In iTunes v.12.3.2.35, can I tell if a track/song is in stereo or mono? I tried "Get Info" but I cannot find a tab regarding this. Thank you for any suggestions.
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), MacBookPro11,3; Airport Time Capsule
Thanks but there is no Channels entry.
Yes there is, take a look
I have the Mono Beatles box set and they seem to show stereo even when the source was ripped "as original" as mono using XLD to lossless format.
I do know they aren't as they sound different to my stereo Beatles box set from both the CD sources and the ripped files
Stereo artificially created from Mono originals sounds different from the real thing.
This is the information that I get. Could it be that the lack of channels info is because I use .aiff files? Thank you.
If you're desperate try a specialized media information tool such as Invisor Lite or MediaInfo. However, as observed earlier, just because a file has two tracks does not mean they are stereo. You could have a mono feed creating two duplicate tracks.
"Mono" CDs simply have identical data in the "left" and "right" channels, and iTunes will report the extracted files as stereo as they still contain two-channel information.
That makes sense
just because a file has two tracks does not mean they are stereo. You could have a mono feed creating two duplicate tracks.
Airsculpture wrote:
That makes sense
😉
By the way, I think I prefer the new stereo versions than the mono through towers but mono in the Sennheiser headphones
Csound1 wrote:
Stereo artificially created from Mono originals sounds different from the real thing.
I have concluded that it is really not necessary to tell if a track in iTunes is in stereo. A representative from a company that makes a utility that uses a custom-built algorithm to analyze audio files and determine their stereo content says that if an audio file that I think is mono is imported from a CD, especially a commercially bought CD, the chances of it being mono are almost 0. It is almost definitely stereo. Plus, if their utility determines a file is stereo, it is in fact stereo and it’s possible there is some reverb or other effect that is causing the file to be stereo. The best example I can give is the CD "The Kinks Greatest Hits" (Catalog #R2 70086) on Precision Records & Tapes, Ltd./Rhino Records The packaging states “MONO RECORDINGS…digitally remastered...Mono recordings except where indicated* (only one song has an asterisk after it). Thanks for your input.
Well, I don't agree at all, stereo requires 2 separate (and different) channels. Reverb is reverb, it can exist on a stereo recording or a mono one, but it doesn't change mono to stereo.
Stereo means solid, what did you think it was?
The info you've been given is correct in that all commercial CDs confirming to the "red book" standard have two audio streams, intended to be used as the left and right channels of stereo recordings. That said, there are many examples of recordings original made for mono reproduction (which includes just about every "popular" recording from the invention of the gramophone to the mid 1060s) that are now available on CD. The mono version of the Beatles' box set is the best known example, but there are many others. In these cases, the data content of the two audio streams on the CD is identical, so even though the representation is "stereo" the sound will be strictly monophonic. The main reason that these exist stems from the period between the introduction of the stereo LPs and corresponding "hi-fi" equipment and these becoming the dominant format - over that period many records were released in both mono and stereo versions, and in most cases the former wasn't created by mixing down the stereo version. Mono and stereo versions were often different mixes or even different performances - hence the appeal to fans and collectors of having both versions available in modern formats. Of course, before the introduction of multi-track recordings the "stereo" versions were often a simple split from the master recording, for example with guitars and vocals all in the left channel, drums, bass and piano all in the left.
Just to make things more complicated, there was a short-lived trend to "create" stereo LPs from mono recordings by splitting the original into "left" and "right" channels and using effects such as reverb or phase reversal to make the channels different - generally with pretty gruesome effects, much like early colorization of black and white movies for color TVs. Unfortunately, these "electronically processed for stereo" recordings sometimes became the standard masters for LP pressing and some were even used for early CD releases.
Bottom line is that although all CDs have two audio tracks they can be identical resulting in mono reproduction; AFAIR there is / was an alternate standard developed in the early days of compact discs that allowed for genuine mono (one channel) reproduction, mainly intended for spoken word recordings, and potentially allowing up to 148 minutes of audio on one disc (double the 74 minutes of the original CD spec). Obviously these never took off commercially, and were superceded by other digital formats.
Can I tell if a track is in stereo?
