My Q last nite....What is "Stereomono" ?? (in some old 60s vinyl recording..)
And here's the answer:
On this side of the ocean, records manufactured in the sixties often had the mention "can be played on mono or stereo equipment".
I remember reading something a while ago about this issue.
If my memory serves me well, there have been some issues with vinyls which had total separation of the instruments/voice on either channel (left and/or right).
Quite a few songs from the Beatles were recorded that way.
During those years, the stereo compatibility was still not if full force (mostly because of the large amount of portable mono players on the market).
Depending on their design, some players would not reproduce the whole musical program contained on the vinyl.
This is where the need for such vinyl compatibility notice came from.
On vinyls that could be played on mono or stereo equipment, the program could either be recorded in mono or the stereo musical/voice program was "distributed" on both channels so that the essence of the song was available on the left or right channel.
The need for such compatibility gradually faded away in the early seventies, so did the compatibility notice.
- Marcus
