Farmer Buckley's Exploding Trousers is a compendium of stories from the fringes of science originally published in the New Scientist 'Histories' column. I'm reading it with Elena at bed time.
Often these mad scientists were ahead of their time. Last night we learned of the Theatrophone, a stereo broadcast system popular around the turn of the nineteenth century in European cities like Paris, London and Budapest.
Customers would dial in to listen to opera, sports and news reports, much as we use broadband now. Theatrophone subscriptions were incredibly expensive though, and radio made it redundant in the 1920's.
Stereo broadcasts wouldn't become the norm again until the FM networks of the 1960's.