Breaking the Sound Barrier

By Richard Zoglin

Don Morris, 31, a newspaper graphics editor in Stockton, Calif., hooked up his new television set last November and settled into a chair to watch Miami Vice. During a tense scene set in the Everglades, Morris heard what sounded like an intruder in the house. He turned around quickly, only to discover that the rustling noise was coming from a speaker behind him. That marked the beginning of Morris' conversion to stereo TV. "Television elsewhere," he says, "seems onedimensional and hollow."

Audiophiles have long complained about the poor quality of TV sound. Lush movie scores, rock concerts and opera performances hardly sound their best when squeezed through a 3-in. TV speaker. But all that is changing with the advent of stereo TV. An estimated 2.8 million stereo TV sets are expected to be sold in 1986, double the number last year. Meanwhile, the IN STEREO logo is ) cropping up on more and more network programs, just as the familiar IN LIVING COLOR advisory did back in the early 1960s.

Like color TV of that era, stereo is being pushed most aggressively by NBC (whose corporate parent, RCA, is a major manufacturer of stereo TV sets). The network offers 21 programs in stereo, including The Cosby Show, Amazing Stories and The Tonight Show. ABC and CBS have been notably cooler to the new technology. But two ABC series, The Insiders and Fortune Dane, were presented in stereo this season, as was the Grammy Awards on CBS in February. Several PBS series and much cable programming (including MTV) are also offered in stereo.

Many links in a chain must be completed, however, before sound can start bouncing off the living-room walls. In order to pick up a network stereo broadcast, a local station must first be adapted for stereo. Some 200 stations have made the technical conversion, and 300 more plan to do so this year. Then, of course, the home viewer must either have a stereo TV or convert his conventional set to stereo with an adapting device (average cost: $150). Once a set is stereo-ready, more sophisticated audio gear can be connected to it. Bill Artope, a producer for Needham Harper Worldwide advertising, who lives in Evanston, Ill., has hooked his new stereo TV to a state-of-the-art amplifier, preamp and 6-ft.-high speakers. "It sounds like a theater at home," he says.

Music on TV can obviously be enhanced by stereo, but what is the point of wall-to-wall sound for more routine programming like sitcoms? "In mono broadcasts the laugh track is flat," says NBC Senior Vice President Warren Littlefield, "but in stereo it sounds more like a live audience. The audience at home comes closer to the live experience." Others see a big potential for stereo sports. "Imagine getting the Indianapolis 500 in stereo," says Dennis Lewin, senior vice president for sports production at ABC. "You'd have the feeling of the sound as the cars came around the corner."

The converts to such surround-sound effects will undoubtedly grow. "There are connoisseurs, and there are those who are just curious," says Joe Berini, chief engineer for KRON-TV in San Francisco, which went stereo last May. "Soon there will be people who just want to keep up with the Joneses." If only to drown out the noise coming from next door.

With reporting by Kathleen Brady/New York and Charles Pelton/ San Francisco