Title
Plugged in headphones into my laptop and wondered why old Beatles panning was so fucking bad, when I went to test it on my phone and realized that I had mono turned on. Funny I did not even notice considering I obsess over mono vs stereo mixes as a vinyl collector and always search for dedicated mono mixes on Spotify, and I did not even notice the difference with all my stereo tracks being folded. The funny thing is, I think I may enjoy mono more? I find my focus to the core of the song diminished and replaced by my attention pivoting to extra details all over the left and right channels. Should I just return to the cave, or embrace the brave, new world of stereo technology?
Edit: Goddam, the Cranberries sound fucking incredible in stereo
Edit 2: Omg, so do the Cocteau Twins
Edit 3: Cream, Anri, Aphex Twin… so good. Jazz trio and some sixties rock stuff sounds meh however like Kinks and Seeds. Early Dylan sounds awful.
Similar but different…
In high school, I would put my earbuds wire underneath my shirt on my back side, and it would come up at the back of my neck and wrap around my ear. The wire was 100% concealed this way because of my Beatles style haircut. I would listen to music the entire day, even during class, but I still needed to hear what was going on around me, so I would only listen through one ear.
My mind was absolutely blown the day I learned Money by Pink Floyd had not just two, but three parts to the guitar solo!
It’s a bitch that while hard panned early stereo stuff sounds terrible on headphones, a lot of great music was recorded that way…look into crossfeed, which sends some of the L channel to the R and vice versa
I’ve been experimenting with it (via Qudelix K5 - there are also implementations for foobar) and am pretty happy with it so far