Good question, Charcloth - I just spent a week at the Camp Harmony gathering of the San Francisco Folk Music Club. I had "omniphonic sound" for a week, usually choosing to sit right in the middle of the nightly song circles at the camp, completely surrounded in wonderful harmony. Until technology can come up with a solidly standardized format that can perfectly duplicate or surpass the sound of live, unamplified music, maybe stereo is good enough. The movie theaters have THX and DSS and all those other acronyms that create unbelievably wonderful sound - but they haven't been able to agree on a standard, and we in the home market can't afford to buy a new format of music until the price is reasonable and we're sure it's going to stick around.
Yeah, but what did happen to quadraphonic sound? Are quad recordings still being produced? How is "quad" different from "surround"?
-Joe Offer-