Soundstaging and Imaging: The Delusion about The Illusion

We have two ears, we have two eyes, two legs, two arms. We are creatures of stereo by design. We listen in stereo regardless of what our "audio system" produce. Reading stereo is an illusion is almost weird to me seeing we are wired in stereo.

"we are just imagining things" ?

nope

"we are experiencing things"

Sometimes (many times) in this hobby we attempt to re-write the rule books, instead of playing by them.

"is soundstage important" ?

well

"we live in a sound, visual and other senses, stage"

Fortunately we were born into a life of soundstage. More fortunate is that audio designers early on implemented stereo in playback.

All the rest is us talking about it.

Michael Green

"Stereo reproduction is an enigma by default."

I don't find stereo enigmatic at all.

"If we have two ears to detect true sound imaging and soundstage, then by default we are deluding ourselves in believing that reproduced sound is a facsimile of the original."

I guess I'm not sure who says a recording is the original live performance. Being a playback recorded version of a performance is obviously not the actual performance. I say that in both a negative and positive way. There are many things a playback version gives us that the actual performance doesn't and the opposite can be true as well. But why people attempt to call the two events the same thing is odd.

MG

"Two legs, two arms, two eyes and two ears...yet one brain having two hemispheres that are cross-wired for interpreting sound. Go figure mono might have been the ideal sonic reproductive medium rejected by those who apparently knew better. And those who were wiser recommended quadraphonic sound, yet we all know where that led..."

I personally enjoy mono, stereo and multichannel. I do want to mention one thing though, orchestras are multi-source presentations.

Hi tostadosunidos

Recordings are actually 360degrees. When you place the speakers in front of you that's what gives you the frontal stage. 2 speakers can easily give you the 360 sound, it's the room you're hearing keep in mind.

mg