The sounds we hear with our two ears are known as stereophonic sound because they give the exact idea of angular and lateral position of the sound source.
The sound signals reaching one ear are generally slightly different from those reaching the other. Their arrival times and intensities are also slightly different. Our brain is able to distinguish the differences in intensity and arrival time of sound waves at each ear. In fact, it can discriminate arrival time differences even as small as less than 1 milli second. If a pair of microphones is placed in front of a sound source, it will receive sounds with differing intensities and arrival times depending upon the position of the source relative to each microphone. When these separate, sounds are reproduced by a pair of loudspeakers, the listener’s brain is able to use the reproduced time and intensity differences to locate the original sound. Such sounds localized in space by the brain are called phantom images. The ability of the listener to perceive phantom images is called stereophonic sound. Thus with our two ears, we are able to locate exactly both the angular and lateral positions of sound. The listener feels that he is actually present at the place of performance.
Stereophonic sound recording and reproduction requires two or more independent channels of information. It has been observed experimentally that a minimum of two sets of microphones and loudspeakers give satisfactory auditory perspective. Separate microphones are used in recording, and separate speakers in reproduction.
At the time of a stereo-recording two microphones are used, one of which receives more sound from the left, and the other from the right. The sounds detected by each are kept entirely separate and are encoded in two completely independent channels of the programmes. Stereo-production needs two separate loudspeakers.
There are three basic techniques for stereophonic sound pick-up; coincident, ‘spaced apart’ and ‘individual instrument’ or close miking. The coincident technique employs two microphones located very close together. In ‘spaced apart’ technique, microphones are placed several feet apart, ‘close miking’ technique involves use of several microphones, and each located close to one instrument. The outputs are recorded on tape. The reproduction loudspeakers should be identical and capable of broad-frequency response without distortion.
The effectiveness of stereophonic reproduction was demonstrated as early as 1933. Two track stereophonic tapes for domestic use became popular in the 1950s and single groove two channel stereo-discs in 1958. In the early 1970s quadraphonic system, employing four independent channels of information, became commercially available.