What is the difference between mono and stereo ?

[siauhong]

Could somebody teach me the difference between mono and stereo audio with technical theory ?

[vitualis]

MONO = single channel of audio

STEREO = two channels of audio -- usually corresponding to a left and right field

Regards.

[siauhong]

MONO = single channel of audio

STEREO = two channels of audio -- usually corresponding to a left and right field

Regards.

But y i play mono sound both left and right speaker got sound ?

[yoda313]

Hello,

Stereo is multichannel, mono is not. Mono is the same signal artifically (and equally) split between left and right.

Kevin

[overloaded_ide]

Yep. That's about it.
Not much technical theory, just a mater of how many tracks are present.

Any particular reason you ask, like for more info or help.

If you have mono output and a stereo input, for dubbing you can use a Y cable to feed the mono to both sides at once and get better sound sometimes since it's on both channels, L R instead of just Left.

Also when recording analog from a Mono camcorder to stereo device like my VCR or Capture to PC I use the Y cable. In theory I only need the left side I think for mono input, but normally I get a ton of noise on the other channel that is blank. Using a Y cable gives sound on both channels and avoids the very annoying noise on the normally dead channel.

I do everything in stereo, but as I recall, if correct, when you go from stereo device to mono device you can use a Y cable also to capture sound from both channels into one channel.

One last thing I can think of, is for actaul Stereo source both sides can be different. L channel can go boom boom, and right ding ding as they are seperate channels, then durring playblack you here Boom boom on one speaker and ding ding on the other. When creating your own, then you can put a differnt sound track on each side.

I did one fantastic audio once with Hank SR on the left and Hank Jr on the right, both doing the same song. Durring playback was kinda cool, close your eyes and it was like both were right there singing in front of you almost.

As for any tech specs, those are variables. 96bps, 128bps, 256 etc... and effect quality, but any 2 channel source is technically stereo. And all one channel is mono!
And now that we have true surround sound like 5.1, the number of channels have increased for what you can play with.
5.1 is six channels, 5 speakers and 1 woofer, each channel can be a different sound track. It's not stereo though since there are more than 2 channels and stereo is only 2.

[yoda313]

Hello,

And now that we have true surround sound like 5.1,

Don't forget 6.1! and the ENHANCED 7.1 receivers, though I haven't seen any movies encoded in 7.1 yet (Chicken Run SE is encoded in 6.1).

Kevin

[overloaded_ide]

But y i play mono sound both left and right speaker got sound ?

Yes as yoda said.

Your equipment can often just take one channel and play it across however many speakers you have at one time. It's still just one channel though. Kinda like connecting 3 speakers to one output jack, they all play the same thing and work even though there is only one source channel and it's mono.

If you hear different things from different speakers at the same time, that would be stereo or more. Though it doesn't have to be differnt to be stereo.

And some eqiupment may be able to break up the source alittle also from a mono to similate a fake stereo. Like by mhz or other means so High freqency comes from one side and low the other. But that's fake and not true stereo. You might hear a singer to the left, but drums to the right but it's more based on wave form if you look at a mono track in a graph you'd see what I mean, lot's of highs and lows and spikes.
But playing the same mono source on a tape deck like I have with a scale and needle you would see only one needle jumping around monitoring the output, and the other laying dead because there is no track on that side to monitor.

[overloaded_ide]

Don't forget 6.1! and the ENHANCED 7.1 receivers

Yes that's true.

Course really what I meant was 2.1 or anything more is above stereo really. Stereo is 2 channel, so really to be specific I think L, R, sub/woffer, thumper (or whatever to call that third channel) would be over the 2 channel stereo and should be called something else. If the third channel is actually a seperate channel itself and not similated.
2.1 is a good name I geuss :P
But I am sure alot of stuff is just reffered to as stereo by most people even if it does have extra tracks.

[yoda313]

Hello,

I think it's called .1 because it's sub-vocal. Not sure about that though. It's not a voice/music channel so it's abbreviated. I'm sure there's tech docs out there for it.

Kevin


--maybe because it's a "sub"woofer. The sub would be lower than normal sound, just my opinion --

[Cornucopia]

Your equipment can often just take one channel and play it across however many speakers you have at one time. It's still just one channel though. Kinda like connecting 3 speakers to one output jack, they all play the same thing and work even though there is only one source channel and it's mono.

If you hear different things from different speakers at the same time, that would be stereo or more. Though it doesn't have to be differnt to be stereo.

And some eqiupment may be able to break up the source alittle also from a mono to similate a fake stereo. Like by mhz or other means so High freqency comes from one side and low the other. But that's fake and not true stereo. You might hear a singer to the left, but drums to the right but it's more based on wave form if you look at a mono track in a graph you'd see what I mean, lot's of highs and lows and spikes.
But playing the same mono source on a tape deck like I have with a scale and needle you would see only one needle jumping around monitoring the output, and the other laying dead because there is no track on that side to monitor.

It DOES have to be different to be stereo. Sometimes not by very much, but it always has to be at least somewhat different. You basically said so yourself in that 1st paragraph. Differences can be a combination of VOLUME, TIME DELAY, and/or PHASE ANGLE in varying amounts, where the ear perceives the signal being pulled toward the channel that has the Louder Volume, the Earlier Time, or the Smaller Phase Angle.

Yes there is a "stereo theory", but it would take too long to go into it here. Suffice to say, if you want any sort of (non-faked) panorama, you need more than 1 channel.

On using 2 channel mono:

Pluses--possibly better signal to noise ratio (certainly in Analog domain), phantom center channel

Minuses--higher bitrate, phantom center channel (this varies as far as desireability)

Scott

[overloaded_ide]

It DOES have to be different to be stereo. Sometimes not by very much

Well, yes you are probably correct, although I was looking at it more from the angle of creating Stereo with a program and entering each channel seperatly and the resulting product being 2 channel stereo output from the program. In this case, depending how one looks at it, I could drop 2 exactly same audio tracks into the program and have the same stereo output from that program as if I had used two different tracks completely different.

Rather channel 1 and 2 are the same or different does not matter as the program outputs each channel the same way as I am thinking here.

I geuss the question then could be if you take 2 audio tracks exactly the same other than one has a series of beeps in one spot, what do you have?

10minute music track, channel 1. Same exact track on channel 2 except at 5 minutes you add 3 beeps on only channel 2. Now is the entire end product stereo, or just the section with beeps? Would the first 5 and last 5 minutes be mono or stereo since they are exactly the same before and after beeps?
If you say the entire song would be stereo, then what happens if you clip out just the first 3 mintutes? Is that still stereo, or now mono?

To be perfectly honest here, I don't know what the correct answer is, but I would say it was all stereo and if you cut a section that would still be stereo. But I could be wrong.

Now as far as opening the file in the program, mono will only show audio in one graph bar, but stereo shows it in both bars at the same time, even if exactly the same. Been awhile since I was making any custom tracks for myself, but that's how the programs I used worked.

[myckee]

Simply, think of it this way:

Suppose you were watching a movie where on the left side of the screen there was an explosion, and on the right side of the screen, a reporter talking.

In Mono, both left and right speakers would have the exact same sound of both explosion and reporter at the same time.

In Stereo, you would mainly hear the explosion from the left speaker and you would mainly hear the reporter from the right. In this scenario, this is much more lifelike as if it were you there instead of the camera.

[Cornucopia]

overload_ide:
I see where you're coming from. Think about this--Mono means 1 independent stream of information. Stereo means 2ISOM, Quad=4ISOM, AC3=1,2,3,4,5, or 6ISOM. Independent is the operative word. You could have 2 streams of information, but if they're identical, there's still only 1 independent stream.
I believe what you're used to using is like the WAVE file format where you can have either 1 or 2 channels supported within the file. 2 channels would be, in a more precise way of speaking, dual mono NOT stereo. More like Stereo-capable (kinda like HDTV-ready)

Given your scenario, you could either say it's stereo once something has been changed, or you could say that it's only stereo in that section. Either that, or somebody F#@k&d up!

Note: this is another example where M$ gave us a bum file format compared to Mac's just because they wanted to promote their own: AIFF supports as many channels as you can give it, as well as 24, 32 bit, higher sample rates, etc. (although most apps don't allow you to make use of these other options)

Scott

[overloaded_ide]

You are correct as I am thinkng on my experience with mostly Wav files and programs for audio editing. Way back when systems were small and slow with little ram compared to todays monsters. Back when hardrives were MBs, not gigs!