Stereo is an illusion of space.
I first learned this listening to a pair of large planar speakers decades ago. The physical panels stood six feet apart, yet the music seemed to extend far beyond them. Instruments appeared behind the front wall, voices hovered at ear level, and the entire room dissolved into a recording venue I’d never visited.
That was my first taste of true dimensionality.
What makes this illusion possible are subtle timing and amplitude differences between the two channels. Our ears and brain triangulate those microseconds of delay to perceive depth and width. A well-set-up system reproduces not just notes but the air between them—the reverberation of the hall, the decay of a cymbal shimmering far behind the singer.
This is why speaker placement is so critical. Move them an inch and the illusion changes; move them back and the stage snaps into focus. That’s why, when we designed the Aspen FR30 loudspeakers, we worked hard to ensure their planar magnetic drivers radiate evenly, making placement less fussy while preserving that holographic quality.
Power and room treatment matter too. Without clean AC—something our PowerPlants were built to regenerate—the delicate cues that build a believable soundstage get blurred. Likewise, untreated walls can smear those same cues, shrinking the perceived stage.
Once you’ve heard this illusion fully realized, there’s no going back. Music stops being two speakers and becomes an event unfolding in space—a window into another world, framed by nothing but sound.
