Interesting thread. Yes I heard the binaural spoof. Ok it was cleverly done with elements of the 'technospeak' that referred to elements of binaural, bipolar speaker crosstalk cancellation, and indeed Ambisonics - the 4 equations of the First Order B Format!

A bit of a kick in the teeth for those like myself who have been trying to persuade the BEEB to take up regular binaural surround sound broadcasting for around 18 years. There have been a few binaural programmes over the last few years - the Dark House R4, Egil's Saga R3, The Revenge R7 - a binaural soundscape work apparently transmitted in the mono environment of R7, and most recently a binaural trailer for R7 (now Radio 4 Xtra) Planet B on the (stereo) website only. The reason being that as stated previously R7/R4 Xtra only broadcasts in glorious mono at a bitrate of 80kbps.

Older listeners may remember an excellent spate of 'experimental' binaural dramas and environmental documentaries on the BBC in the '70's.

The BBC is currently researching into surround sound broadcasting using binaural (headphone) and Ambisonic (multispeaker) techniques, but with inevitable cutbacks and huge technical complications associated with digital broadcasting, I feel that progress will be inevitably slow.

BTW Ralphie, as a regular binaural recordist with custom modified mics firmly in my ears, sad no, evolutionary even revolutionary and certainly spatially, yes!