A COUPLE OF HITCHES : STEREO TELEVISION A MIXED BLESSING

We’ve beaten the Russians again. They may have more nuclear warheads on their submarines, but we’ve got stereophonic television.

We’ve not only beaten the Russians on this, we’ve beaten the French, the Germans, the Tongans and the Balinese. It’s the single-most exciting development in American consumerism since the introduction of Double-Stuff Oreos.

Indeed, it’s Double-Stuff Television--two, two, two soundtracks in one. It should be two soundtracks in two, actually, but most people still suffer under the oppressive yoke of old-fashioned, out-of-date, hopelessly mundane monaural television.

Mondo Mono will eventually give way to Mondo Stereo. It’s only a matter of time.

No, it’s also a matter of money. It will cost networks and stations to switch to stereo (about 100 stations have so far) and, more important, it will cost consumers who want to upgrade their home listening posts. People who are now buying a new TV and figure they may as well get it with stereo will find that the stereo feature adds about $100 to the cost of the set.

Some sets made by Sony and Zenith in the past few years are “stereo-ready.” That means that their owners can purchase a $180 decoder that will enable the sets to receive the stereo audio signal and channel it into a couple of speakers. Manufacturers like RCA restrict stereo to their top of the line models and don’t have any convertibles and, hence, no converters.

Some newer models of Beta HiFi VCR’s can pick up TV stereo signals and need only be hooked up to a home sound system for playback in stereo. The crudely inferior VHS system, which has never been able to equal Beta HiFi in sound quality or economy (the cheapest VHS HiFi machine costs $300 more than the cheapest Beta HiFi) is not ready for the stereo age. Only VHS machines in the $1,000 price range can pick up stereo TV, whereas Sony makes a $650 Beta model that does.

Now there are a few more hitches.

First of all, hardly any TV programs are produced in stereo.

But that is changing. Just the other night, NBC began stereophonic telecasts of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” and “Late Night With David Letterman.” And in the fall, jivey “Miami Vice” will be stereofied.

Dutifully, earnestly and because he was bored with everything else, your obedient correspondent tuned in for the first stereo night of Johnny and Dave. It was like witnessing the birth of the end of an era, but not quite. It was not like being in Paris when Lindy landed. But it was like being at home in 1953 and seeing Arthur Godfrey tell Julius LaRosa he was fired.

“The Tonight Show” sounded, well, different in stereo. Obviously a white-haired man talking is not great stereo source material. Johnny’s monologue sounded the same as always, no funnier but no less funny, but there was one difference. The waves of laughter from the audience seemed to be coming from all around the living room. It was more like being there, a great boon if “there” is where one wanted to be.

Also, the “Tonight Show” band, which has been praised to the rafters for 25 years or so, sounded much more vivid and immediate in stereo. Unfortunately, the musical guest was a solo pianist, and a solo piano sounds much the same in mono as it does in stereo. Johnny didn’t do any stereo jokes, nor did he pace the stage from left to right to give stereo-equipped folks a spatial thrill.

His show was a veritable symphonie stereophonique, however, compared to David Letterman’s. Although Letterman joked and giggled about being in stereo, his show was stereo in name only. Paul Shaffer’s band was not in stereo. Dave’s amazing stereo sound effects were not in stereo. The only thing that was in stereo was the audience.

Now if the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had dropped in to see Letterman taped that night, this might have been an asset.

There was one other stereophonic touch. When announcer Bill Wendell read the regular nightly plug for the New York hotel that puts up Letterman’s guests, he was heard on the left channel only. Oh, the wonder of it all!

“My face is beet-red,” confessed David Letterman’s producer, Barry Sand, the next day. “You’ve caught me with my speakers down. I certainly owe an apology to those eight stereo set users who are outraged by the sham.” Sand said that the technicians would have this scandal rectified in no time.

It is obvious to me from this first exciting encounter that stereophonic television is the answer to all the major problems of our time and that earth will be a blissful paradise now that it has arrived.