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So after doing some experimentation and reading, I'm starting to believe the correct way to listen to mono recordings is with a single speaker, directly in front of you.
The phantom center image created by a pair of stereo speakers doesn't have the right tonal balance. Apparently Toole did some research on this before, but a speaker directly in front of you will have more apparent midrange than if you are listening to a pair of stereo speakers. This is a Head Related Transfer Function effect (HRTF).
So, if you listen to a mono recording, I suggest turning off one speaker, and facing the other one head on. :)
There are a couple of technical solutions. EQ the speakers, or use something like Neo6's Music mode to drive an actual center speaker. I haven't tried a mono recording via Neo6, but with stereo music it's a pretty nice process. In fact it may be recreating something intended by the early stereo recordings, for which I will have to go back and find. A famous recording engineer insisted 2 speakers = binaural, 3 was needed for stereo. Now that I have experienced how the phantom center is lacking, it's making more sense. :)
Best,
Erik
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I used to use it quite a bit for going from two-channel to multi-channel. It's one of those processes which leaves the original two channels intact, so if you're very "discreet" about the the volume and balance of the generated channels, you can get a pretty nice facsimile of multi-channel. Of course, everybody's mileage varies with stuff like this, and, in a way, I can understand why our resident Neo6 skeptic (that would be Kal BTW) feels the way he does.However, I think things move quickly in the DTS Neo world, and Neo6 has given way to DTS Neo:X, DTS:X, and DTS Neural Upmiixer. I'm guessing that all of these would mainly be used to generate additional channels, but I wonder if the algorithms have also improved compared to Neo6?
Edits: 10/04/16
Funny, I just posted about this in the Hi-Rez forum. :)
A real center for stereo music brightens up the phantom center quite nicely.
Best,
Erik
Funny, but I've tried listening to mono with one speaker and I always end up favoring "phantom mono" with two speakers. And reading the liner notes on some LPs made back in the early 1960's I see that it was suggested that mono recordings played over two speakers can sound better than mono recordings played over one speaker.It might be because I'm too used to listening to two-channel stereo, but "two speaker mono" creates a wider sound field that I enjoy more. The comb-filtering effects produced by two speaker mono also seem pleasant to my ears somehow. And the slightly more subdued midrange presentation makes for a slightly less distracting mono listening experience, at least for me. Go figure!
So maybe I'm not too interested in extracting the best possible mono listening experience from my system because I greatly prefer stereo and because I so rarely listen to mono recordings, but that is the way it stands right now.
To each his own, I guess.
Edits: 10/03/16 10/03/16
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