The phantom
by Paul McGowan
Mono was a great idea and, in many ways, a lot better than stereo.
Everything we hear in the real world comes from a mono source. A violin is mono, a person singing is mono. All are single sources. A mono reproducing device gets closer to replicating a single point source than anything else.
What's missing from mono, of course, is dimensionality and spatial/directional cues. Alan Blumlein (widely credited with inventing stereophonic sound) borrowed from stereoscopic viewers to create a phantom image between two loudspeakers that gave someone standing in the middle directional and spatial cues.
What's missing from stereo, of course, is a convincing illusion available anywhere in the room.
Just as you need 3D glasses to appreciate the illusion of a third dimension, hifi listeners are stuck with a small fixed window to appreciate the phantom image of stereo.
We can do better with less.
Paul McGowan
Founder & CEO
Never miss a post
SubscribeRelated Posts
-
The Room
Paul McGowan -
The new
Paul McGowan -
A little to the left
Paul McGowan -
The second base run
Paul McGowan
Keep reading
View all-
Table of Contents – Issue 213
Happy holidays from all of us at Copper! There are countless holiday and end-of-year releases, but topmost on my wish list is Talking Heads: 77 Super Deluxe Edition, which features...
-
How to Post Comments on Copper
We get queries on how to post comments at the end of Copper articles. Here's how to get set up to leave comments: To comment at the end of an article, you...
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.