Is the seated-centered solo listening to music a dated tech?


Is the seated-centered solo listening to music a dated tech? Is the design of modern loudspeakers that facilitates stereo wrong? Are we surfing a compromised tech please recall early 3 channel was superior they used stereo because it was a compromise? I have worked with a research group that used MRIs and sound to light up areas of catatonic people’s brains the research showed that higher quality playback lit up more areas but that stereo caused the brain to work harder is this a source of listening fatigue? After all, we are processing 2 unnatural sources that trick the mind into perceiving a sound field wouldn’t it be better to just have a sound field that actually existed? Stereo is a unnatrual way to listen to music its something that sound doesn’t do. Real music floods a space in all directions stereo design requires beaming and narrow dispersion to form an image is this just wrong? Mono had benefits over stereo modern loudspeaker design can make one speaker with a 360d radiation pattern that can form a soundstage for listeners almost anywhere in a room yet we still sit mostly alone seated dead center not wanting to move much because the image collapses just all seems wrong to me today. The more I experiment with non-traditional sound reproduction the more right it feels to me and those hearing it. Music should exist in a real space not a narrow sliver of it.

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Showing 1 response by crustycoot

I always thought that stereo was an invention of Alan Blumlein, who created recordings with crossed microphone pairs to simulate our anatomical auditory apparatus.  Playback was intended to be by 2 speakers with an equilateral angular relationship to the listener.  This was when recording was strictly 2 channel in a live venue...still the model for any good HiFi system, IMO. 

This doesn't directly suggest a particular speaker dispersion pattern is best...Ohm/Walsh, MBL, German Physiks, all go for a cylindrical wave pattern (Ohm modifies theirs to reduce treble splatter). Quad ESLs whether intentionally or not were highly directional.  Floyd Toole's influence has made "uniform power response" the de facto orthodoxy.  Most of us have issues fitting the ideal into our homes' limitations anyway, so solutions are many, some effective.