trinaural

English

Etymology

tri- +‎ -n- +‎ aural

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɔːɹəl

Adjective

trinaural (not comparable)

1. (rare) Having a third audio channel in addition to the binaural or stereo channels.
   • 1957, Philip K. Dick, Eye in the Sky:

     The Hamilton Trinaural Sound System. Remember the night we dreamed that up? Three cartridges, needles, amplifiers, speakers. Mounted in three rooms. A man in each room, listening to each rig.

   • 1957, High Fidelity, volume 7, numbers 1-6, page 8:

     However, I was informed that some current stereo releases are "trinaural" — three-channel rather than two — and I'd like some information about this. Are these actually three-channel stereo tapes?

   • 2004, Henry H. Mitchell, Black Church Beginnings:

     The talking drum held under the arm had soft sides that yielded three different tonal pitches, high, middle, and low, according to the pressure of the arm. This amounted to a “Morse Code” with three signals — a trinaural rather than a binaural system.

Coordinate terms

• binaural
• monaural