Mono Origianl vs Stereo CD

[Coriolanus]

OK I have a cassete recording of an old audiobook in which the original is mono. I plan to move it to CD -

1, Should I convert it to stereo first.

2. Should I convert it to stero when split using the autocues

3. Should I keep is in mono.

Which will give me the best sound. The sound is not that great and I need to boost it some and play with but it is better left as mono recording or as stereo?

[DougDbug]

Standard audio CDs are always stereo. As long as your burning software is configured to make an "audio CD", the burning software will probably convert the data (burning the same audio to both channels). If your CD burning software can't do that, it will probably reject your file as invalid.

[Tristan]

Well, Coriolanus, as Doug said, you can't record anything to CD directly as a mono file; your mono file will eventually have to be converted to stereo before it can be committed to CD. "Stereo" mono is normally referred to as "dual mono."

As far as "best sound" in recording goes, you'll probably have to experiment. There are likely fewer issues faced with monophonic tape than there are with, say, monophonic shellac disc, where peculiar wear patterns might favor one region of a groove over another and, therefore, one channel over another.

[Coriolanus]

Well the recording off the original mono cassettes sound better in Mono than in stereo. I converted the original tapes to stereo with Goldwave and the sound was not good - sort of muffled in sports etc. I went back to the tapes ( which were coverted to Wave from MP3) and kept them as mono.

I figured I would edit them and do everything with them as mono -- right now they are broken up into 9 CD lenght files which I will edit and add cue points to for tracks. I figues I would do the conversion when I used Goldwave to split the files into tracks based on the cue point.

But would I better manipulating the files in Mono to improve and sound or convert to stereo before manipulating them?

[Tristan]

Conversion to stereo before processing would just give you files twice the size of the ones you have now. It wouldn't improve audio quality any. You might as well process in mono and convert to stereo later.

[mathyou9]

I agree with Tristan. Process it all in mono.

... There are likely fewer issues faced with monophonic tape than there are with, say, monophonic shellac disc, where peculiar wear patterns might favor one region of a groove over another and, therefore, one channel over another.

This still might be an issue. When I last captured a mono audio book, I recorded it to GoldWave as a stereo file. I'm not sure if the source was recorded as dual-mono or true mono or if it was solely my equipment; in any case, I noticed that the two channels where ever-so-slightly different in volume level. A mix-down of the two channels could have, very well, created unwanted artifacts ("... I converted the original tapes to stereo with Goldwave and the sound was not good ..." ???) So I determined which channel was the "best" (entirely subjective on my part) and copied it to a new mono file, and processed it from there.

Your mileage may vary. Good luck!