Stereo was invented as a cinema sound track notion [as far back as the early 1930s], and stereo for recording music, which became a commercial proposition about 1954 or 1955, was always of dubious value. Today after sixty years of being told stereo is better than mono, ninety nine per cent of people would simply agree without serious thought. Of these, most have never dabbled with mono replay, let alone tried to optimise a mono system and them compare the result with stereo.
If more people would go at this with an open mind and actually find a fine mono system to compare with their stereo experience, then the ninety nine per cent who currently consider stereo better by definition might actually fall to a very small minority ...
As Otto Klemperer observed, “Stereo [recording and replay] is a fake."
As a great musician who bestrode the change he was well qualified to make his view known. He was not alone in this. Even the record produced, Walter Legge, was convinced that one properly balanced recorded channel was preferable to two musically imbalanced channels.
ATB from George
