The word stereophonic derives from the Greek στερεός (stereós, "firm, solid") + φωνή (phōnḗ, "sound, tone, voice") and it was coined in 1927 by See more

The progress of stereophonic sound was paced by the technical difficulties of recording and reproducing two or more channels in … See more

The first stereo recordings using magnetic tape were made in Germany in the early 1940s using Magnetophon recorders. Around 300 recordings were made of various symphonies, most of which were seized by the Red Army at the end of World War II. The … See more

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 … See more

Early work
Clément Ader demonstrated the first two-channel audio system in Paris in 1881, with a series of telephone transmitters connected from the … See more

Lateral and vertical recording
Thomas Edison had been recording in a hill-and-dale (vertically modulated) format on his cylinders and discs since 1877, and Berliner had been recording in a side-to-side (lateral) format since shortly thereafter. Each … See more

In November 1957, the small Audio Fidelity Records label released the first mass-produced stereophonic disc. Sidney Frey, founder and president, had Westrex engineers, owners of one of the two rival stereo disk-cutting systems, cut a disk for release before any … See more