Is A Live Concert Stereo Or Mono

Live unamplified instruments playing are not mono, stereo or multi-channel. Those terms are only appropriately used when describing amplified, reproduced sound. There seems to be some confusion because nearly all mid to large venue concerts are amplified. If you're at a Pink Floyd concert you're not listening to the band play, you're listening to a big concert hi-fi system reproduce what the band is playing.

I would say that live shows are better....

Unamplified music is perfect and can not be reproduced in the home via a stereo or mono system. Amplified events will vary by venue and seating position. Without stereo or multichannel reproduction at home our ear/brain system will not be able to accept the illusion of real instruments playing. Mono is psychoacousticaly less dimensional and directional which is picked up quite easily by the average person. Some people are tone deaf, can not process spatial acoustic information or discriminate between even a violin and a viola. Whatever floats your boat is what you should listen to...the human animal is very fickle:O)

Listen to the Stones live. Not so good. But when they track over in the studio, they sound great, as long as you like their music. Very few bands sound as good or better live, although I've heard Ten Years After and Black Oak Arkansas sound as good or better live, most of the time you're better off listening to studio music IMHO. Srereo is better.

Unamplified concerts I would suggest are multi-dimensional, essentially you have the sound of each seperate instrument mixing with all the other instruments. All this sound arrives at the listener with varrying intensities and timings. I don't hear anything close to stereo or mono at these concerts, this is 'real' sound. I hear only a poor facsimilie of this sort of soundstaging with stereo.

As for mono vs. stereo recordings. I generally prefer stereo except in earlier stereo mixing when sounds were often hard panned to either side. Therefore, a voice may come directly out of the left side speaker, drums out of right, ugh! Listen to late 60's, early 70's rock recordings, way too many do this crap, I prefer the mono releases on these, much more natural sounding.