From: kmr4@po.CWRU.Edu (Keith M. Ryan)
Subject: Re: Mono vs. "NoN"mono???
Reply-To: kmr4@po.CWRU.Edu (Keith M. Ryan)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 00:52:32 GMT


In a previous article, kwgst+@pitt.edu (Mr. Someone) says:

>I have read several articles here and in different magazines describing people
>having speakers wired in mono... I had no problem with that until i thought for
>a second what that meant.  I couldn't come up with a decent answer. I mean why
>would you want to do that.  It doesn't sound like that great of an idea to have.
>of course what do i know.  
>
>Anyways could someone please explain to me the advantage or lack there of, of
>having speakers running in mono.  

in what context?

if you mean center channels:

many times, the soundstage drifts apart or pulls to one side. imagine
if you will, you are sitting in front of an orcestra. you should here 
[ provided you are in a good hall ] where each individual player is.
you should have a wide soundstage, stable [ meaning it does not drift
or giggle around ] and a sense of depth and heigth. it is very hard to
get a superb staging in a car. to date, i have never heard one appraoch-
ing reasonable in comparison to the best home audio that i have heard.
( there are pro's and con's to the car enviroment. and there is only
so much that tweaks, dsp, fancy set ups etc can do. ) many times, with
just speakers in the doors, the soundstage is pulled apart, or everything
moves to the far left and right. having a midrange speaker in the center
dash usually helps solidify the soundstage. the cheapest method is to have
one speaker, playing in mono, at around 3 to 6 db's down. however, the
systems with a special center channel retrieval system work much better,
but at a cost. it also helps move the soundstage up.

or, do you mean a mono-subwoofer?

the ear is much less sensitive to stereo imaging in the bass and sub-bass
region. that is becuase the wave-lengths are much greater than the width
of the ears. and so, you do not *need* stereo woofers. so, many people 
op to have just one woofer instead of two, especially if their budgets are
small. however, some people are more sensitive than others, so exactly
were the ears are omnidirectional is a debate. 

and, unlike many psuedo-subwoofer ads claim < especially for home audio >,
where you place the woofer IS very important for boundary interactions,
such as corner loading, standing waves etc. having two woofers can help
average out standing waves.

for me, i hear a difference between a mono woofer ( or two woofers running
with mono signals ) and a stereo pair running stereo. when i had my system,
many people asked me why i ran my 4 ohm BA's stereo on my HK, and not run
them mono in parrallel, thus briding the amp, and gaining much more power.
( the amp easily handled running bridged into 2 ohms ) yes, they would play
louder ( measured about 6 db's, subjective in the deepbass of about 3 times
louder ) however, it did not sound realistic listening in mono for me. the
trasiants suffered from overhang, and the staging was drawn backwards and
down.
and besides, a HK TC-600 can put out plenty of power! and i designed my system
to please *me*, not others. 


hope this helped, your question was rather vague, so i did not know 
exactly what you were asking.

>P.S.  Is there somewhere that i can ftp or get a hold of the archive for this
>news group.  I have read for the last few months and have found it very 
>enlightening but I would like to get the archives for this newsgroup.

i just got back after 4 months off, and it seems the sights i was using
are no longer there :-(

-- 
and the latest economic news is in...
  It seems that Bush's economic plan has lead to a dramatic increase in the 
growth of small businesses..
                               Pan Am, GM, IBM.....
Newsgroups: rec.audio.car