Mastering playback on mono/stereo system question DP24dp

[SRS1]

Hi, Glad to be part of this forum. I"m new to the Tascam dp24sd though not to recording.

My question is after Mastering I can play back my recording on a stereo system and I can hear all instruments mixed and sound is good though if I play back on a mono speaker system or say from my phone (through it single speaker) I can only faintly hear some of the instruments and not all.

I'm thinking it may have something to do with the recorded track on the stereo channels. These are the missing instruments but I did realize some of the low level instruments were slightly faded to the right on these stereo channels. if faded to the left I hear them fine. I have not had the chance to re-adjust and center the stereo channels. I hope this may correct this issue. any input would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

 

[Phil Tipping]

You can check the original file on the dp24 if you don't have any other means of previewing the left & right signals separately. Copy the master wave file back onto the sd-card under the AudioDepot folder and 'import' it onto 2 mono tracks. You can then audition these individually and confirm your instruments are where they should be, and also try mixing them together to see if there's any phase cancellation between them. If everything sounds ok then it must be a problem with how you (or the mono equipment) is combining the left & right signals. They need to be mixed somehow, either with hardware via resistors or something more complicated, or with software inside whatever gear you've copied the stereo file to; you can't just join the 2 signals together.

 

[SRS1]

Update: Thanks Phil! when you mentioned "Phase" I thought to myself this could be the culprit. Sure enough on the missing/low level stereo tracks I had one side out of phase. I turned this off and now all is good. Out of phase does give it a different feel so I'm not sure what one should do if you decide to enable (phase) on one side? for now I'm good. thanks again!