[foz1982]

Happy new year everyone.
I hope this question does not cause to much pain this early in the new year.
But what information is encoded in a tape, cd surface, record grove that tells this frequency to go to this
point in space and that frequency to go to that point in space (imaging)??? Did this technology come
out in 1947 perhaps.
thanks

[FullRangeMan]

Looks you are referring to pans pots used at the mastering studios.
I think panoramic potentiometers are digital devices today;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panning_%28audio%29

[Speedskater]

Such a short, simple question but the answer is long and complex.
Siegfried Linkwitz has an entire section on this:

 Recording & Rendering
--- Recording & Rendering 101 --- Acoustics vs. Hearing ---  Subjective evaluation ---
--- Room optimized stereo --- Sound reproduction --- Recording what we hear ---
--- Experimental results --- Theory --- SRA --- Sound field control --- Phantom sources ---

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/Recording/AS_creation.htm

[ACHiPo]

Very interest article.  Thanks for sharing.