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BRILLIANT CORNERS

Stereophile

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August 2024

Stereo is the most successful audio gimmick of all time. While dashboard record players, quadraphonic LPs, and MQA have gone the way of Ron Popeil's hair-in-aspray-can infomercials, stereo remains king. And I am guilty of loving it.

- ALEX HALBERSTADT

BRILLIANT CORNERS

That old expression "men love with their eyes" applies to listening, too. Enabled by the advent of a second channel, the fanning out of musicians across a soundstage fills the room and gives the eyes-and not only the ears-something to do. And I happen to enjoy the soundstage. It may be an utterly artificial delight, but who doesn't love hearing a tambourine coming from 10' to the left of the left speaker? So when I came across an article in which someone likened mono to listening to music through a hole in a wall, the metaphor made sense. Why would anyone want their music congealed in a blob directly in front of them when they could hear it separated out in space?

As always, though, it turns out that things aren't quite so simple. A number of listeners I respect-often the very same folks who enjoy low-powered tube amplifiers, vinyl, vintage gear, and horn speakers-consider the soundstage a distraction, or at least a compromise whereby we trade some of the music's life force for a visual spectacle created not by the artist but by the engineer.

I've often wondered what these listeners were going on about. For me, their conviction simply wasn't borne out through personal experience and seemed like one of those perversely contrary hipster positions, like preferring a foot-pedaloperated sewing machine to an electric one. When listening to stereo and mono versions of the same record, I've consistently preferred the stereo mixes (here I'm talking about stereo-era records, not "electronically rechanneled" records from the mono era, which are the sonic equivalent of a bad hairpiece). For me, even early stereo Beatles LPs, and other examples of awkward hard-panned left-right mixes, were preferable to music emerging from a single point between the speakers. So for years I scoffed at mono records from the stereo era as something anachronistic and embarrassing, a sop for Luddites who desperately clung to the past.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE Stereophile

Stereophile

Stereophile

15 FOR 50 1975 IN 15 RECORDS

WAS IT SOMETHING IN THE AIR, SOMETHING IN THE WATER? COSMICALLY INSPIRED BY THE STARS AND THE MOON? OR MAYBE THE DEVIL WAS FINALLY CLAIMING HIS OWN AS ROCK MUSIC IN ALL ITS VARIANTS WAS UNASSAILABLY ASCENDENT.

time to read

12 mins

November 2025

Stereophile

Stereophile

Doing it for themselves—and for us

Women have undeniably become the most dynamic and vital creative force in music today. Without their good energies and ideas, music, which in the digital age has become more background than art, would be much less interesting and inspiring.

time to read

3 mins

November 2025

Stereophile

Stereophile

The BEAT Goes On

Adrian Belew had an itch that needed some serious scratching.

time to read

7 mins

November 2025

Stereophile

Stereophile

Half a century in hi-fi

Not many hi-fi dealerships can say they've survived half a century of history. Natural Sound, which is based in Framingham, Massachusetts, about 20 miles west of Boston, is one that can.

time to read

3 mins

November 2025

Stereophile

Stereophile

The skating force phenomenon

At the beginning of last month's As We See It, I wrote that I've lately been focused on \"analog things.\" I proceeded to write about refurbishing and modding my old McIntosh tuner. That's \"analog thing\" #1.

time to read

4 mins

November 2025

Stereophile

Stereophile

Monk's tenor

In Robin D.G. Kelley's definitive, 450-page biography of Thelonious Monk, Monk and tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse first meet on p.100, in 1944.

time to read

4 mins

November 2025

Stereophile

Stereophile

ECM's vinyl essence

In the 1990s into the 2000s, I had the pleasure of interviewing jazz drummer and composer Paul Motian for both Modern Drummer and DownBeat.

time to read

3 mins

November 2025

Stereophile

Stereophile

T+A Symphonia STREAMING INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER

German aesthetes are fond of saying “Das Auge isst mit”: “The eye feasts too.” In audio terms, your ears do the listening, but your eyes want their share of pleasure.

time to read

18 mins

November 2025

Stereophile

Stereophile

Umami tunes

If you go to Tokyo, there's a good chance you'll develop a new appreciation for shopping malls. The Japanese know malls. They know just what to do with them. Inside a Tokyo mall, you can peruse the usual handbags and shoes in their unending variety. But you can also stare at Fuji apples as large as a baby's head swaddled in tissue paper, flip through the world's most exquisite stationery, stock up on fabric from the 1920s, and taste things that will haunt you well into retirement.

time to read

12 mins

November 2025

Stereophile

Stereophile

The Meters

That sound: body-scratching grooves, syncopated second-line rhythms, bass, guitar, and keyboard lines so deep they seemed to bubble up from the earth beneath New Orleans.

time to read

4 mins

November 2025

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