are the ears wired together?
In my youth, for Halloween, parties, Christmas and others, speakers were separated at distances of a several hundred feet or more in the neighborhood. Sound effects albums of recorded train wrecks, Ping-Pong marathons, aircraft flybys, menacing growls, recitations, and the like were played to disturb/intrigue the potential audience.
Much of this was primitive to say the least, but the physical plus recorded separation gave quite an effect.
Indoors, under the influence of martinis, snacks, and a viscous/vicious round of straight poker, the enjoyment seemed unrivaled.
One player commented once, that he did not see the point of the then expensive equipment, as he could not hear a difference.
Another player responded with: “your ears must be wired together.”
With all the modern equipment, I still prefer to listen through a headset for what seems to me to be the greatest fidelity and separation.
This takes into account many of the synthesized and augmented systems on the market today.
There are those that claim to have been party to any number of sampling devices that analyze the acoustics of a listening room.
Some claim that one cannot resolve the fore and aft signals offered in modern recordings with a mere headset.
A six speaker system definitely has its place, but I contend that the head can and will locate a sound source, in a number of dimensions, with nothing more then the venerable headphone, based on the real life memories of the significant but limited possibilities of sound sources and locations.
And you?