[geeks] Stupid recording engineers

[Tim H.]

On Tue, 23 Jul 2002 16:33:44 -0400
Joshua D Boyd <jdboyd at cs.millersville.edu> wrote:

> Many sound reproduction systems are mono for ease of running them.  If
> I took this CD to church and played it there, it would sound awefull
> despite having a rather nice sound system.  And this isn't just
> limited to small local setups, but even some touring groups and
> festivals do this (though I don't know why big touring groups would be
> playing CDs unless they are the Backdoor boys, and if they can't
> figure out to remaster the recording for performance, then they
> deserve to sound bad, not that they ever sound good).

I have always mixed stereo sources on mono rigs, am I missing something
here?  If a sound is in either channel it will come through fine, the
only possible way it would drop out would be if it were exactly out of
phase with the other channel.  I am assuming the mono switch on your
headphones makes the plug act like a mono plug, which actually shorts
out one channel, this is entirel different than playing it through
equipment like a DVD player hooked to a mono TV, that will also play all
the sounds on both channels.  

If by mono-safe you mean all sounds are in both channels, then that is
mono, stereo means that the channels are different and you will lose
something if you listen to either channel alone.

Tim