I have slept a few hours through a wonderful summer night here. We get these glorious endless days at this time of year. Birds begin singing at 3 in the morning.
And I wake up to a thread on fire.
I believe it's tomelex in here who has suggested that people should listen to mono exclusively for a while, and then switch to 2-channel stereo. The latter is the absolutely least number of units required to create a poor-man's version of the real thing that happened in front of the microphones (note the plural). The inventors of stereo, the first engineers, producers and artists, considered 2-channel to be the pits, just barely better than Duophonic. (Electronically rechanneled, indeed.)
The fact that we're satisfied with its meagre output relative to the real thing, doesn't mean that it is the best solution possible.
Mr. Lavigne wants me to list what I've listened to, through the years. Some really extravagant set-ups, in fact. I've had the pleasure of spending more hours than I care to count mixing soundtracks to commercials, in custom designed listening environments with top-of-the-line speakers and a balanced 3-channel front. The latter was great for playing music through - something I've even done from the same 35mm magnetic film that was used by, among others, Everest and Command. As I worked in many countries, I've had the pleasure of working in many great such rooms, and even of listening to a large number of excellent high-end systems.
I have a dedicated wooden walled and floored listening room now, though it's not treated, and a number of different speaker configurations have sortied in front of my eager ears. Presently, I'm enjoying the sound of a pair of Helsinki Gradients, which are astonishing my eager ears - next in line are speakers from German Physiks.
But Lavigne's question is irrelevant, I should think.
I will point out that his claiming I championed multi-channel is moot. He should reread that opening sentence in my first post - which relates to whether we listen with our ears or with our minds, which is relevant to the OP's question. I just pointed out that when we listen to 2-channel, we are actually listening to a phantom center that is derided by the providers of even the cheapest surround set-up, I didn't say we should go for one of the latter. It's just a damn shame that we didn't have the technology to make 3-channel inexpensively available when stereo was born.
That said - I have been in 2L's mixing room, walking around inside a 5-channel rendition of Trondheimsolistene. And that's the best electronically recreated stereo (solid) music image I have ever listened to, outside a concert hall. Unfortunately, it's quite a stretch to believe that customers are going to dedicate the space and speaker array to be able to recreate that in significant numbers.
Is 2-channel stereo a joke? Small sweetspot, swimming image, unreal soundstage - our brain is working to create the trick, not the performance.
(Ordinarily, one reads that "stereo will never be able to approximate the real thing." This thread exempted, I understand.)
