Hi,
I'll not copy what has already been said, as this discussion has got
fairly lengthy.
Perhaps "normal" stereo with speakers at plus and minus 30 degrees
came about from a variety of things.
The preponderance of control rooms that are rectangular, with
speakers mounted near the corners of the the shorter side of the room.
A sense of perspective, in that listeners were accustomed to
performers being in front of them. Many orchestral recordings were
done with microphones being nearly overhead to the conductor, so much
closer to the orchestra than the audience with a much wider image.
This would emphasise the orchestral sound over the sound of the
concert hall, and result in a "clearer", if somewhat unnatural,
recording. A narrower angle between the loudspeakers than between the
microphone capsules (in the case of crossed cardioids) would place
the orchestra more in front of the listener with reduced width, and
in the listening space. Even with pop, rock or electronic "tape"
music the expectation is that a performance takes place in front of you.
The fact that much work in some form of spatial audio was done for
cinema use, with a frontal screen of limited width. The use of a
centre channel for dialogue helps enable a more consistent coverage
centred on the screen throughout the cinema, without the problems of
comb filtering encountered with spaced left/right speakers.
Ciao,
Dave Hunt
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