Surround sound has been around for over 80 years and The Disney studio’s animated film Fantasia used surround sound for the first time in 1940. Surround sound is a technique for improving the clarity and depth of sound reproduction by employing several audio channels from speakers positioned around the listener. The initial multichannel audio application was called ‘Fantasound‘, comprising three audio channels and speakers. Unfortunately, Fantasound was simply too costly to use on a larger scale and this experimental use of surround sound was excluded from the film in later showings. 

The history of surround sound in the house may be traced back to the late 1950s. Many companies attempted to recreate the four channel quadraphonic sound of Dolby Stereo for the home setting in the early 1970s. However, none of them were successful. They were seen as just too complex and expensive, much like Fantasound. As a result, real surround sound did not arrive in home environments until 1982, with the launch of Dolby Surround technology.  

Citations

Surround sound (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surround_sound#:~:text=The%20first%20documented%20use%20of,all%20parts%20of%20the%20theatre. (Accessed: 01 June 2023).  Shop (no date) Official Fluance Blog. Available at: https://blog.fluance.com/history-surround-sound/ (Accessed: 01 June 2023).