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THE ZDM PROTOCOL: Zoned Dual Mono
Let's start off with saying - I am not a lonely voice in the wilderness. Many citizens, the world over, share my opinion that surround sound is one of the biggest hypes ever perpetrated on consumers. It is intended as a death knell for the live concert experience, and a hyper-ballistic distraction for impressionable young people. The entertainment experience must never let up for a moment! But I do not come to you as a simple complainer. No, I bring you a solution: my ZDM system, Zoned Dual Mono.
Because unlike the platinum prostitutes of the luxurious music studios, scoring stages, and post houses of Nashville, Los Angeles and New York, I manage to make a decent living outside their stinking box, their cushy quarters for all the cowards and indentured servants. Sure, the Young Soundman complains because he can't go to some Ivy League school. You know what I tell him? "Shut up and wrap those XLR cables! And when you're done with that, get out the vacuum cleaner and tidy up around the shop! Can't you see I'm busy listening to this old Lowell George solo record? Now, that was MUSIC!" So he puts on his Walkman Discplayer and listens to Linkin Park, hey, whatever! The Old Soundwoman is great. We have a decent vehicle, our house keeps out the wind and cold, we don't live in Berkeley where they are about to outlaw fireplaces, people are still free to smoke in bars in our town, we have cable, we eat what we want when we want, life is good. I didn't marry one of those female barracudas that attach themselves to so many of the high-profile characters that are leading offenders in the crime that is "surround" sound.
Why in the world would I buy a DVD of a Pink Floyd show? To crouch in my darkened "media room" and thrill to the teaspoon of sub-bass that some shrimpy little audiophile rig puts out? Oh, wow, the applause tracks "surround" me? GO TO A SHOW! Give your money to a sweet sincere kid trekking around America with some trail mix and their guitar! And when I watch a movie in my home, no, I don't want some moron's Pro-Tools-sculpted lasciviously detailed high-bandwidth audio oddity flying over my head from the "surround" speakers. Lastly but not leastly, in a modern multiplex, I know this is a little outside my purview, but am I the only person in the world who has sat up and to the right, in a crowded theatre, so that one of those wonderful "surround" speakers was about a foot from my right ear? Perhaps you have heard of the great science fiction writer, Philip K. Dick. It is far more likely that you saw the films "Blade Runner" and "Total Recall" but, like most other vidiots and USA Today readers, you never knew they were adapted from stories written by PKD. Well, Philip K. Dick kicked ass. Why did Army Intelligence buy multiple copies of his book "Flow, My Tears, The Policeman Said"? Huh? See, you don't have a snappy answer for that question, do ya? Do cops need to learn to cry? Sorry, I am edging off topic here. Recently, I went to see the film "Impostor" for one reason and one reason only - it, too, was taken from a PKD story. But, by the end of it, I was ready to take an axe to the "surround" speaker near me. Yes, the place was pretty full when I walked in, and since I don't like rubbing butts with perfect strangers, I sat high up and off to the side and WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? No, not the makers of "Impostor" - although I could have directed a far superior version, without any doubt. No, I'm talking about whoever came up with "surround." Unless your ass is in the sweet spot, in your obedient-consumer home theatre/media room/indoctrination chamber, "surround" is at best a distraction, at worst, as I experienced it, a film-ruining technical plague upon our minds and ears.
Here is my solution to the whole ball of multichannel wax - the ZDM protocol, Zoned Dual Mono. Many people recall Phil Spector and the"Back to Mono" button he wore. But when you think about it, we have two ears, so it makes sense to have two speakers. However, their content does not need to be different! Intense beauty can still be created by controlling the level of each instrument in a mix, in such a way that it rises and falls to a center point. You will absolutely still experience a center image, when you sit in between two studio monitors, or in the center of a concert hall. The vocal is still where it should be, big as life. 
Another analogy for ZDM is the term "bookmatched." Fineartfurniture.net defines bookmatching as: "the process of slicing a board down the middle and opening it up like a book. The result is two pieces of wood that are mirror images of each other." Many ultra-expensive guitars, basses, mandolins, and violins also feature this technique, because the eye of the beholder instinctively reacts with pleasure to the symmetrical beauty of this technique, just as a listener is strangely captivated by ZDM format playback when they first experience it. I've seen it happen over and over again, in my personal ZDM test facility (in other words, my living room.) The same technique can be seen in pricey marble floors and table tops. I have included some pictures of these, and some bookmatched woods, to gently bring you into the conceptual world of ZDM thinking. This is sanity. This is goodness. ZDM for the people. Now, do you want two big-ass piles of speakers up by the screen, blasting megadecibels to reach the back of the theatre? Of course not! The good news for theatre owners in every land is that they do not need to spend a fortune to retro-fit to my ZDM format. The "surround" speakers now become mono delays, bringing our carefully crafted mix to every ear! Dialogue and music bed now return to the ears of those viewers sitting in the furthest reaches of the theatre, rather than the exhaust trails from flying saucers, or deafening artillery explosions. Regretfully, as of yet I have not been able to convince any movie theatre owners to install a ZDM system. Part of the problem, of course, is their tiresome harping on the lack of availability of soundtracks in my format. Maybe Lucas and Spielberg will forgive me my unfortunate fulminations earlier in this essay, and work with me on getting back to the basics of life and listening. I'm calling Sony, and the Village, and Westlake, and Clear Channel and sfx! What's the worst they can do? Just say no? Ed Cherney, it was pretty cold what I said about you. Look, I'm a curmudgeon, OK? Chuck Ainlay, please talk this over with Mark Knopfler. You and Ed could totally rage in ZDM. Because you are real mixers, with real ears, same as me. But the youngsters, man, they couldn't hang with this if they wanted to. The schools they went to brainwashed them. First the schools teach them that stereo is twice as good as mono. So what do the poor children believe next? Yup. It must follow that 5.1 is twice as good as stereo, and then some. Buckle your seatbelts - here comes 7.1! What will be next - robotic arms that extend out and pleasure you while you watch DVD adult programming? The Big Toe clip-on thumper? The rear end electro-stimulator? Drugs dripping into a jack in your skull? What kind of world are we living in? Man, Hank Williams would have loved ZDM! All the dead guys - Mark from Morphine, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt - they would have been down with this, but tragically, they can't tell you so! So, it's just me, the OSM, with my ZDM. Zoned Dual Mono. My dream. My gift to society, to people of all races, sexes and creeds. All I ask is that you give it a fair chance. Look at the pictures. Yes, they are of patterns in marble and wood, but they express the ZDM principle precisely. You feel centered, don't you? You are moving toward the Goal. Don't try to tell me you don't feel the magic!
Join me now, in moving toward a sonic world that makes sense to the bicameral mind we have all been blessed (or burdened, depending on your personal philosophical preference) with. Zoned Dual Mono - ZDM - for a better, more natural future. Luv - The Old Soundman
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