Vinyl lovers--in case you haven't tried this yet

Zaikesman...Use the SS amp. Feed it the Left and Right stereo signals from the preamp. Connect a speaker from one red amp terminal to the other one. This "bridges the amp. You don't need any special bridging switch on the amp. What you will hear is the difference between Left and Right, which obviously should be silence for a mono recording.

The idea that "air" can be created by adding a bit of HF noise is a dirty little secret. And, as inpepinnovations@aol.com notes, slight imperfections of vinyl playback such as phase shift and differing frequency response can create a false stereo effect. Indeed, some mono recordings were reissued as "stereo" by deliberately introducing large amounts of these distortions.

Fran: WPPAPI yerself dude :-) Been a while, nice to see you again! But as I said, with most of my mono CD's I hear virtually no difference engaging the mono switch (I imagine I'd hear more of one if I used a tube preamp and/or player).

Inpep: Yes, agree about the phase aspect as well. But, doesn't *somebody* claim mono playback of mono LP's is superior to stereo playback of mono LP's, despite the same principles applying? If not, who's buying mono versions of stereo cartridges, marketed/sold at an additional $$ premium to boot? (Another characteristic of these devices that makes me question their legitimacy until somebody informs me differently -- in this case, specifically as to why an otherwise-identical product, only needing fewer connections and connectors, and perhaps a simpler stylus profile or a slightly adjusted suspension [if that much], should fetch a few-hundred dollar upcharge over the more complex stereo version. But then again, the prices of high-end cartridges in general bear very little relation to the reality of what goes into their design and manufacture to begin with.)

Eldee: Every once in a while, with certain early-to-mid 60's pop disks, I'll actually *like* the peculiarly distorted sound of the fake stereo versions, probably because in many instances that's the sound I grew up with...But I normally try to own a mono version as well, and the majority of the time with material of this vintage I'll prefer the mono to the true stereo version, with its even fakier-sounding hard left/right "dual-mono" panning.

The question that has often nagged me as I cautiously collect mono vinyl in hopes of landing a decent cart one of these days is how far back do I take this? If as some contend that the breakthrough year for high fidelity was 1953 with Mercury’s “Living Presence” and that it took a couple more years for RCA to follow suit (over-driven, at first), then are we looking at a half-decade window in the 50s, or does the Golden Aural Age stretch further back?