Cinema, not music, has driven every expansion of audio channel count

Evidence

As much as audio purists have appreciated the virtues of accurately reproduced music, soundstage, imaging, and envelopment, music has not been the driving force behind audio formats. It has been movies. Just as Blumlein was motivated by movies to investigate, and indeed invent, aspects of stereo—the minimalist multichannel format—it was movies that drove the channel count upwards. In addition to expanding the audio illusions beyond the on-screen action, multichannel systems were very persuasive in acoustically “transporting” viewers into the spaces that were seen on the screen. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 752

Categorization

• XREF: Complements arguments about how content domains (not just listeners) shape format adoption across media history.