Whatever Happened to Stereophonic Sound?

Stereophonic sound, and its mass dissemination since the late 1950s, has been commented by audio engineers and music critics, but quite scarcely by musicologists. Stereophonic sound has often been considered as a ‘trick’ by record companies and music scholars alike, and even thorough analyses of recordings and/or components in the audio chain have given just passing attention to stereo, as if nothing had changed in high-fidelity since the age of mono. Even if digital technologies have largely enhanced the potential of sound spatialisation, stereo remains to date as something that is ‘given’, and music commentators seem to be interested in it only when writing (nostalgically or ironically, or both) about the exaggerated stereo effects of mid- to late-1960s pop records. A cultural and musicological assessment of stereo still remains to be done. The aim of this study is to lay down a historical and methodological grid for a critical assessment of stereo.