Tighten up public class API

[apjanke]

Implement class organization updates in at least two classes towards the goal of a smaller and more inspectable public API for class consumers/library users. This is expected to include changes such as:

1. Demarcation of the public API from the hidden/private API in the class file, e.g. the public API before the class internals
2. Initial deprecation steps (e.g. hidden implementation for trivially coded (‘one liner’ or similar) public properties, e.g. nChannels which can be determined by class consumers simply via length(channels_id).
3. Demarcation of groups of related properties (e.g. derived/computed values) through a property naming strategy (e.g. prefixes) or the creation of a new class linked to existing class via composite pattern