The Spatial Race & the forgotten genius who invented stereo
7Description
In the 1960s, stereo sound revolutionized the music industry. But it turns out, a pioneering engineer named Alan Blumlein had actually invented stereo a full three decades earlier. Due to tragic events in World War II, his innovations were forgotten for decades. In this episode, we worked with OnePlus to tell the story of how audio has evolved from mono, to stereo, to quadraphonic, to surround sound and beyond. Today, we even have immersive, three-dimensional systems that can simulate 128 speakers using just two. Featuring Alan Blumlein’s son Simon Blumlein, and sound engineer Robin Reumers from the Abbey Road Institute.
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced by Defacto Sound.
Subscribe on YouTube to see our video series.
If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org.
Support the show and get ad-free episodes at 20k.org/plus.
Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Join our community on Reddit.
Improve your personal sound world at oneplus.com.
Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/thespatialrace
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
United States
As a unilaterally deaf, I hear "stereo" and shrug.
This episode taught me that my car's stereo speakers are backwards