Stereophony, the reproduction of music from only two loudspeakers, has a history entrenched in early names of the industry like Bozak, JBL, Altec Lansing, Klipsch, and many others. Stereophony grew from Monophony, aka monophonic audio, was the original method of sonic reproduction involving only one audio source (a wax cylinder later replaced with the round disc) and one speaker (a wood or metal horn directly attached to the stylus on a turntable).
Early Monophonic Turntable
With the introduction of vacuum tubes, mechanical
amplification was displaced with electronic amplifiers just after electric
lighting gained acceptance in homes. Long before the National Electrical Code
was born, audio enthusiasts cobbled together amplifier kits from manufacturers
such as Heathkit.
Heathkit Monophonic Amplifier
Literally doubling the amount of equipment required,
stereophony was initially slow to gain acceptance being viewed by most as a fad
rather than a step up in quality or convenience until the introduction of the
console model from manufacturers like Zenith, Magnavox, Philips, Grundig, and
many others. Consolidating two channels into one chassis lowered production
costs and reduced the expense required to double the equipment and cable count.
Adding features like built-in reel-to-reel tape recorders with improved
electronics and speaker designs found acceptance even in the mid-fi and hi-fi market
with its historically-documented and politically incorrect Wife-Approval-Factor
(aka WAF). Blending furniture with function allowed stereophony to gain
significant inroads into the typical living room providing an acceptable
compromise between hi-fi desire and aesthetics.
Early Stereo Console Models
Early high-end component stereophony found its way into
state fairs and other public venues where because of the sheer volume of
attendees the opportunity for a few to be bitten by the high-end “bug” clearly
presented itself. The hi-fi fever gradually grew finding more equipment and
more speakers added in an attempt to recreate the feeling of being there.
Software manufacturers introduced quality recordings of trains, airplanes, boat
whistles, and the like to fuel the fire of this growing industry of audio
enthusiasts. Commonly referred to as a “wall of sound,” the early soundstage
was born.
Bozak Console
Separates
Strictly two dimensional, the wall of sound clearly depicted
the ability of two-channel audio to recreate sound from the left, right, or a
space in between. This was magic for early audiophiles where sound could be
perceived as sound coming from apparently no
speaker at all, a first in the hi-fi realm.
In 1940s, three engineers at Bell Telephone Laboratories
(John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain) developed the first
theoretical ideas for the transistor that eventually found its way off of the
chalk board and into reality. Scribbling down an idea on the back of a napkin
during lunch in 1947, Walter Brattain took this crude idea and made it a
reality: the first solid state device was born. Called the “point-contact
transistor,” this first-ever device still stands in the lobby at Murray Hill,
NJ, as a reminder of this pivotal contribution to science.
The First Germanium Transistor
Now that high-heat tubes could be replaced with low-heat
transistors, the remaining hurdle with acceptance of high-end stereophony was
breached and audio manufacturers started cranking out equipment. McIntosh,
Pioneer, Sony, Ampex, basically everyone transitioned to the device and an era
in affordable audio was christened. Shortly thereafter, a growing group of
high-end enthusiasts started comparing the sound to the convenience and the
hard-core high-end audio enthusiast was born. Finding that sonic accuracy was
closer with tubes than the fledgling transistor, early audiophiles clung to the
sound rather than the sensationalism of transistors despite their drawbacks.
Improvements in loudspeaker design with the introduction of
the lower-efficiency acoustic suspension woofer made high-power transistor
amplifiers more suitable for driving these power-hungry lower-impedance speakers.
Amplifiers with hundreds of watts per channel soon hit the market from
manufacturers like Phase Linear, Bob Carver, Crown International, and others.
The Mighty Crown DC-300 Power Amplifier
But louder did not translate into a better soundstage.
Frustrated by this diversion into the insanity of miniscule distortion
measurements, early software connoisseurs ramped up the technology and
introduced a series of audiophile-quality discs focusing instead on accuracy
rather than sensationalism. Returning back to the fundamentals, companies like
Sheffield Lab, Reference Recordings, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, and many
others jumped on the bandwagon of what was termed “direct-to-disc” recordings.
Removing the intermediate multi-track and mix-down steps in favor of “live”
recordings directly onto the lacquer “master,” this software process provided
astounding realism to musicians and audiophiles alike. Not only capturing
tonality and timbre, a 3-dimensional psychoacoustic illusion of “being there”
was also masterfully produced with these early recordings when played through a
high-end system.
The Cutting Lathe of Sheffield Labs
Now the hardware and software have achieved a sufficient
level of refinement where, along with sonic accuracy, a realistic soundstage
was possible revealing not only a left-to-right presence but also a
front-to-back realism. The "stage" was literally set. Early pioneers in Europe, Brittan, and the US focused
their designs to capitalize on this psycho-acoustic phenomenon and atypical
speaker positions helped encourage this highly desirable effect. Soon, the
primary focus of a high-end system shifted away from technical measurements and
reviewers employed subjective terms in an attempt to describe these observed
psychoacoustic effects.
This shift set up an immediate split in the audiophile camp:
those who listened with their eyes to electrical measurements and technical
data, and those who listened with their ears to the sonic virtues and the ability
to recreate this 3-dimensional psycho-acoustic effect (or the lack thereof).
Such is the price for preconceptions and belief systems and both camps believed
the other to be wrong. This split remains today where huge disagreements
persist between the objective and subjective camps using terms such as snake
oil and tin ears to describe the other.
But the fact remains that both camps are correct in their
own realm. Low distortion of individual pieces translates to higher accuracy
but 3-dimensionality relates to an overall system distortion. In other words, individual
components that measure well may not reproduce this psychoacoustic illusion as
well as other components that measure less well. Therein is the dilemma: what
meaningful measurements describe how well a system will create a
highly-detailed soundstage?
This is an excellent question and one I will investigate
more thoroughly in Part 2 of this description.
Links to the entire series:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
Links to the entire series:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny
I do not use ads in this blog to help support my efforts. If you like what you are reading, please remember to reciprocate, My newest title is called Where, oh Where did the Star of Bethlehem Go? It’s an astronomer’s look at what this celestial object may have been, who the "Wise Men" were, and where they came from. Written in an investigative journalism style, it targets one star that has never been considered before and builds a solid case for its candidacy.
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