Quote Originally Posted by WmAx
I remembered an old Floyd Toole paper, "Direction and Space, The Final Frontiers".

He specifically states...

quote 1(reference to 30's Bell Labs Research):

"Bell Labs scientists concluded that a great many channels would benecessary to capture and reproduce the directional and spatial complexities of a musicaloundstage – not even attempting to recreate a surrounding sense of envelopment. Being practical, they investigated the possibilities of simplification, and concluded that, while two channels could yield acceptable results for a solitary listener, three channels (left,center and right) would be a desirable minimum to establish the illusion of a stable frontsoundstage for a group of listeners."

quote 2(reference to what is presumably his personal experience):

"In fairness it must be said that, after over forty years of experimentation, the best two-channel stereo recordings reproduced over the right set of loudspeakers in the rightroom can be very satisfying indeed. Sadly, only a fraction of our listening experiencesfall into that category. Clearly stereo does not get us to our long-term objective."

It seems to me, that this paper does not nescarrily dismiss the possibility of stereo sounding realistic. However, it does clearly demonstrate that stereo is inadequate for reliable and versatile(more then very limited one seated position) use in realistic reproduction. Though, Toole does not specify what he means by "very satisfying indeed". I am assuming he is referring to goal of realistic reproduction, since this is the topic of the paper. Perhaps someone shoule email him for further explanation?

-Chris
Satisfying is not necessarily realistic. And that is all he stated, satisfying.
You need to listen to Tomlinson Holmans 10.2 and see iwhish is more realistic. No, Toole didn't support you and confirmed the earlier study.