I’ve questioned how for a very long time, but how do songs from my phone play instruments in one ear but not the other? For example, Stairway to Heaven. The intro plays an acoustic guitar in my left ear but not right and later a wind instrument in my right but not left. Then, Robert Plant in both ears but if I take out one side it’s just Plant and the guitar or Plant with the wind instrument. How?!?!?! This is so sick but how does the phone tell one side to play but not the other?
In: Engineering
A regular analog headphone plug has 2 rings on it. One for the Left channel, and one for the Right channel. The music file also has left and right channels. So your phone just sends the right channel to each part of the plug, and the plug sends it down the wire to your headphones.
Most music pre-1960s was mono. Only one channel, same sound on all sides. Then we got stereo (2 channels, left and right). And now we have shit like 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos with 7 channels (left front, center, right front, left side surround [Lss], right side surround [Rss], left rear surround [Lrs], and right rear surround [Rrs]), one LFE channel, and 4 overhead channels.
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