Are audiophile products designed to initially impress then fatigue to make you upgrade?

@kota1 sort of correct….it was initially implemented with three speakers but it was always a two channel format where some manufacturers utilized a sum of both channels as a mono center. It was a primitive “implementation”.

Its all good if you are into immersive/spatial audio. I’m sure its awesome.

@kota1 Wrote:

"Stereo" was designed for 3 speakers, not two.

Then this speaker came out in 1957 no more hole in the middle. See below:

Mike

https://www.lansingheritage.org/html/jbl/specs/home-speakers/1957-paragon.htm

I love the JBL/Lansing Paragons I see on youtube, stunning. It's said Frank Sinatra used 3 of them (L-C-R) channels in the studio.

. There are rumours that Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin acquired three Paragons each – one for each of left, center and right channels – with which they used to monitor their recordings from master tapes.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBL_Paragon

Here is Frank at home and how many channels does he use? Even Frank gets it, two speakers can't get it done, sorry😢

Floyd Toole’s home system, he is also an immersive audio adopter. If you see my virtual system he uses the same setup I do:

https://www.thescreeningroomav.com/single-post/2019/03/06/The-Ultimate-Real-World-Home-Theater-and-Listening-Room