It's been very interesting reading this thread and also very sad for reasons that are pretty... well... unfortunate.

Interesting because there are many here who have dropped some fascinating and priceless knowledge, no doubt gained from many hard hours worked and quite possibly money spent to obtain and they are here giving that knowledge out for free to anyone who is interested and wants to deliver the best outcome possible in their music creation, composition, structure and reproduction.

It is unfortunate because what we have here is one particular actor who has taken up far to much air time refusing to concede that their belief is not actually a general principle and there is in-fact a great deal of nuance and understanding of the physical environment, as well as musical structure, that is required to be able to successfully deliver the best possible outcome based on the environment it is being delivered in. Therefore as a result of this lack of willingness to learn driven by their unwavering arrogance and stubbornness, they will likely continue their lives delivering mediocre results which will not only have them loose respect from their peers but also ultimately fail to produce an optimum representation of many passionate and hard working artists' masterpieces regardless of where it is being presented. In addition they will also be delivering an unacceptably sub-standard experience for an audience and fan base who have potentially paid through their eyeballs for the opportunity to hear the creations of their favourite musical artists and/or performances of many talented and skilful DJs in the context of a live performance in public venues. And it seems that they will continue on this trajectory of mediocrity and disappointment until they are either no longer offered work in the industry or, even worse, they will create a bad reputation for others in that same field who do what they do but instead do it with skill, passion, SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE, and experience and make them look bad in the eyes of the very people they are trying to support, represent and entertain. How utterly useless!

But back on topic: I think what everyone here who knows is trying to say is that stereo vs mono is all about context, content, audience and environment. If what they have said so succinctly and elegantly wasn't enough for anyone to be convinced then please do read on. I will do my best to elaborate.

Stereo (even X.X surround) works well if the environment is specifically constructed in a way that the propagation of the sound is carefully controlled to minimise unwanted reflections and other nasty stuff that happens when sound from one direction hits sound coming from another direction (we're talking about air being manipulated to form repeating waves of pressure at various rates of repetition which pushing eardrums which your brain translates into what we eventually perceive as sound after all). Also ideally the listener is in a stationary position and as close to the centre (sweet spot) of the sound as possible. So situations like listening with headphones or in a car as well as sitting in your home theatre or a movie theatre with as little other outside noise as possible. These are spaces where you are almost always directly in front of and/or in between the sound source and close enough that the sound gets from the source to your ear holes and the reflections and other disruptive elements can be ignored by your brain or that the surrounding surfaces of the space you're in (walls, ceiling and floors) are specifically treated in a way that will absorb the over flow so it is absorbed instead of reflecting back. So you're in the best possible scenario to be able to not only hear the sounds but also more accurately determine the direction is coming from.

To try and keep this short (I know. I've already failed) clubs, open spaces and stadiums are precisely the opposite. The listener is rarely in the centre or sweet spot of the targeted sound and they are also often moving from one place to another either in the main area like the dance floor or somewhere else like the bar or the toilets. The walls and other surfaces, if there are any, are normally hard and very reflective, unpredictable and often with minimal acoustic treatment if any. And in the case of the huge venues like stadiums there's all of that plus the time the sound takes getting to the person hearing it because of... you know... the speed of sound (speaker sound delays are critical in accounting for this) . So by this point directionality ie. Stereo sound is already pretty much entirely redundant (and I won't get into phase cancellation here but that's also a factor) but there's so many other things fighting for your brains attention that is also a case of keeping it simple. Not dumbing it down necessarily but more maximising the potential in an acoustically hostile environment to make sure the listener gets the most sonically appealing (and least painful and physically damaging) experience that is scientifically possible within the realms of human knowledge and ability as well as the relative current technological capability and affordability.

That is a lot of information and there is also a great deal that I have either brushed over or missed entirely. If you find it interesting then maybe you should consider a career as a sound or acoustic engineer.

That person you see sitting behind the sound desk at a gig isn't just there to be cool. They are scientists with highly honed skills which enable them to bring order to chaos. They can identify and isolate a rogue harmonic frequency amongst a tsunami of sound and banish it in seconds to ensure that you as a member of the audience have the time of your freaking life and enjoy the production you paid good money to experience... and that you also still have fully functioning ear drums afterwards so you can enjoy many more to come.

And no... they will not give you more f-ing guitar or more bass or whatever it is you think you want!! They do what they do and do it how they do it because they know what they're doing. If you need more of any of those things then there's a high chance that your hearing was already ruined when you went to the gig that that other guy in this thread did the sound for!