Mono recordings - two questions...

bdp24-good reminder how great the early mono  Beach Boys albums sound. I have the first 6, which I think are the essential for any BB fan.

Just thought I'd mention I played that Julie London album while having dinner, and I've fallen in love(again) with her.
Something interesting- on "Cry me a River", during the outro where she repeats "I cried a river over you", during  the 2nd from the last verse, some  ham fisted engineer cranked the reverb knob...oops! 

That album is a perfect example why mono is king. I've taken this album to shows and played it on uber systems...breathtaking.

Belafonte at Carnegie Hall - mono is just as good as the stereo

ok well it serves me right to ask questions... answers are gonna cost me money LOL

so what is a good value mono cart?  i unfortunately don't have a mono switch on my pre -- and i don't want to swap equipment in the chain - but i can mount a mono cart on a headshell and go about it that way!

If good value = low cost in your mind, here are some suggestions.

Mod a stereo cartridge - with a fine copper wire (maybe 24 ga or thinner, or even a single wire cut from a stranded bundle in a speaker wire) strap the hot pins (L & R) on the cartridge. Do this before reconnecting the headshell wire clips. Be certain the wire is taught between the pins and wrapped a couple of times around each pin. Trim away any excess.

Y adaptors - with a male to male Y connected to a female to male Y, insert that between your tonearm and preamp/phono stage.

Buy a new mono cartridge - Shure, Stanton, Grado, and AT all offer reasonably priced models, <$200. There is some question if all of these are "true mono" or simply strapped internally as in the mod suggested above. A true mono is the Denon 102 mono. It has only L & R connector pins. They are extra long to allow connecting all four headshell wires so you will have signal from both speakers.

What Pryso said.  So far, my research tells me that there are very few "true mono" cartridges being sold these days.  Some that probably ARE true mono are the Miyajima series, then EMT makes one or two. I am sure there are more, and now perhaps we will hear about those. If you are on a budget, don't worry about this issue at all.  Just buy a bridged stereo cartridge or do as Tim (Pryso) suggests.  (Don't try to solder the jumper wire; you'll fry the coils.)  I would add Ortofon to Tim's list of companies that market mono cartridges derived from one or another of their stereo cartridge models.