What to expect from MONO

Hello Arch7

Your antiskating could be off. I have the Classic Records mono release and have played it with both a stereo & mono needle. The sound comes from the center. Try a stereo album with a strong singing voice you know should be in the center. If it is not then either your cartridge alignment is off or you are having other issues with your system. Also try near field listening. Move your speakers about 5 feet from your seating location this will eliminate many room issues you do have. I have had issues with my projector screen. It would cause the imaging to move or go to one side or the other no matter what pressings mono or stereo I listened. I found it moved ever so slightly while the music played causing the problem. I now use a tapastry over the screen to solve the problem. So I have learned rooms have a lot to do with imaging of your system and the further you are from your speakers the more it will affect it.

I have a ZYX mono cartridge on my VPI 12.5 arm and about 500 mono LPs. I use two speakers, rather than just one. I have tried it both ways and prefer two speakers, though I can see why some people prefer a single speaker. On my system, with two speakers, I do get a horizontal sound stage with mono, not just a vertical line. The mono horizontal soundstage ranges from 1/4rd to 1/2 of the size of the horizontal soundstage of the stereo version of the same recording played on the same arm with a stereo cartridge, a ZYX UNIverse.

For VPI users, i wonder if the anti-skating could be off. This table requires a twist of the tonearm cable to control anti-skate. I feel pretty confident that it's correct because when I lift the arm at the end of a record it every so slightly bounces back toward the right. I'm told this should be just enough anti-skating force, so I hesitate to adjust it. If I'm mis-informed let me know. Also, is there a good test record out there that can help with sort of thing? One that maybe gives a precise even soundstage with just a tone rather than actual music?

I use a Wallyskater to measure the anti-skate on my VPI 12.5. It is possible to get the anti-skate fairly close to optimum by just twisting the wires.

For a lengthy discussion of why test tones are not very useful for setting anti-skate please see the following thread.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1155072518&openflup&32&4#32

Play some mono CDs if you have any to double check. Room anomolies, or issues with speaker positioning or unmatched speaker drivers (or pre/power amp tubes), should cause simmilar effects as with vinyl. If not, then it's probably alignment or cartridge related, or possibly phonostage (tube imbalance/resonance).

As for perceiving a strict vertical line or point of images when playing mono, I think this could only happen in an anechoic chamber, if even then. I think the ear/brain assigns dimensional qualities to images emmanating even from a single small driver.