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Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration of two loudspeakers (or stereo headphones) in such a way as to create the impression of sound heard from various directions, as in natural hearing.
Because the multi-dimensional perspective is the crucial aspect, the term stereophonic also applies to systems with more than two channels or speakers such as quadraphonic and surround sound. Binaural sound systems are also stereophonic.
The word stereophonic derives from the Greek στερεός (stereós, "firm, solid")[1] + φωνή (phōnḗ, "sound, tone, voice")[2] and it was coined in 1927 by Western Electric, by analogy with the word stereoscopic.[citation needed]
Stereo sound systems can be divided into two forms: the first is true or natural stereo in which a live sound is captured, with any natural reverberation present, by an array of microphones. The signal is then reproduced over multiple loudspeakers to recreate, as closely as possible, the live sound.
Secondly artificial or pan stereo, in which a single-channel (mono) sound is reproduced over multiple loudspeakers. By varying the relative amplitude of the signal sent to each speaker, an artificial direction (relative to the listener) can be suggested. The control which is used to vary this relative amplitude of the signal is known as a pan-pot (panoramic potentiometer). By combining multiple pan-potted mono signals together, a complete, yet entirely artificial, sound field can be created.
In technical usage, .mw-parser-output .vanchor>:target.vanchor-textbackground-color:#b1d2fftrue stereo means sound recording and sound reproduction that uses stereographic projection to encode the relative positions of objects and events recorded.[citation needed]
During two-channel stereo recording, two microphones are placed in strategically chosen locations relative to the sound source, with both recording simultaneously. The two recorded channels will be similar, but each will have distinct time-of-arrival and sound-pressure-level information. During playback, the listener's brain uses those subtle differences in timing and sound level to triangulate the positions of the recorded objects. Since each microphone records each wavefront at a slightly different time, the wavefronts are out of phase; as a result, constructive and destructive interference can occur if both tracks are played back on the same speaker. This phenomenon is known as phase cancellation. Coincident-pair microphone arrangements produce stereo recordings with minimal phase difference between channels.[3]
There have been cases in which two recording lathes (for the sake of producing two simultaneous masters) were fed from two separate microphones; when both masters survive, modern engineers have been able to synchronize them to produce stereo recordings from a time before intentional stereophonic recording technology existed.[6]
Blumlein began binaural experiments as early as 1933, and the first stereo discs were cut later the same year, twenty-five years before that method became the standard for stereo phonograph discs. These discs used the two walls of the groove at right angles in order to carry the two channels. In 1934, Blumlein recorded Mozart's Jupiter Symphony conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham at Abbey Road Studios in London using his vertical-lateral technique.[7] Much of the development work on this system for cinematic use did not reach completion until 1935. In Blumlein's short test films (most notably, "Trains at Hayes Station", which lasts 5 minutes 11 seconds, and, "The Walking & Talking Film"), his original intent of having the sound follow the actor was fully realized.[9]
In the United States, Harvey Fletcher of Bell Laboratories was also investigating techniques for stereophonic recording and reproduction. One of the techniques investigated was the wall of sound, which used an enormous array of microphones hung in a line across the front of an orchestra. Up to 80 microphones were used, and each fed a corresponding loudspeaker, placed in an identical position, in a separate listening room. Several stereophonic test recordings, using two microphones connected to two styli cutting two separate grooves on the same wax disc, were made with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra at Philadelphia's Academy of Music in March 1932. The first (made on March 12, 1932), of Scriabin's Prometheus: Poem of Fire, is the earliest known surviving intentional stereo recording.[10] The performance was part of an all-Russian program including Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in the Ravel orchestration, excerpts of which were also recorded in stereo.[11]
Bell Laboratories gave a demonstration of three-channel stereophonic sound on April 27, 1933, with a live transmission of the Philadelphia Orchestra from Philadelphia to Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. over multiple Class A telephone lines. Leopold Stokowski, normally the orchestra's conductor, was present in Constitution Hall to control the sound mix. Five years later, the same system would be expanded onto multichannel film recording and used from the concert hall in Philadelphia to the recording labs at Bell Labs in New Jersey in order to record Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940) in what Disney called Fantasound.[citation needed]
In 1937, Bell Laboratories in New York City gave a demonstration of two-channel stereophonic motion pictures, developed by Bell Labs and Electrical Research Products, Inc.[15] Once again, conductor Leopold Stokowski was on hand to try out the new technology, recording onto a special proprietary nine-track sound system at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, during the making of the movie One Hundred Men and a Girl for Universal Pictures in 1937, after which the tracks were mixed down to one for the final soundtrack.[16][17] A year later, MGM started using three tracks instead of one to record the musical selections of movie soundtracks, and very quickly upgraded to four. One track was used for dialogue, two for music, and one for sound effects. The very first two-track recording MGM made (although released in mono) was "It Never Rains But What It Pours" by Judy Garland, recorded on June 21, 1938, for the movie Love Finds Andy Hardy.
In the early 1940s, composer-conductor Alfred Newman directed the construction of a sound stage equipped for multichannel recording for 20th Century Fox studios. Several soundtracks from this era still exist in their multichannel elements, some of which have been released on DVD, including How Green Was My Valley, Anna and the King of Siam, The Day the Earth Stood Still and Sun Valley Serenade which, along with Orchestra Wives, feature the only stereophonic recordings of the Glenn Miller Orchestra as it was during its heyday of the Swing Era.
Walt Disney began experimenting with multichannel sound in the early 1930s as noted above.[18] The first commercial motion picture to be exhibited with stereophonic sound was Walt Disney's Fantasia, released in November 1940, for which a specialized sound process (Fantasound) was developed. As in the Carnegie Hall demonstrations six months earlier, Fantasound used a separate film containing four optical soundtracks. Three of the tracks were used to carry left, center and right audio, while the fourth track carried three tones which individually controlled the volume level of the other three.[19][20] The film was not initially a financial success, however, after two months of road-show exhibition in selected cities, its soundtrack was remixed into mono sound for general release. It was not until its 1956 re-release that stereo sound was restored to the film.
The advent of multitrack magnetic tape and film recording of this nature made high-fidelity synchronized multichannel recording more technically straightforward, though costly. By the early 1950s, all of the major studios were recording on 35 mm magnetic film for mixing purposes, and many of these so-called individual angles still survive, allowing for soundtracks to be remixed into stereo or even surround.
In April 1953, while This is Cinerama was still playing only in New York City, most moviegoing audiences heard stereophonic sound for the first time with House of Wax, an early 3-D film starring Vincent Price and produced by Warner Bros. Unlike the 4-track mag release-print stereo films of the period which featured four thin strips of magnetic material running down the length of the film, inside and outside the sprocket holes, the sound system developed for House of Wax, dubbed WarnerPhonic, was a combination of a 35 mm fully coated magnetic film that contained the audio tracks for left, center and right speakers, interlocked with the two dual-strip Polaroid system projectors, one of which carried a mono optical surround track and one that carried a mono backup track use in the event anything should go wrong.
Only two other films featured this unique hybrid WarnerPhonic sound: the 3-D production of The Charge at Feather River, and Island in the Sky. Unfortunately, as of 2012, the stereo magnetic tracks to both these films are considered lost forever. In addition, a large percentage of 3-D films carried variations on three-track magnetic sound: It Came from Outer Space; I, the Jury; The Stranger Wore a Gun; Inferno; Kiss Me, Kate; and many others.
VistaVision took a simplified, low-cost approach to stereophonic sound; its Perspecta system featured only a monaural track, but through subaudible tones, it could change the direction of the sound to come from the left, right or both directions at once.
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