fry the coils.)  I would add Ortofon to Tim's list of companies that market mono cartridges derived from one or another of their stereo cartridge models.

The London cartridges can be made mono, and for a very good reason: their design is sum and difference.

Try these albums:

1. June Christy "Something Cool."

http://www.ebay.com/itm/June-Christy-Pete-Rugolo-Something-Cool-LP-Capitol-teal-female-jazz-vocal-VG...


2. Chris Conner "The Bethlehem Years."

Both of these albums will have you asking ... "who needs stereo."

3, Dave Brubeck "Jazz Impressions USA." another great mono recording.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/DAVE-BRUBECK-jazz-impressions-of-the-usa-COLUMBIA-984-DEEP-GROOVE-6-EYES-VG-...

bdp24, Aren’t all stereo cartridges based on sum and difference? Perhaps Decca’s behave differently because both channels share a single common ground. Interesting story: Many, many years ago, both I and my best audio friend owned Decca London cartridges. We were both tinkerers, and after we discovered that you could easily remove the top plate on the London and thereby gain access to the innards, we also noted that there were tiny set screws inside that one could play with. We decided to play with them in order to get best sound. After some fooling around each of us independently ended up with adjustments that we liked best in our respective systems. It was only a few weeks after that, and I forget how it happened, that we discovered we had each turned our stereo London cartridges into mono cartridges. The experience should have told us something, but it didn’t. (Maybe we were playing mono LPs, for example, to explain our aural preference.)

I own both the stereo and the mono versions of Something Cool, and the mono wins; it's no contest.
I own the Chris Connor too, and it's great.  However, these are examples of small group jazz with a vocalist at the center; not much need for stereo, musically speaking.