Graham: "I find it even worse at the cinema, which is the medium which the films are designed for."

Quite so! Probably because there are few seats where it will actully sound as intended - sit too near one of the speakers and you'll get a lop-sided effect. So if at the cinema, try to sit as near the centre of the room as you can!

My gripe with cinemas is the way they have the bass (sub woofer) too prominent, so someone on screen shuts a door and the whole building vibrates! They aren't going for realism, instead they are trying to please the crowd with fancy effects - it makes money.

In a way, it harks back to the days when people had 'stereograms' (radio and record player plus two loudspeakers all in one big box)...

Many pop records in the 1960s were issued in 'stereo' which often wasn't! Instead, you may have had the instruments coming out of one loudspeaker and the vocals from the other, and everyone said 'Wow! Listen to that stereo effect!' - for instance, early Beatles albums (amongst others, of course) were released in both Mono and Stereogram formats.