Vinyl lovers--in case you haven't tried this yet

I love this forum. Humour, sickness and knowledge all in the same paragraph. I was unaware why I so enjoyed vintage LP's that were done in mono. Now I feel pretty smug about having a mono switch on my line stage. I certainly cannot add much technical knowledge to this debate but what I can add is (hopefully) some feedback on the rash of recent mono reissues that are presently available. I have the new Who repressing of "My Generation" by Classic Records as well as Hendrix "Axis Bold As Love" also by Classic. Now I am primarily a cheapskate and do not part willingly with our heavily taxed Canadian dollar, but in this case it was a no brainer. Worth EVERY penny. As a natural born cynic who figures that the marketing department is once again trying to manipulate us into rebuying our entire record collection-----all I can say is for once they truly have something to offer us. These two titles would cost a fortune in the used record / collector market.
I was pretty happy with the sonic resuls of my underacheiving Denon cartridge up to this point but that may soon change. Now I am on the search for the Holy Grail of mono cartridges. Oh well, its better than swapping cables or obsessing about which CD format is better. Think I can find the Holy Grail for cheap?

So, sit back, put on a slab of vinyl, watch the rock drag over the grooves and marvel at the state of technological progress.

A hearty thanks to all who responded. Just what the doctor ordered. When I read your responses in this forum, I can usually understand these technical issues--you guys are so good at translating the tech-speak (I have never been able to figure out what John Atkinson is saying with all his graphs and charts!). So I appreciate the time, and this increases my interest in expanding my mono library. And yes,Eldartford, I am listening through two beautiful Genesis speakers.
Joe

When I get the flu, my hearing gets so affected that I don't trust any differences in any sounds that I hear! In other words, when I have the flu, everything is mono and sounds worse - sometimes only one channel works - one ear is blocked. Have you tried your experiment when healthy? You might get different results.
Bob P.

I still haven't seen an explanation for why a "mono cartridge" would be better than simply mono-ing the signal from a stereo cartridge when playing mono disks. Electrically there would seem to be a difference only if a stereo cartridge were enough out of alignment coil-wise to result in incorrect cancellations. The only other parameter I can think of is that possibly the suspension could be tuned a little differently assuming there's no need to track a vertical modulation component, but I'm not sure what such a difference might really be, or if any such differences actually exist in these carts.

I read that Stereophile article, by Art Dudley if I'm remembering right, and I couldn't see where this supposed preference for a mono cart was technically addressed at all, much less explained -- it was just assumed. Is it merely as simple as a case of audiophiles owning modern preamps that lack mono switches? And would rather spend for another cart than insert a pair of Y-cables to mono the stereo signal?

My preamp has a mono switch (I wouldn't own one that didn't) and my carts are stereo, and I own plenty of old mono vinyl and usually choose whether to listen with the mono switch engaged based on whether there's a bothersome degree of surface noise that can reduced in mono. Otherwise, with clean mono disks, there's usually little to choose from between listening in "stereo" or switching to mono, and sometimes what difference does exist is in favor of leaving it set to stereo so there's no slight cancellation that results in a reduction of "air". Where it does favor engaging the mono switch with clean mono disks, the difference is generally only a tiny increase in center image coherency/solidity, nothing to get very excited about, certainly nothing to make me want to spend for another cart in lieu of flipping a switch.

When playing a mono CD, for instance, there is really no difference to be heard between whether the preamp is set to mono or stereo. So I am having a hard time imagining why it would be any kind of revelation to acquire a mono cartridge. Is the real revelation for these guys mostly in acquiring the mono vinyl itself, and the cart companies are just cashing in on that unecessarily? Or am I missing something important here?

Is the stylus shape different perhaps, so that the mono cart reads the groove better?

I don't doubt the reports above about the superiority of mono, the problems with horizontal plus vertical modulation, Hobson's test, and so forth. But it strikes me that, given these findings, CDs, which provide effectively two fully-realized mono channels, should have represented a very great leap forward sonically even allowing for all of the problems of the digital format.