My first introduction to a thing called Stereo on the radio

[saintrichard]

I remember back in 1970 listening to WCAU-FM playing oldies in mono, I never heard stereo songs on the radio. A few years later, I saw a billboard on the Expressway at Passyunk Avenue, it was the usual WCAU-FM billboard, but something caught my eye, it said something about your oldies in Stereo. When I got home, I put them on but the stereo light was not on. The billboard must of been put up before the launch, a few days later, the great Jim Nettleton had a whole new tape package, announcing the new stereo sound and WOW, WOW, WOW, when I heard the Beatles, Beach Boys, Buckinghams in stereo, it was amazing. You could hear vocals in one channel and instruments in the other, mostly on Jan and Dean, Gary Lewis and the Temptation cuts, other British Invasion tunes were not that separated, but Linda Scott and Mary Wells were. It was a great new thing to hear. I think Jim was taking the songs from LP's which in the time they were produced had tremendous Stereo effect, you could buy either a mono or stereo LP, which made the stereo records fantastic. NOW comes my question, it seems on many Oldies Stereo stations, also on Satellite, Music Choice and other outlets the stereo separation is mostly gone. On the Beatles, Beach Boys, etc., the channels are combined, there is no separation. This Diamond Ring, is flat, you could of heard the guitar in one channel and Garys voice in the other and could of cut either out. Jan and Dean are still separated as well as Gene McDaniels and some Country songs are still OK. Could this be the use of CD's instead of LP's, I think the old vinyl LP's have a much better separation, although you have more noise, in my case, I will take the separation and deal with the noise...

 

[apco25]

> I remember back in 1970 listening to WCAU-FM playing oldies
> in mono, I never heard stereo songs on the radio. A few
> years later, I saw a billboard on the Expressway at Passyunk
> Avenue, it was the usual WCAU-FM billboard, but something
> caught my eye, it said something about your oldies in
> Stereo. When I got home, I put them on but the stereo light
> was not on. The billboard must of been put up before the
> launch, a few days later, the great Jim Nettleton had a
> whole new tape package, announcing the new stereo sound and
> WOW, WOW, WOW, when I heard the Beatles, Beach Boys,
> Buckinghams in stereo, it was amazing. You could hear vocals
> in one channel and instruments in the other, mostly on Jan
> and Dean, Gary Lewis and the Temptation cuts, other British
> Invasion tunes were not that separated, but Linda Scott and
> Mary Wells were. It was a great new thing to hear. I think
> Jim was taking the songs from LP's which in the time they
> were produced had tremendous Stereo effect, you could buy
> either a mono or stereo LP, which made the stereo records
> fantastic. NOW comes my question, it seems on many Oldies
> Stereo stations, also on Satellite, Music Choice and other
> outlets the stereo separation is mostly gone. On the
> Beatles, Beach Boys, etc., the channels are combined, there
> is no separation. This Diamond Ring, is flat, you could of
> heard the guitar in one channel and Garys voice in the other
> and could of cut either out. Jan and Dean are still
> separated as well as Gene McDaniels and some Country songs
> are still OK. Could this be the use of CD's instead of
> LP's, I think the old vinyl LP's have a much better
> separation, although you have more noise, in my case, I will
> take the separation and deal with the noise...
>

No not really. What it could be is the amount of bandwidth your cable company provides the music source their carrying. Cable Companies will or in the past carry the music channels in mono so they can squeeze a few more TV channels in their line-up. Until they can rebuild to more digital channels, they sacrifice the music channels to mono. I've had that happen when Comcast was AT&T. I immediately dropped them.

 

[saintrichard]

Thanks for the info:

Thanks for the info on Music Choice, I have Comcast Center City, what I've noticed was some songs are in perfect stereo, with full separation, but others are just bland. The Beatles, Beach Boys, 4 Seasons, Temptations and other are flat, but Jan and Dean, 4 Tops, even some "oh wow" tunes are in perfect wide stereo separation, North to Alaska by Johnny Horton is so separated you can cut his voice completely off. Can that be Music Choice using non-stereo tunes, if it was Comcast wouldn't they all be in mono, or can just a few come in stereo???

 

[OldNumber7]

Re: Thanks for the info:

> Can that be Music Choice using non-stereo
> tunes, if it was Comcast wouldn't they all be in mono, or
> can just a few come in stereo???
>
The fact is that many oldies albums and collections have been mastered to CD in the original mono for exactly the reason that the stereo remixes were artificial and too exaggerated. Radio listeners these days aren't accustomed to hearing the vocal entirely from one channel and the guitar entirely on another -- that was a short lived gimmick in the early days of stereo and is unnatural to the ear. Good sound design beginning in the late 60s focused on creating a spatial picture that gives a sense of depth rather than width, and that's what most people are familiar hearing -- absent that, mono sounds better to most folks than wide stereo. For example, the stereo mix of the Beach Boys Pet Sounds is disappointing -- it sounds great in mono. Same is true of the early Beatles stuff. Think about stereo in a confined space like your car -- you don't want the vocal (or the sax or the guitar) only coming at you from the passenger side do you? Because what happens if your passsenger's leg is blocking the door speaker? It wouldn't sound good.

 

[apco25]

Re: Thanks for the info:

> > Can that be Music Choice using non-stereo
> > tunes, if it was Comcast wouldn't they all be in mono, or
> > can just a few come in stereo???
> >
> The fact is that many oldies albums and collections have
> been mastered to CD in the original mono for exactly the
> reason that the stereo remixes were artificial and too
> exaggerated. Radio listeners these days aren't accustomed to
> hearing the vocal entirely from one channel and the guitar
> entirely on another -- that was a short lived gimmick in the
> early days of stereo and is unnatural to the ear. Good sound
> design beginning in the late 60s focused on creating a
> spatial picture that gives a sense of depth rather than
> width, and that's what most people are familiar hearing --
> absent that, mono sounds better to most folks than wide
> stereo. For example, the stereo mix of the Beach Boys Pet
> Sounds is disappointing -- it sounds great in mono. Same is
> true of the early Beatles stuff. Think about stereo in a
> confined space like your car -- you don't want the vocal (or
> the sax or the guitar) only coming at you from the passenger
> side do you? Because what happens if your passsenger's leg
> is blocking the door speaker? It wouldn't sound good.
>


Pretty much when you tune in to a 50's channel and put it in a matrix, or dolby digital II, you'll hear in most cases Little Richard, Fats Domino,etc. only come out in your center speaker. They were recorded in mono, and no sense re-creating a sound that never happened in the studio while it was recorded.
Today in 5 channel surround sound it would sound comical if you tried to do what record companies did in the vinyl days.