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Topic: Mono and Stereo versions of L.P.s

29th Mar 2015, 10:25 PM
	biffbampow Member since Jan 2013 65 Points	Definitely an interesting area in it's own right. At least for most of the 60's you could choose between mono and stereo editions but unfortunately that could be perilous since stereo albums cost more but you might end up with some godawful rechanneled beast. The Dave Clark Five were the classic example... Clark himself mixed all those early ones in mono and gave them to Epic and believed that was how they were being released so he was baffled to be confronted with a "stereo" version of one such album. He was horrified when he played it to hear it had been rechanneled into some fake stereo. Unfortunately it got worse once stereo became the norm because then the record companies thought issuing in mono was a con and a rip off hence tons of stuff got senselessly rechanneled and sold purporting to be in stereo. There were loads of such monstrosities released during the 70's until it seems all of a sudden in around 1978, they stopped and would start using mono again. I do think it's important - where possible and can be verified - to put in the notes where a "stereo" album is actually fake stereo. It might save a few people some money... I steer clear of that stuff myself and if I'm buying a stereo album then I want to be 100% certain it is actual stereo. None of the various forms of fake stereo were any good nor convincing though Capitol's patented "duophonic" I think was the worst of the lot - utterly horrible and lumpy... not that Capitol always warned you it was in that format!