Binaurality, Stereophony, and Popular Music in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

Stereophonic headphones were first marketed in the USA in 1958. Binaural listening (via headphones) became one of the favorite ways for fans to listen to rock albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Stereophonic mixes, however, were not meant for binaural listening. Sound engineers rarely used headphones, and generally refused to mix wearing headphones, explaining they couldn’t get a proper balance if they didn’t listen to the studio monitors. Often they would listen to the result of a mix with cheap shelf loudspeakers, or even car loudspeakers, claiming that those would be the most common sound sources used by the audience; strangely enough, headphones were not used for this purpose in the studio. While the association and historical overlap of stereophonic mixes, advances in studio technology and consumer audio, and the rise of psychedelia and progressive rock have been commented (more in accounts on or by individual artists/bands/producers than in general terms) the issues of binaurality, of stereophony, and of their relations with popular music has seldom been explored. The paper focuses on the musicological aspects of binaurality and stereophony, both at poiesic and aesthesic levels.