splitting stereo tracks to mono -- audio quality?

[nednednerb]

Yah, like listening to most audio via phone or laptop speakers. Both are stereo in general, but I wonder if some users even actually notice there are two separate signals and actually two speakers on many phones or laptops.

Another example, even more elucidating, is that many users, listening on headphones or earbuds where they can easily describe a sound moving from one ear to the other, may still have trouble understanding and saying "there are two signals here."

When I finally shot the trouble in 2008 due to reversing the polarity on one of my speakers connected to my consumer amp...and got it... that was super informative!!

I think every comment in this thread is spot on.

Mono and stereo are not "quality" issues, in general. I would acknowledge that a mono signal erroneously doubled or a stereo signal erroneously summed, yes, that can cause "problems".

However, I would call that simply making a mistake, not a "quality degradation" in essence. Similar to putting a -10 output into a +4 system. In a sense it's just wrong, so expecting something to not sound right is natural.

Something really weird or unexpected with mono or stereo signals is just "wrong" and not simply what I would call reduced quality (like a 128 kbps MP3 versus 320 kbps MP3). Like saying a device or cable half plugged in creating a 60 Hz tone or something is "lower quality" haha.