Is the seated-centered solo listening to music a dated tech?

You neglect to mention one of the most wonderful things about stereophonic and surround sound -- its ability to literally immerse a listener in a field of sound. To construct a virtual (or highly fanciful) replica of the venue where the music was recorded -- whether the process was done naturally or by hook and by crook.

In any event, when I lived in L.A. I'd take my acoustic guitar and fiddle to places like bars & pizza joints and jam with fellow musicians. We'd sit in a circle and play endlessly. Sometimes the establishment would give us free pizza & beer. Sometimes we'd  get a few bucks from folks in the audience. Of course, we didn't deserve it, but we never threw anything back, either. Long story short, from our listening positions we enjoyed true 360* surround sound. From left to right to front to back.

@johnk - Thanks for the interesting post and food for thought. Great breakthroughs in technology or other fields often come about through thinking outside the box like this. That being said, regarding listening fatigue caused by making the brain work harder to decode stereo, I think @zazouswing hit the nail on the head, "We have two ears..." Since we're "hard wired" for receiving sound in stereo, playing music in stereo does make a lot of sense.

+2

I prefer o solo mio for serious listening.

"I prefer "head in a vice" stereo ESLs."

We have stereoscopic vision, two ears (stereo), two nostrils and two nipples.

And you want one speaker…
 

I vote for ‘head-in-vise’ stereo.