Talk:Stereophonic sound

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[edit] History

The stethoscope seems like a bad example to use for an article about stereophonic sound. Although it has ear pieces for each ear, the sound comes from one source, and is thus monophonic. —Walloon 02:08, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Motion pictures

I will preemptively note that a 1934 sound version of the 1927 silent feature Napoleon, presented in Paris by director Abel Gance, did not have true stereophonic sound. The 35mm film strip had notches that switched the monophonic soundtrack from one set of speakers to another.

Likewise, Warner Bros. used something called Vitasound on a few features in 1939-1940. Often incorrectly called a stereophonic process, Vitasound actually combined a standard, variable width monophonic soundtrack with a second, variable width control track, located between the soundtrack and the sprocket holes, that increased loudness for certain scenes by switching on additional amplifiers and speakers. Walloon 09:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] To come

I plan to add a section on the 1958 Westrex single-groove recording system and how it finally brought stereo to the ordinary consumer, and then I'll probably be done for the time being. Quadraphonic and surround sound could be added to the article since they are really just extensions of stereophonic sound... Dpbsmith (talk) 03:05, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tautology

Stereophonic cannot be anything other than sound - this page should simply be Stereophonic.

Well, if you are going to be pedantic, it should be "stereophony."
However, the naming convention is to use the most common term, not the most logical or the most technically correct or the most linguistically proper. In point of fact "stereophonic sound" by far the most common phrase, and has been since the 1950s. Witness the 1954 Cole Porter lyrics cited in the article. This Web page shows a 1953 Popular Science article about Cinemascope and its use of "stereophonic sound." This Web page shows that into the declining days of 70mm (the 1980s), advertisements used language such as "Presented in 70mm and six-track stereophonic sound" (which may be both a tautology and a misnomer if "stereophonic" is taken to mean "two-channel."
In any case, in the real world the technology is almost always called "stereophonic sound" whether or not it logically ought to be, and the article title and text properly reflect accepted usage. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:52, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Me, pendantic? Nah! Seriously though, if take the use the most common term approach then I don't think you should use advertising literature as the base (very prone to peculiar phrasing), but common talk, which, certainly from the UK perspective would simply to use the term "stereo" - "Is the record in stereo or mono?", similar to "Did you hear the quadrophonic demo of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at the Hi-Fi show at Earl's Court?" Indeed, in the UK, the term "stereo" was often used to refer to the record player, as in "put another record on the stereo". Another test would be to consider what phrase makes a good common link from other articles, and I would argue here that I would be much more likely to use stereo or stereophonic than stereophonic sound. Perhaps the definitive source for the terminology would be something like a copy of Gramophone or Hi-Fi Answers. Whilst writing this I realise I am using a '60s/'70s perspective on the terminology (thinking of the heyday of records) but it is still current - do I buy a pair of stereophonic sound headphones or stereo headphones or stereophonic headphones?
Having looked around on the net, I will conceed that it seems common to title articles in that way (though they always immediately drop into more common forms) - I'll not link to the encyclopedia definitions as that leads to copyright issues - no doubt because if you don't know what the term means then it seems sensible to give it a context, however, I still think it is carrying on a common mistake - it appears to be a disambiguation where there is no ambiguity - vision of course is stereoscopic. It is reasonable to disambiguate "stereo" - stereo vision vs. stereo sound, and I think that that is where the problem arises, that to be proper, people re-extend the contraction.
Still, a consensus is what it's all about which is why I raised the question rather than editing it directly (and all those links to change :( ) This is a horribly pedantic point, isn't it? However, I do think it is important to get these basic terms correct, though.
First, you can certainly link to other encyclopedias, particularly on a Talk page. That doesn't raise any copyright issues at all.
Second, this article can't be titled Stereo because of disambiguation issues. If people felt strongly that "stereo" was the correct term, the usual Wikipedian solution would be to title this article Stereo (sound). If you want to formally propose that the page be moved to Stereo (sound) start a new section on this page--type something like ==Proposal: move this to [[Stereo (sound)]]== and see what people think. Wait a while and see if there's any discussion or consensus. Then move it if you get consensus, which I don't think you will.
I oppose this, because I don't think "stereophonic sound" is incorrect in any way. It is not used merely "in advertising." It's the normal term used in formal writing about the subject. I agree with you that "stereo" is the usual informal term. But here are the problems with using it as an article title:
  • Article titles are usually nouns or noun phrases.
  • The noun "stereo" doesn't mean "stereophonic sound," it means a device for reproducing recordings.
  • Stereophonic by itself is an adjective, not a noun. I think an article titled Stereophonic is awkward.
  • You certainly could take the common adjective "stereo" and combine it with the word "sound" to get "stereo sound." This is correct, it is occasionally used, and it is not tautological. The problem is that "stereophonic sound" is much commoner than stereo sound.
Essentially, you just don't like the phrase "stereophonic sound" and you don't think people ought to use it. However, they do.
It would make just as much sense to object to the word "phonograph" on the grounds that the purpose of a phonograph is to reproduce sound audibly, not to display it visibly; or "peanut" on the basis that it is a legume, not a nut. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:47, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
The thing for me is "can a person find the article using a straightforward search". I believe most people would use the most common phrase even if it were not absolutely correct, and for me that would mean stereophonic sound. The other titles you mention can easily be created as redirects as long as they are not already used for other articles, so "stereophony" and "stereo (sound)" can all be redirected here, but "stereo" cannot. Graham 23:31, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
OK, I understand the points you made. Taking Graham's point, stereophonic is the most likely search which already occupies a page for disambiguation so I guess that's as good as it gets for now. Cheers (anonymously again!).
Oh, and by the way: thanks for your interest, thanks for engaging courteously in this discussion, and, if you're new to Wikipedia, welcome. Please stick around. You really might consider signing up for an account and getting a username, which is free and takes about fifteen seconds and does not require disclosure of any information, not so much as an email address. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:42, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
A real-life example for all above: A few minutes ago I wanted to find out when stereo LP recordings first appeared so I searched Wikipedia for "stereo". It only took one extra step before I found this. It would have never occurred to me to search for "stereophonic", even less "stereophonic sound". However, I still found it so I'm happy. Chris Burrows 03:39, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

stereo (sound)?! You're kidding aren't you? :) Well, anyway, worry ye not. Stereo is stereophonic sound to 99.9% of the population 99.9% of the time, which makes dab pages irrelevant. I've redirected stereo here and plonked a {{Redirect}} template onto this page, which takes care of any disambiguation issues. If at any time there's a desire to actually move this article into the stereo slot, it's easily done. --kingboyk 21:52, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Turn-of-the-century unintentional stereophonic cylinder recordings

Well, I'm going nuts because I actually found one of these somewhere on the archive.org website, but I can't find it now... or a good reference... so I'm just going to mention it here.

Before a molding process for cylinder recordings was devised, cylinder recordings were made in batches of about 250 at a time. About ten phonographs--the number depending on how loud the source was--were placed around the talent to make the recording. From each of these ten originals, about twenty-five copies could be made via a "pantograph." Performers were hired to repeat the same performance over and over again, each performance yielding only 250 copies.

Anyway.

Because the ten or so originals were recorded at the same time by phonographs at different locations in the room, each performance was in fact recorded (unintentionally!) in ten-channel stereophonic sound, and if it is possible to locate two cylinders from the same batch of 250, but copied from different originals, it is theoretically possible to combine them to produce stereo, and some researchers have done this.

Now, a month or so ago, I ran into a recording on archive.org with no explanation, which said only that it was a stereophonic cylinder recording. However, the two channels were poorly synchronized, and I actually have to wonder whether this was just an issue of speed variation or whether whoever made the recording had failed to secure two cylinders from the same batch.

If I (or someone else) can find it again, it's a worthwhile note for the "history" section. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] As it relates to popular music

I think there needs to be some information about how music artists experimented a bit with stereo to broaden the experience (like separating vocals and instruments, or different vocalists, into the left and right channels). This was done a lot in the 1960s: Mamas & Papas is a good example. I thought that was cool because you could use the audio balance to selectively hear more or less detail. Since the 1970s, the ambience of stereo seems to be almost identical no matter which album you listen to... listen to the left channel, then the right channel, and a song will sound exactly identical. It would be great if this train of thought could be fleshed out into a paragraph... I'd do it but I don't have enough knowledge to comment on this outside of my own observations. -Rolypolyman 03:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Many people refer to this as "multi-channel mono." In the world of popular music, stereo sound is rarely used to create any type of aural realism. There's no value judgment there--just an observation.24.161.86.156 02:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Theatrophone image

Can someone with better editing skills than I get the image of the Thetarophone to work in this article? Here is the image: Theatrophone. Thanks. — Walloon 12:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Stereo wat is it?

Tell me wat the history is? — 139.130.97.98 19:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diagrams?

Can we illustrate the types of sterophonic recording (XY AB etc?). Very difficult to visualise on a casual first reading

[edit] Merging stuff form microphones

The info in this article is mostly doubled by info in Microphones#Conventional stereo recording for loudspeakers. Can someone please merge those two into this article and delete the info form microphones (and simply add a link to this article). --Maciej "Nux" Jaros **drop a note** 22:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing techniques

  • spaced microphones array (multiple microphones each connected to it's speaker or with pan-pot techniques combined into two channels)
  • faulkner array and use of accent (close) microphones
  • Stereo-180 (hypercardioids, 145°, 46mm)
  • bidirectional microphones with baffle (bidirectional, about 90°, 20-30cm, separated with absorptive baffle - square 30cm)
  • OSS array - Optimum Stero Signal (omnidirectional, -, 16cm, seprated with 30cm Jecklin disc)

Also techniques should be grouped:

  • intensity (coincident): XY and MS
  • phase difference (I'm not sure how to call it in english): spaced microphones, AB, faulkner
  • quasi-coincident: ORTF, NOS, Stereo-180, bi with baffle, OSS

This links should help:

Maciej "Nux" Jaros **drop a note** 00:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

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