Eero: Yes, history is fascinating. I researched this a while back (yes, which was also why I joined this group) and can add some to your description . . . !! The 1930s Bell Labs "Auditory Perspective" research actually concluded that the "minimum" required THREE speakers (for an audience, not an individual, which wasn't even being thought about) and the papers that presented this were largely forgotten until I brought it up and the AES Historical Committee found them and put them online (yes, I threatened to "bootleg" them if they didn't). All this was discussed at length on the Ampex mailing-list at the time, since that's where the "old-timers" were hanging out then.
http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/bell.labs/auditoryperspective.pdf I had found out about this by interviewing Mark Levinson (at his Red Rose studio/sales office, tucked below the Whitney Museum), who recounted that he had driven his MG to visit Paul Klipsch (when he was just a standup jazz bass musician) and was sent away with a copy of the Bell Labs papers with the assignment to "study" what was already known. The famous Klipschorn "K-Horn" was designed to sit in the corner the room (which is why it has an angled back) and various "speaker consoles" of the time, including the equally famous JBL Paragon, were designed as MONO center speakers (later converted to "stereo"), intended to be paired with TWO more "corner" speakers. http://www.klipsch.com/klipschorn-history Then I visited the most well-known audio high-end store in Manhattan, Lyric Sound (now Lyric HiFi & Video), and spoke with its founder, Mike Kay (1923-2012). Mike told me that Saul Marantz and "all" the early pioneers (i.e. 1950s and presumably in the US) were convinced that THREE channel stereo was the way-to-go -- intended to be delivered by 3-channel 1/4" tape machines. But then, Mike said the *marketing* people took over and, on the basis that no HOUSEWIFE would allow her living room to be taken over by such a collection of equipment (plus, no doubt the influence of the record-company *phonograph* lobby) and, as a result, *two* channel stereo became the "commercial" standard (with a brief sideshow of Quad). As you might know, most recording consoles of the late-50s/early-60s (i.e. before multitrack recorders became widespread) had THREE output channels -- typically driving a 1/2" three-channel tape recorder. And, indeed, some actually recorded with the intent of reproducing those *three* channels in the home -- perhaps most famously the Columbia 30th street "church" recordings of Miles Davis et al. As then later "re-mastered" onto SACD by Mark Wilder at Sony (and now only sold in Japan?) -- if you haven't heard it, then you haven't heard Miles. http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/SICP-10083 One of the most important influences in those days on these "debates" was film, since JBL (and others) were based in southern California. In the 1950s, television (mono) was threatening movie attendance (which was massive in the 1940s, with much of the population going multiple times a week to the theater), so Hollywood did two things: widen the screen (in various ways) and increase the sound "realism" (with the Bell Labs THREE channel stereo and then more). When we finally got to 5.1 etc (all of which is based on 3-channel stereo), that was associated with wide screen 16:9 HDTV and, of course, we called it "Home Theater" -- allowing *television* to finally catch up with its 1950s movie competition. . . !! Mark Stahlman Jersey City Heights In a message dated 3/30/2016 9:21:57 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, eero....@dlc.fi writes: Peter Lennox wrote: > At the back of my mind, the4re's something nagging me - I'm sure I've > read of someone advocating 3 speaker stereo (is that similar to > trifield?) and finding that a wider spacing of LR speakers was > desirable? - makes sense. Well, Harvey Fletcher and the Bell Labs team started from the idea of a "wall of microphones" and a corresponding "wall of loudspeakers". They did a lot of experiments during many years and reduced the amount of channels to three, finally to two. Three speakers would have been better, but it wasn't easy to develop a three channel medium in the 30's. Alan Blumlein at the EMI started with 30...35 degrees stereo stage with two loudspeakers. Remember, he was thinking about "binaural" not stereo sound. And in the very beginning of the binaural project, he wanted to create a better sound reproduction system for the cinema. He didn't like the mismatch when the character in the picture was moving, but his voice didn't move with the person. Blumlein also thought about the depth of the sound image. He planned using four or more speakers stacked on both sides of the screen for this. Most likely he never tried this. I don't know did anyone recommend a particular speaker setup in the 1950's when stereo commercially caught up. Anyway, all marketing hyped the two separate channels, not a natural sound image. That's why they used the table tennis recordings and passing trains on demo records. With those, even the worst localizer could hear that the sound "is moving". And: the "high frequencies are on the left (violins) and the low frequencies on the right (double basses). I still meet people who think this is what stereo means. Living Stereo released three channel stereo recordings in the 50's. Maybe someone knows if they were released on reel-to-reel tapes as three-channel? These recordings have been re-released on SACD. Eero _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound - unsubscribe here, edit account or options, view archives and so on. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20160330/dd01f695/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound - unsubscribe here, edit account or options, view archives and so on.
