All true! I remember when I was a kid a friend’s dad had a “classic Hi Fi set”. It was LOUD, it had four speakers, and each output had it’s own “tone control”. But it was MONO! It wasn’t even stereo output. lol
But it was made for when 78s and 45s were all recorded in mono. Pretty hard to do much with it digitally so there is sometimes a limit to what can be fixed.
Ah, great memories! My Grandpa had a working wire recorder my brother and I inherited. But, God help me, my brother ended up with it, he is deceased, and I don’t know what became of it.
Hopefully he donated it to a museum or something...
Then there was the 1st time I heard Uriah Heep “Salisbury” on the new headphones (my first good ones - Koss Pro4-AA, IIRC) I’d bought a few hours prior. Wow!