I remember walking into a Radio Shack store (Yeah, I'm old) in the 1970's where they had a Quadraphonic setup. It was amazing stepping into the middle of the speakers how incredibly realistic (no pun intended) and open the sound was. Felt like you could reach out and touch the instruments. I had a lot of high end stereo equipment at the time, and this was next level. Thanks for the video.
I own a Panasonic CD-4 demodulator that doesn't require calibration. It came with a Panasonic 450C-II strain gauge cartridge specifically designed for CD-4. The cartridge is phenomenal at reproducing sound. Strain gauge cartridges are rather unique, requiring a power supply to energize the semiconductors in the cartridge. Unfortunately the demodulator electronics have failed, but I was able to assemble a high-performance stereo preamp that gives up nothing in the way of sound quality. When it was used with the demodulator it gave very good channel separation on all four channels. Much better than 3 dB. I've never heard anything played on a QS or SQ system. BTW, you have a new subscriber. BTW #2, I am a big fan of Firesign Theatre, BTW #3 The Tomita Firebird album was my first CD-4 record. I also have Rick Wakeman's Journey to the Center of the Earth.
I just stumbled upon your channel and I'm kinda shocked that you don't get more views. This is really high quality content I'd normally only expect from channels with 100k+ subs. Just subscribed, keep up the amazing work:)
Coolest channel I've found in a long time. Hard to find people talking about Quadraphonic audio on UA-cam, perhaps for the obvious reason lol... I love sourround sound audio, I have a lot of stuff in 5.1
I have a copy of the 'Dark Side' SQ quad and the Denon Reciever I have (does everything including IMAX) when set to DTS Neural:X decodes it quite happily and gives me a fairly faithful reproduction compared to my memory of hearing it via a genuine SQ decoder a few years back.
I first had quad LPs and 8-tracks in 1975, lol! What an intriguing idea. I hope you enjoy your quads. The discrete CD-4 LPs and discrete 8-tracks I have seem to have the most interesting sound field theatrics. Alas, I haven't listened to them in decades. Thank you for bringing back my memories.
Tubular Bells Mike Oldfield - Just great and opened my eyes to multichannel audio, and later on worked with DTS, and Dolby. Also manufactured psycho accoustic systems.
A friend of my parents had one of these systems. I remember listening to a Joni Mitchell LP on it, closing my eyes... It was other worldly to my youthful ears. A friend of mine who is now about 65 and a trained sound engineer believes it was one of the biggest tragedies that quadraphonic didn't stick, solve their differences and shortcoming, and eventually turn into what Surround now does (or attempts) to do. Put another way, had it happened, most people would own systems today easily to work with what is now Surround.
Lovely video …have been going down the quad trail for a few years now …the SMv3 and a Panasonic CD-4 decoder have been a revelation to me. I bought a Phlux active Shibata equipped cartridge recently and it’s been a great stylus for everything especially CD-4. I ended up buying an Arcam 4 channel power amp along with an SPL5.1 monitoring preamp to keep the technology modern and reliable after various vintage amps became noisy and unreliable. Many thanks for the further tips on quad vinyl ..the ~Tomita SACDs have been a wonderful listening experience which i can recommend. I can vouch for stereo being generally enhanced by QS/Involve listening …cant imagine how i lived without it now. Definitely a keeper. My preference is QS in the end and some of the albums from Enoch Lights Project 3 are stunning …not to everyone’s taste but for sound quality they are never beaten. Nice one for the video …direct and intelligently to the point.
Very enjoyable! I have 80+ quad albums. This video encouraged me to buy a copy of Caravanserai in SQ… very nice! I prefer the sound of SQ when using a conical/spherical stylus instead of elliptical. Thanks again for a very informative video.
My Dark Side of the Moon LP I bought in 1974 was a Quadraphonic "Also able to be played on Stereo Equipment". Don't know what format it could have been. I bought it thinking one day I'll get a stereo capable of playing it. it wasn't until I bought a sound-card with 7 speakers + Sub-woofer that came with a Sample "Super Audio DVD" that would give me the surround sound that blew me out of my chair.
Thank you very much. I was looking exactly for this technical data about 4channels recording on vinyl. Good enough. Thanks a lot also for all the complimentary info at the end. Thanks, thanks, thanks, dear.
Excellent explanation! I have almost all the Tomita albums, some in Mexico City where I grew up and some here in Japan where I live now. I had the opportunity to meet Isao Tomita a couple of years before he died on an event called Synth Festa in Tokyo around 2013 or 2014... He explained how to make his famous sounds with the modular Moog. It was amazing! Also a quadraphonic sound system was setup for the event and they played his classic albums. I finally could hear on detail his works as he wanted us to listen it. I grew up with a quadraphonic sound system and I always wondered how the sound was made... We also had surrounded system at home but it was never as good as Quadraphonic. Now I'm buying again all Tomita albums here in Japan and I'm missing Firebird. I have the Japanese copy of Snowflakes are dancing but it doesn't mention anything about being a Quadraphonic album. I have also the CD version and it's a Dolby surround. I will check the app you are mentioning here on your video. I'm pretty curious to hear Quadraphonic again. Thanks!
Thank you for the very informative and interesting video. As I grew up in the 70s used to listen to my dad's Marantz 4400 and it was awesome! I used to listen for hours on end and it was wonderful. Music has never ever come close to that for me. Now I just drool whenever I see one on ebay, but I could never afford it. Thank you for sharing your favorite albums. I really love chase. I had never heard of them before.
quite informative. i have dabbled a bit in the quad realm and am rather an addict. one format that you didn't mention is Dynaquad or the Hafler circuit. stereo recordings do well, the Tomitas that you brought up are very convincing. if you can find a Dynaquad by Dynaco box or from the Panor Corp, you are in business. the most effective sound is gotten by playing a conventional studio stereo recording so that only the very slightest sound emanates from the rears; then play some live recordings or classical and you will be transported into the room the music was recorded in. i was playing Wish You Were Here for a friend and switched the recording to stereo on the Dynaquad box and the protestation from the listened was WHAT DID YOU JUST DO? when i stated that i turned off the rear channels, he proclaimed that there were NO REAR CHANNELS but quickly ate those words when he swiveled hi head to the rear and was then staring at a rear channel speaker. a person with DIY capability could easily build a box from plans that can likley be found on the net. ...hifitommy
I am glad that you mentioned the Hafler circuit. I currently use a David Hafler invention for Dynaco called the "Quadapter" on my current stereo system as well as I have used it on all of my past setups as well. There is something magic about a passive circuit that just works. Classical is probably the best example of where it really shines, performances actually sound like a live session recorded in real time in a real space. I can never go back to traditional 2 channel stereo unless it is done properly with headphones for discrete separation between channels.
SACD vs. DVD-Audio when those formats were new was basically the digital equivalent of CD4 vs. SQ/QS LPs - both were capable of doing high-res multichannel, both were encoded on DVD media, but they were encoded in completely different and incompatible schemes between each other, SACD being encoded in DSD and DVD-Audio being encoded either in uncompressed stereo PCM or Meridian Lossless multichannel.
Hi- I just discovered your channel and am impressed by the presentation and also humour. I have been in quad since the 70's using all quad variations. Whilst I still follow developments and always on the look out for classic quad equipment, I have come to the conclusion in my old age that using streaming services with the Involve Audio decoder is the easiest with least faff or SACD type discs in multichannel to get the best effect easily. After all, how much can my ears hear these days?
Wendy Carlos, who issued a lot of quad records in the 70s, has lots of great information about Quad playback on her website. She specifically recommends against using the sitting in the middle of a square speaker placement. A lot classical music was released in quad in the 70s. Especially the EMI label, and it's equivalent Angel Records. Look for records that have the Angel or Seraphim logo on the cover inside a double circle. They're all SQ quad.
Interesting, as I been working on designing AM stereo and FM stereo decoders in hardware and understand well what you are talking about with the encoding processing. I now looking at doing some experimental work with AM quadraphonic and FM quadraphonic encoders and decoders, yes there were formats been worked on for broadcasting radio as well. A lot this information has been lost to time and this is why I am working on them, to bring them back.
I'm using a cheap old quad system to make digital transfers with a 4-channel PCM recorder. Then I clean up the files in a restoration program. The 4 files can be put on a DVD as 4.0 (no center channel), or mixed down to stereo. I've done a few SQ decodes using a LR - RL file conversion with mixed results. Best was Black Magic Woman by Santana, with Carlos' guitar swirling around all 4. It mixed down to stereo nicely, too.
Back when the local public radio station was still playing records regularly, I was cueing up a CD-4 lp for play and discovered the 30k pilot tone. It made a distinctive ascending “whoop” sound as the disc spun up to play. It also had an interesting pattern on the surface under the fluorescent lights…
Funny thing is, when many companies started to "discontinue" quad records, czechoslovak Supraphon label just started to release their SQ encoded LPs. Their first one was released in 1975 and their last in 1982, with represses continued to be pressed until 1991. Unfortunately all czechoslovak quad records, except two, are only classical music. Those two are a test record and easy listening covers of classical music done by dance orchestra.
Was handed a quad automotive 8-track player to fix, with example tapes, oddly enough with no discernible malfunction. Beach Boys' "409" was intriguing, as well a Doobies' "Captain and Me." "Road Angel" was hi-lit with congas in the rear.
I have both issues of the Involve Surround Master. They are both spectacular. I also have the Marantz 400B demodulator and the JVC5456X receiver. I have also learned that the Surround Masters do great decoding of EV-4 records. I used to have the Lafayette SQ-W but I sold it after buying the Surround Masters. The SQ-W is also a great decoder.
I have a grand total of one EV-4 encoded LP, and it's a demo disc. I was surprised at how well the sound effects decoded with the Surround Master. I need to do my homework on EV-4 to figure out why that is.
i have a 1974 Zenith that has a quad 8 track and it has a Matrix button for the phono, now I understand why there is two positions! Thanks , i have been able to find some quad 4 records , mostly just demo records but still
Great presentation. I have a technics receiver with a built-in CD-4 decoder. I replaced all electrolytic capacitors and it work flawlesly. I have 3 of the Tomita CD-4 LPs and they are awesome! I also have the Best Of The Doors. Now i also have some SQ lp’s but my receiver have settings marked as Matrix1 and Matrix2. I don’t know which setting is the correct one for SQ. Some albums sound better in Matrix1 while other in Matrix2. Anyway it is fun to rediscover in quad the music we used to listen to in stereo. Thank you!
Ahh, yes, the Tomita quad mixes. Despite not having any hardware to play the records, i have all of his quad albums in either DTS-CD or SACD format and they are absolutely gorgeous. Not a style for everyone though, but i like it a lot especially The Planets and Firebird.
If you want to try an experiment which I can not guarantee will work on your system but can vouch that I have tried on all of my various setups over the years and have never had a problem. - If you have an extra speaker you can wire it from the positive terminals from the left and right speakers so that you have two positives going into the center speaker. This effectively cancels any mono signal and only plays the difference between the left and right signal. Interestingly this is how a lot of Karaoke machines function to remove the vocals since they are usually panned center. There are liner notes on an album by Brian Eno called "On Land" which has a wiring diagram for how to wire the third speaker so if anything goes wrong you can blame Brian Eno and not me : ) *worth noting is the only limitation and possible hazard that I am aware of is if your amp is not common ground, the majority are.
I never had a proper quadrophonic setup, but in the early eighties I played 'Time ' from 'Dark Side of The Moon ' through a Carver 'Sonic Holography°' preamp, Carver 400w X 2 ch amp and Ego tower speakers for front channel, and two Sony mono-block single channel amps and Acustic Research speakers for the rear. I've never heard anything as good before or since.
In the description of what equipment is necessary for CD4 decoding, it also should be mentioned that "low capacitance" cables were considered necessary between the phono cartridge and the demodulator. Also it should be mentioned that older/original CD-4 capable phono cartridges probably no longer work as the rubber bearing inside the cartridge has most likely dried out.
That's a great point! I know this from the guitar world - if you have a long patch cord between your guitar and your amp / pedal board, that cord will have significantly more capacitance than a shorter cable and the result is a significant loss in high end clarity. I'm guessing that there would be a similar effect in the hi-fi world - use cables that are too long and the CD-4 carrier signal strength will get reduced.
About the introduction of stereo, what about the binaural records of which Atlantic Records was one of the pioneers in the mid-50's? There were 2 separate groove section on the record which required a tandem tone arm. That was the first stereo record format. You can't use just any phono cartridge to play a CD-4 record. Because the carrier frequency is 30khz, even high-end cartridges are incapable of reading this frequency range. One of my special CD-4 cartridges is a Shure M24H. It has an upper frequency range of 50khz. It is true that you can find quadraphonic encoded recordings on CD. If you have a CD or LP with a stereo recording of "Hot Fun In The Summertime" by Sly & The Family Stone, it is SQ quadraphonic. The original versions available were only in mono or re-channeled stereo. Several of Sly & The Family Stone's original mono or fake stereo recordings were specially remixed for SQ quadraphonic on their "Greatest Hits" LP. True, discrete quadraphonic was also available on the Q8 tape cartridge. Not that long ago, Their "Greatest Hits" album was reissued on by Audio Fidelity on an SACD. This may be the first time that most have ever heard a discrete quadraphonic version of that album. As it is a hybrid SACD, on the regular CD layer is a first-time full mono version of the album.
Interesting info, thanks for sharing. One of the earliest stereo recordings that I can recall was for the Disney animated film Fantasia. I vaguely remember reading something about them recording three discrete channels onto tape. Also Bell Labs developed a way of recording binaural using two microphones mounted into the ears of a dummy head which they named Oscar. Interesting side note- on Brian Eno's album Ambient 4: On Land, he has a wiring diagram for how to "extract" the surround channel out of a stereo recording by adding a third speaker which is wired from the positive terminals of the left and right speakers. By doing this you are effectively cancelling out the left/ right signal so anything that is mono doesn't go to the third speaker which plays the difference between left/ right channels. One term I have seen used for this is out-of-phase-stereo also known as the "oops" channel.
New to this channel, while I have no experience with quadraphonic LP pressings, I do have several quad CDs. The titles that come to mind right now are Lotus by Santana, Boxed by Mike Oldfield, and Exposed again from Mike Oldfield. I find that they play in excellent quad format via my BluRay player through my sound bar surround system. Being a fan, I would love to hear The Firesign in 4 channel separation. I can imagine that being awesome listening.
@@jamesparson Yes. Quad CDs do exist. The titles I mentioned were first available only as Quadraphonic LPs. For whatever reason when they were reissued on CD the songs were not remixed, or at least folded down, into 2 channel stereo mixes. As strange as it may seem I found out Boxed played in Quad when I put ot on in my car. My car had 4 speakers and they produced 4 independent channels when I played Boxed. A few years back I installed a BluRay player and a 5.1 soundbar in my living room. I use the BluRay as a CD player and played Lotus. The music moved from speaker to speaker around the room. I have some SACDs with a 4.0 or 5.1 layer that play in perfect balance on the soundbar from the BluRay. If you enjoy Santana, Lotus is an amazing and recommended listen.
SONY Japan and Vocalion UK have released a lot of Quad LPs remastered in SACD 4.0 mixes over the years. I recommend Miles Davis' Bitches Brew in quad, it's a totally different experience! They go back to the quad master tapes when available, or from the best copy of a quad LP they can manage to find when the original sources are lost.
@@TheMusicAddict And for all Quand lovers around, you might want to track down a TASCAM MU-40 (there were a few NOS on eBay that I missed recently) to display 4 VU Meters of pure Quad enjoyment. The MU-40 has 8 inputs to you can also use it for 7.1 setups.
Great video! Have you played the quad vinyl version of STEELY DAN: CAN'T BUY A THRILL? Hear some tracks are a little different, as I discovered when I heard the quad version of INDIAN RESERVATION by THE RAIDERS on SA-CD. Also, what about quad on 8-track tapes? I am dying to hear SHIRLEY BASSEY: LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL that way. Noice that so many quad titles have also hit audio-only Blu-ray and Super Audio CD. Hope you get to listen to more of them down the line.
If you don't have a multichannel input receiver, just use 2 two channel receivers, or 2 two channel amplifiers.. Just put the two front channel outputs into one receiver or amplifier and the two rear channel outputs into the other receiver or amplifier. For that matter you could use four monaural (one channel) amplifiers from the 1950's by just feeding each of the four channel outputs into one of the four amplifiers. Of course you need four speakers.
@@frankowalker4662 I agree, get two stereo amps (I don't call them receivers - those are radios). You have a better chance of finding two awesome matched top end stereo amps - Quad amps were probably not made to the same perfection of stereo amps to reduce cost. These days, you can gang the voumes together on two stereo amps with servos - like on high end mixing boards.
@@paulromsky9527 My set-up had two identicle 70 watt Fountain stereo amps, (one on top of the other), with matching speakers. The top amp being used as the input selector, master volume and front amp with the bottom one just the rear amp. My Majestic Demodulator has depth and seperation control, four push buttons Mono/Stereo/Ambience/Quad and a joystick for the balance. It sounded fantastic. I still have the De-mod but I'm not allowed to use it anymore. The neighbors ganged up on me. LOL.
@@frankowalker4662 Nice set-up. I never went Quad. I play bass so I am content with stereo, bass tends to be omnidirectional and most people can't detect the source spot in the image. I hear you on the neighbors... I used to live on 3/4 acre and played through two Morley Wahs... it muddied the sound to virtually pure sine waves... I rattled not only my windows but my neighbors too.
@@paulromsky9527 When I had it all set up properly in the 80's-90's I did'nt have any neighbors close by, but in 1997 I moved into a back to back terraced house with only one brick width seperation between all the walls. You can hear when someone sneezes. LOL
Superb channel here, sub'd ! I'm about to purchase a surround master so fun times ahead. As you would be aware, I love finding new mixes or often completely different 'takes' of a song on a quad album. This happened quite often on CD-4 releases, Bette Midler, David Gates & Barbra Streisand albums come to mind.
Thank you so much for the kind words! And I completely agree on the joys of hearing new mixes or a completely different perspective on an album that you already know really well.
Great video. I always thought quadraphonic was either a mix of channels and phase shift, or a second high frequency carrier with other channels... so I guess it was both. Sounds like you need two turntables: one for mono/stereo/QS/SQ and one for CD4 (why swap cartridges all time) and SQ, QS, and CD4 decoders and two stereo amps (to me a receiver is a radio not an amplifier). I would use two high end stereos and gang the volume knobs with servos. Question. If I played a stereo vinyl record through as QS or SQ decoder, I would not expect to hear anything in the rear channels, but I bet pops and crackles would somehow decode and there would be some artifact of them in the rear channels. Am I correct? If so, could that be used to post process a recording to monitor the rear channels and then remove that noise from the 2 channel source by nulling it out?
You'll actually hear plenty in the rear channels when you play a stereo LP through a QS or SQ decoder. The results will depend on the source material, but you'll always hear something. Now with mono LPs, they'll do pretty much exactly what you said: you get most of the clicks and pops in the rears but none of the music.
@@TheMusicAddict Thanks. I learned a lot from your video. I always found it fascinating how stereo came from one groove. As you know (but for other readers), the Left + Right are encoded in the side to side (horizontal) displacement of the groove and the Left - Right is encoded in the up and down (vertical) displacement of the groove - when the groove gets narrower it pushes the needle up and when the groove gets wider the needle drops. So, when the needle moves diagonally in one direction that is pure Left information, and when the needle moves diagonally in the other direction that is pure Right information. Very clever to use Sine and Cosine in this. If you look at a cartridge that uses coils, you may see tiny cores not mounted on the side and on top, but at a V shape diagonally from each other, that is where the decoding is done - mechanical placement of the pickup coils. Bass is often very dynamic (loud range) and in both channels, on LPs this would cause a very wide horizontal displacement of the groove and cause the needle to jump - that is skip inward or outward (as well as take more space on the record and limit its play time). The same is true for the vertical displacement because if the bass is panned to one channel, it could cause the needle to "jump" up and cause cut outs in the sound. So, the bass on all LPs is cut down a few dBs to prevent that, thus all stereo amplifiers for phonographs boost the bass to compensate for this (that is, when the Bass control is set to 0 dB normal). It's kind of opposite for Dolby Noise Reduction on tape where the treble is boosted on the magnetic fields so when the Dobly circuit attenuates (cuts) the high frequencies to cut the hiss noise, the treble info is cut as well but back to the desired levels.
My father used to have Quad recordings but on tape, real player from Phillips. 4 MFB Phillips speakers also. No LP's. He was a sound engineer in that time.
Great video. The original Surround Master is probably the only thing I own that I will never sell. I'm dying for the V3, it's done some amazing things to my music, to me it fleshes out some of the details lost playing just in stereo, just amazing
I have a Panasonic SE-405 CD-4 decoder that I feed into a Sony receiver that has 5.1 inputs (I have a Yamaha HTR-5830) as a backup). I also have a Akai 400-dss open reel). My SQ decoder is gone (smoked), but I used to play my Laserdisc movies thru it and saw some 'interesting' effects the mix engineers did not consider when flipping POV. +1 on Tomita (I have 2 in CD-4 and a few more in open reel)
You could, with caveats. The audio would have to be a high enough sample rate to leave the carrier signal in tact. The audio would also have to not have the RIAA EQ curve applied to it. But otherwise, it would work just fine.
So when a quad mix LP is reissued on CD, is the quad encoding still in one of the three major formats described in this video, or is a more CD-friendly encode like Dolby Surround used? Or is it all over the place. For the record, as a high school student in the early 1970s, I could only afford a relatively simple stereo system with bookshelf speaker. One day, the neighbor invited me over to hear their new quad setup. It was like the room opened up. I still remember it from 50 years ago. Wow.
Unless it’s a DTS CD, it’s always going to be the matrixed version, as the Red Book CD spec doesn’t allow for multichannel CD’s. The DTS CDs will try to find a discrete 5.1 source or the album will be remixed, but sometimes the matrixed quad masters are all they have. You can decode the matrixed quad through any receiver that uses “Dolby Surround” or the first generation of Pro-Logic. I’d avoid Pro-Logic II; it doesn’t work anywhere near as well. The matrixed formats SQ and QS actually were used as the basis of Dolby Stereo and by extension, Dolby Surround.
i picked up a couple of CD-4 records and i'm excited to try out the stereo lab software you mentioned. really curious to see if my equipment is capable of picking up that 30khz carrier. i will have to get those tomita records!
I think that ISAO TOMITA recorded a quadraphonic album called Bermuda Triangle on RCA records RED Label but I have one quadraphonic album Dark Side Of The Moon. just wondering can I decode SQ4 or SACD on the YAMAHA RX-V485, I have played SACD discs using DOLBY NEO.6 Film
There were also CDs with Dolby Surround, so you would get surround sound with a device with Dolby ProLogic, which probably all home theater receivers and home theater amplifiers had in the 90s. Then came Dolby ProLogic 2, which would provide stereo sound even in the Surround channels
My VHS videotape of The Who's TOMMY had the Dolby Stereo 4 channel Quad mix, which properly decoded in my old Dolby Video "Stereo-Surround" preamp. (decoder ) The BluRay remixed to 5.1, but it retains the Original Quad mix with a Subwoofer signal thrown in, as an Audio Option.
I have a Surround Master v1 and a v2, I use two receivers one for front channels and the other for the rear channels since I don't have a quad amp. QS records can be decoded pretty accurately with a Dolby pro-logic 2 receiver. I don't play my quad albums much anymore since I have Sacd, dvda and blu-ray quad and 5.1. My newest receiver has Dolby Atmos but I've never added the extra speakers.
Some music was WRITTEN for quadraphonic. For example: Columbia MQ-31289 (SQ) / MAQ-31289 (Q8) The Columbia Brass Ensemble: Antiphonal Music for Four Brass Choirs recorded by Andrew Kazdin in the legendary Basilica di San Marco in Venice, Italy.
I remember this in the 1970s....I made my own Quad System out of my wards/airline stereo....it worked great 👍. .it is not the record it is the equipment you use
A good friend was and is a quad nut. Best tracks he played for me: Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondels (rare, 8 track only) and Frankenstein by The Edgar Winter Group. (Of course I like goofy effects where sounds swirl around the soundstage like a roller coaster.)
In 1972 my boss showed me his surround sound system in his living room. He explained that this was by the rear speakers being a half second behind the front speakers. Don’t remember the make of his system but all his equipment was super high end and very expensive in it’s day.
I own a PIONEER VSA 740 Pro logic amplifier. What I have noticed is that some cd's have quad properties to. For instance The Immaculate Collection by Madonna. It sounds really very good in pro-logic; far better than in standard stereo. Mono will only play thru the centre speakers. You already mentioned Pink Floyd, Dark Side Of The Moon sounds great on Dolby Pro-logic!
The Immaculate Collection is an interesting one to bring up - it was mixed in QSound, which was designed to get sort of a 3D soundfield out of two speakers. I've found that these recordings decode exceptionally well in QS, even though there's no technical relation to QSound. I really like Sting's "The Soul Cages" (another QSound recording) decoded through my Surround Master.
I remember the excitement when quad came on market. However, two factors crippled the market. It made more sense to buy 2 double quality speakers at twice the price than 4 at half quality and price. Also, high end speakers had a sound stage that rivaled the quad systems. Two ears do not necessarily get excited about 4 sound sources. I am thrilled with the sound stage of my magneplanars and my great used find of a carver amp. Oddly, that amp was marketed for its sonic holography technology which also died a natural death. I leave the feature turned off.
I only ever encountered one Quadraphonic format Vinyl record, Ten Years After's, A Space In Time. I saw it frequently in the early 80's Even today I still encounter this Lp in vinyl dollar bins, 2nd hand stores and pawn shops. I am sure "A Space In Time" is the most common quadraphonic record since I never encountered another quad Lp except that one.
When you were dishing out the QS formula I kept thinking this who sound better in the style of Tom Lehrer's "New Math". In fact I was actually singing the chorus to that song by the time you finished it. I heard two Lps in Quadraphonic sound at a friends house his dad had a nice setup with a receiver that had a built in quad decoder (Pioneer QX-949). Three years ago I found a early to mid 70's Panasonic all in one stereo (played quad records & 8-Track) that had quadraphonic decoder built in, and I wanted to buy it. However I was broke until payday, and by the time I had the money it was already sold. The thing was in excellent condition (just needed a new stylus.)
The other interesting thing about SQ is the fact you can record the Quad record, (in stereo) onto any other stereo format, (reel to reel/cassette/CD) and still get the full quad mix back again when you play it through a Decoder. I sampled a Quad test record into my Amiga computer, and when I played it back the seperation was perfect. (even if the sound quality was'nt. LOL)
I have 3 LP's in Quad; Black Sabbath Paranoid, Blue Oyster Cult Tyranny And Mutation and Deep Purple Stormbringer. I picked them up in a used record store and enjoy what seems to be a different mix of the albums. I still lean towards my stereo LP versions though.
My understanding is that regular matrix QS works owing to the psychoacoustics and open room setup. Even of the math shows the channels are not separated well enough such that the perceived Front and Back separation would not be good if you wear headphones with one ear for F the other for B. But the fact that your right ear will have a direct path to the RF speaker and also LF speaker; they'll cancel out the back speaker's in them coming from the front direction. I.e. the math shows poor separation in RF, LF, RB, LB signals but when you sit in a room with two ears - the additional superposition affects the perception. I'd love to see a detailed math of signal and perception.
I still have a few DTS cd's. Works quite well, but in the end I prefer stereo for music. O, talking about mono in the beginning. All my kids have a Bluetooth speaker to listen to, and those are mono as well, so back were we started from.
I was just at a store today that had a few hundred Quad LPs, with a few DBX LPs among them and they only wanted $5.00 to $7.00, which is impressive, esp. since some of the titles were from name artists. Some were also unopened. The same store is also about to open a tapes section in a few months, so we'll see what happens.
The Quad LP's were a novelty at best, they just never worked that great or sounded that good. If you were serious about QUAD, you had Quad Open Real Tapes or Quad 8-Track Tape Cartridges. The tapes had 4 channels of discreet sound, no decoding needed, just a 4 channel receiver/amp. My Dad's Lincoln had a factory Quadrasonic 8-Track Cartridge player that was actually really fun. Never heard a Quad LP that worked anywhere near as good as the tapes did. Price? Well, just like multi-channel SACD, DVD and Blu-Ray audio discs today, it was stupid expensive, but it was never meant for the masses, it was a specialty product out-the-gate. Kinda like 3D TV's and Blu-Ray players.
You could probably do a whole episode just like this on the "modern" formats: DTS, AC3, SACD & DVD-V and DVD-A. I suppose if you HAD to you could include Blu Ray for the 4 people who have BluRay HD Audio players.
At that point you're looking at a history of codecs as well as formats. Except for SACD, which does its own weird thing that is entirely incompatible with everything else. And kind of dumb. You could do a whole episode on why SACD is a very silly thing. Also have to cover the eternal endurance of MP3. The technology has been obsoleted several times over, and yet it always remains popular because it's the only codec with universal support and has immense cultural recognition.
'The four people who have BluRay HD Audio players,' make that everyone who has a BD player, including in their consoles starting with the PS3. BD Audio shares a standard with BD movies and thus is fully compatible with standard BD players.
@@DFX4509B Fantastic, however irrespective of the topic. Blu-Ray never caught on like DVD did and is already on the way out. Market penetration in the US barely hit 49% at it's peak in 2020 and has dropped ever since. Several manufacturers have already stopped producing Blu-Ray equipment.
@@That_AMC_Guy Meanwhile BDs unless you can stream both 4K or 8K video and DTHD/DTS-HD Master audio in one stream now, still have that lossless audio trick up their sleeve by support of the aforementioned DTHD and DTS-HD Master codecs, and I don't see AVRs getting replaced outright by soundbars any time soon.
CD 4 actually used the same tactics as FM stereo. You can use stereo FM circuits to decode it. FM stereo uses a 19KHz pilot, 38 KHz suppressed carrier double sideband for L - R to matrix with L + R for stereo. CD 4 used 2 FM composite detectors, one for left, one for right. Pilot tone is 15KHz, scdsb of 30KHz instead of 38. You could use 2 FM stereo radios to do CD 4. That's one for left, one for right. That's 2 composite front / rear outputs. CD 4 can only do to maybe 12.5KHz frequency response due to the composite pilot of 15K anything higher for intentional uses would cause other distortion and undertones from audio frequency encroaching on the pilot tone.
Nothing says "1970's" more than the thumbnail for this video; the turntable platter with the strobe markings. In the 1970's as a kid, I dreamed of owing something like that. As an adult, I have to suffer with a nice turntable and a strobe mat. I am familiar with the various quad LP formats but had experience with Quad RTR tapes in that era.
If you have the Immersion Box Set of Dark Side of the Moon. You get a Blu-Ray with the Alan Parsons Quad Mix. It does not appear to be on the 50th boxset.
The SQ equations make no sense to me. How come Lt and Rt don't appear anywhere in the decoding equations? I'd expect the decoded signals to be equal to some expressions involving the encoded ones. Very confused!
How well or bad do SQ and QS records sound when played through modern Dolby Surround or DTS Neo decoders? Have you tried that? The matrices are not quite the same, but the same can be said about playing SQ through QS or the other way around, which you have touched on.
I haven't tried it much myself because I have the Surround Master, but theoretically QS recordings should decode nicely via Dolby Surround. SQ? Probably not so well.
I've tried playing my SQ and QS LPs through my receiver (DTS Neo, Dobly etc) and while they give "interesting" effects after about half an hour they start to becoming fatiguing. I think from the quad forum you have to have a receiver that does good old fashion Dolby Pro Logic to play SQ LPs. The real advantage with the surround master is what it does to stereo in "involve mode", it's simply amazing! I now listen to all my music with the surround master, great stereo image in front and really nice surround effects behind.
I have a NAD masters series preamp which includes all the modern surround sound/digital modes, and one of them (I forget which one) is directly compatible with SQ. I tried it once about a decade ago and it worked!
I have a Marantz CD-400B demodulator. Playing a Sansui calibration disc, it works perfectly, but only one of the few CD-4 LPs I have (Judy Collins - Colours Of The Day) comes out clean. The rest produce terrible breakup and distortion. Since all of them were used records I bought on the cheap, they could have been damaged by improper playback equipment, or maybe they were defective right off the presses.
I have this same demodulator but have yet to drop the money on the proper stylus and cartridge, and until this video didn’t realize I’d need a calibration disc.
@@danieldaniels7571 Yes. Fortunately I got one with the unit. Some CD-4 demods have 4 controls to adjust. The CD-400B has only two, but if they aren't set correctly it won't work right.
Unfortunately, it can't. I know that the folks at Involve Audio have looked into the possibility of making a CD-4 demodulator, but I don't think that it made financial sense for them to pursue. You either need to go the vintage route, or you need to try the Stereo Lab software (which works great!).
CD as the name for an LP format? Ha! In addition to a specialty cartridge/stylus for CD-4, low capacitance cables should be used. Some of JVC's turntables, like the model VL-5 I had, came with low capacitance cables, and the CD-4 logo was on the dust cover.
Guess I might have cheated... Not particularly satisfied with SQ or QS I opted for four channel reel-to-reel tape. The separation is superior and set-up is no more than adjusting the volume controls. Built a Heathkit four channel amp in the process. About $400 in 1980 prices.
I do have a quad setup and have been building a collection of multiple media options, r2r and records. I would love an in depth explanation of how the information for 4 channels are stored in a single groove. If anyone has answers other than the jacket explanation, I would love to hear how all of the information is stored in a single groove.
The vast majority of DSotM quad LPs were SQ. From what I can determine, the only other version was catalog number EMZ-82005 from Japan. All of those copies have the text "Channel RM Sound" on the top right, where RM = Regular Matrix, which is another name for QS.
I remember walking into a Radio Shack store (Yeah, I'm old) in the 1970's where they had a Quadraphonic setup. It was amazing stepping into the middle of the speakers how incredibly realistic (no pun intended) and open the sound was. Felt like you could reach out and touch the instruments. I had a lot of high end stereo equipment at the time, and this was next level. Thanks for the video.
I own a Panasonic CD-4 demodulator that doesn't require calibration. It came with a Panasonic 450C-II strain gauge cartridge specifically designed for CD-4. The cartridge is phenomenal at reproducing sound. Strain gauge cartridges are rather unique, requiring a power supply to energize the semiconductors in the cartridge. Unfortunately the demodulator electronics have failed, but I was able to assemble a high-performance stereo preamp that gives up nothing in the way of sound quality. When it was used with the demodulator it gave very good channel separation on all four channels. Much better than 3 dB. I've never heard anything played on a QS or SQ system. BTW, you have a new subscriber. BTW #2, I am a big fan of Firesign Theatre, BTW #3 The Tomita Firebird album was my first CD-4 record. I also have Rick Wakeman's Journey to the Center of the Earth.
I just stumbled upon your channel and I'm kinda shocked that you don't get more views. This is really high quality content I'd normally only expect from channels with 100k+ subs. Just subscribed, keep up the amazing work:)
Thank you so much! That's incredibly kind of you. I'm doing my best to figure out the whole algorithm thing while still producing interesting content.
Coolest channel I've found in a long time. Hard to find people talking about Quadraphonic audio on UA-cam, perhaps for the obvious reason lol... I love sourround sound audio, I have a lot of stuff in 5.1
Thank you for the kind words!
I have a copy of the 'Dark Side' SQ quad and the Denon Reciever I have (does everything including IMAX) when set to DTS Neural:X decodes it quite happily and gives me a fairly faithful reproduction compared to my memory of hearing it via a genuine SQ decoder a few years back.
I first had quad LPs and 8-tracks in 1975, lol! What an intriguing idea. I hope you enjoy your quads. The discrete CD-4 LPs and discrete 8-tracks I have seem to have the most interesting sound field theatrics. Alas, I haven't listened to them in decades. Thank you for bringing back my memories.
Tubular Bells Mike Oldfield - Just great and opened my eyes to multichannel audio, and later on worked with DTS, and Dolby. Also manufactured psycho accoustic systems.
I appreciate you having my favorite album of all time in the background (Chicago II). Thank you!
A friend of my parents had one of these systems. I remember listening to a Joni Mitchell LP on it, closing my eyes... It was other worldly to my youthful ears.
A friend of mine who is now about 65 and a trained sound engineer believes it was one of the biggest tragedies that quadraphonic didn't stick, solve their differences and shortcoming, and eventually turn into what Surround now does (or attempts) to do. Put another way, had it happened, most people would own systems today easily to work with what is now Surround.
Lovely video …have been going down the quad trail for a few years now …the SMv3 and a Panasonic CD-4 decoder have been a revelation to me. I bought a Phlux active Shibata equipped cartridge recently and it’s been a great stylus for everything especially CD-4. I ended up buying an Arcam 4 channel power amp along with an SPL5.1 monitoring preamp to keep the technology modern and reliable after various vintage amps became noisy and unreliable. Many thanks for the further tips on quad vinyl ..the ~Tomita SACDs have been a wonderful listening experience which i can recommend. I can vouch for stereo being generally enhanced by QS/Involve listening …cant imagine how i lived without it now. Definitely a keeper. My preference is QS in the end and some of the albums from Enoch Lights Project 3 are stunning …not to everyone’s taste but for sound quality they are never beaten.
Nice one for the video …direct and intelligently to the point.
Very enjoyable! I have 80+ quad albums. This video encouraged me to buy a copy of Caravanserai in SQ… very nice! I prefer the sound of SQ when using a conical/spherical stylus instead of elliptical. Thanks again for a very informative video.
My Dark Side of the Moon LP I bought in 1974 was a Quadraphonic "Also able to be played on Stereo Equipment". Don't know what format it could have been. I bought it thinking one day I'll get a stereo capable of playing it. it wasn't until I bought a sound-card with 7 speakers + Sub-woofer that came with a Sample "Super Audio DVD" that would give me the surround sound that blew me out of my chair.
I think the quad mix is the best. I didn’t know there was a stereo mix until I got it on cd. I noticed it was very different👍
Thank you very much. I was looking exactly for this technical data about 4channels recording on vinyl.
Good enough. Thanks a lot also for all the complimentary info at the end.
Thanks, thanks, thanks, dear.
Great vid. Thnx for the very interesting tech-info knowledge. Very inspriring. Also very cool new music to discover. Thnx
Excellent explanation! I have almost all the Tomita albums, some in Mexico City where I grew up and some here in Japan where I live now. I had the opportunity to meet Isao Tomita a couple of years before he died on an event called Synth Festa in Tokyo around 2013 or 2014... He explained how to make his famous sounds with the modular Moog. It was amazing! Also a quadraphonic sound system was setup for the event and they played his classic albums. I finally could hear on detail his works as he wanted us to listen it. I grew up with a quadraphonic sound system and I always wondered how the sound was made... We also had surrounded system at home but it was never as good as Quadraphonic. Now I'm buying again all Tomita albums here in Japan and I'm missing Firebird. I have the Japanese copy of Snowflakes are dancing but it doesn't mention anything about being a Quadraphonic album. I have also the CD version and it's a Dolby surround. I will check the app you are mentioning here on your video. I'm pretty curious to hear Quadraphonic again. Thanks!
Thank you for the very informative and interesting video.
As I grew up in the 70s used to listen to my dad's Marantz 4400 and it was awesome!
I used to listen for hours on end and it was wonderful. Music has never ever come close to that for me.
Now I just drool whenever I see one on ebay, but I could never afford it.
Thank you for sharing your favorite albums. I really love chase. I had never heard of them before.
quite informative. i have dabbled a bit in the quad realm and am rather an addict. one format that you didn't mention is Dynaquad or the Hafler circuit. stereo recordings do well, the Tomitas that you brought up are very convincing. if you can find a Dynaquad by Dynaco box or from the Panor Corp, you are in business.
the most effective sound is gotten by playing a conventional studio stereo recording so that only the very slightest sound emanates from the rears; then play some live recordings or classical and you will be transported into the room the music was recorded in. i was playing Wish You Were Here for a friend and switched the recording to stereo on the Dynaquad box and the protestation from the listened was WHAT DID YOU JUST DO? when i stated that i turned off the rear channels, he proclaimed that there were NO REAR CHANNELS but quickly ate those words when he swiveled hi head to the rear and was then staring at a rear channel speaker.
a person with DIY capability could easily build a box from plans that can likley be found on the net.
...hifitommy
I am glad that you mentioned the Hafler circuit. I currently use a David Hafler invention for Dynaco called the "Quadapter" on my current stereo system as well as I have used it on all of my past setups as well. There is something magic about a passive circuit that just works. Classical is probably the best example of where it really shines, performances actually sound like a live session recorded in real time in a real space. I can never go back to traditional 2 channel stereo unless it is done properly with headphones for discrete separation between channels.
SACD vs. DVD-Audio when those formats were new was basically the digital equivalent of CD4 vs. SQ/QS LPs - both were capable of doing high-res multichannel, both were encoded on DVD media, but they were encoded in completely different and incompatible schemes between each other, SACD being encoded in DSD and DVD-Audio being encoded either in uncompressed stereo PCM or Meridian Lossless multichannel.
Hi- I just discovered your channel and am impressed by the presentation and also humour. I have been in quad since the 70's using all quad variations. Whilst I still follow developments and always on the look out for classic quad equipment, I have come to the conclusion in my old age that using streaming services with the Involve Audio decoder is the easiest with least faff or SACD type discs in multichannel to get the best effect easily. After all, how much can my ears hear these days?
Wendy Carlos, who issued a lot of quad records in the 70s, has lots of great information about Quad playback on her website. She specifically recommends against using the sitting in the middle of a square speaker placement.
A lot classical music was released in quad in the 70s. Especially the EMI label, and it's equivalent Angel Records. Look for records that have the Angel or Seraphim logo on the cover inside a double circle. They're all SQ quad.
Yes, a lot of Wendy's information is still available on her website. Definitely worth a look.
Walter/Wendy Carlos only released one Quadraphonic LP: Switched On Bach.
Interesting, as I been working on designing AM stereo and FM stereo decoders in hardware and understand well what you are talking about with the encoding processing. I now looking at doing some experimental work with AM quadraphonic and FM quadraphonic encoders and decoders, yes there were formats been worked on for broadcasting radio as well. A lot this information has been lost to time and this is why I am working on them, to bring them back.
Really good description of all things quad, Thank you for this..........Its Chucky from Involve Audio here!!
Thank you, Chucky! And thank you for the Surround Master! It's been probably my favorite piece of audio gear that I've gotten in the last five years.
CHICAGO II!! Would love to own that!
I'm using a cheap old quad system to make digital transfers with a 4-channel PCM recorder. Then I clean up the files in a restoration program. The 4 files can be put on a DVD as 4.0 (no center channel), or mixed down to stereo.
I've done a few SQ decodes using a LR - RL file conversion with mixed results. Best was Black Magic Woman by Santana, with Carlos' guitar swirling around all 4. It mixed down to stereo nicely, too.
I am a Quad lover. I have a sansui qr 6500, Pioneer qx 646 and qx 949. Thank you for putting this info out there.
Thank you so much for this helpful video.
Back when the local public radio station was still playing records regularly, I was cueing up a CD-4 lp for play and discovered the 30k pilot tone. It made a distinctive ascending “whoop” sound as the disc spun up to play. It also had an interesting pattern on the surface under the fluorescent lights…
Funny thing is, when many companies started to "discontinue" quad records, czechoslovak Supraphon label just started to release their SQ encoded LPs. Their first one was released in 1975 and their last in 1982, with represses continued to be pressed until 1991. Unfortunately all czechoslovak quad records, except two, are only classical music. Those two are a test record and easy listening covers of classical music done by dance orchestra.
Was handed a quad automotive 8-track player to fix, with example tapes, oddly enough with no discernible malfunction. Beach Boys' "409" was intriguing, as well a Doobies' "Captain and Me." "Road Angel" was hi-lit with congas in the rear.
I had a Marantz receiver in the 70's which had a"quadaradial" jack in the back of the unit if you wanted to upgrade the unit in the future.
I have both issues of the Involve Surround Master. They are both spectacular. I also have the Marantz 400B demodulator and the JVC5456X receiver. I have also learned that the Surround Masters do great decoding of EV-4 records. I used to have the Lafayette SQ-W but I sold it after buying the Surround Masters. The SQ-W is also a great decoder.
I have a grand total of one EV-4 encoded LP, and it's a demo disc. I was surprised at how well the sound effects decoded with the Surround Master. I need to do my homework on EV-4 to figure out why that is.
Also: thanks so much for watching and for your comment!
i have a 1974 Zenith that has a quad 8 track and it has a Matrix button for the phono, now I understand why there is two positions! Thanks , i have been able to find some quad 4 records , mostly just demo records but still
Great presentation. I have a technics receiver with a built-in CD-4 decoder. I replaced all electrolytic capacitors and it work flawlesly. I have 3 of the Tomita CD-4 LPs and they are awesome! I also have the Best Of The Doors. Now i also have some SQ lp’s but my receiver have settings marked as Matrix1 and Matrix2. I don’t know which setting is the correct one for SQ. Some albums sound better in Matrix1 while other in Matrix2. Anyway it is fun to rediscover in quad the music we used to listen to in stereo. Thank you!
Great and well explained video, thanks, do you know if there are any Tomita albums on SQ or QS besides the RCA's
standard CD4 format?
Ahh, yes, the Tomita quad mixes. Despite not having any hardware to play the records, i have all of his quad albums in either DTS-CD or SACD format and they are absolutely gorgeous. Not a style for everyone though, but i like it a lot especially The Planets and Firebird.
If you want to try an experiment which I can not guarantee will work on your system but can vouch that I have tried on all of my various setups over the years and have never had a problem. - If you have an extra speaker you can wire it from the positive terminals from the left and right speakers so that you have two positives going into the center speaker. This effectively cancels any mono signal and only plays the difference between the left and right signal. Interestingly this is how a lot of Karaoke machines function to remove the vocals since they are usually panned center. There are liner notes on an album by Brian Eno called "On Land" which has a wiring diagram for how to wire the third speaker so if anything goes wrong you can blame Brian Eno and not me : )
*worth noting is the only limitation and possible hazard that I am aware of is if your amp is not common ground, the majority are.
DTS dvd and also SACD is also cheaper and better today, also the new atmos mix on streaming plateforme work fine.
I never had a proper quadrophonic setup, but in the early eighties I played 'Time ' from 'Dark Side of The Moon ' through a Carver 'Sonic Holography°' preamp, Carver 400w X 2 ch amp and Ego tower speakers for front channel, and two Sony mono-block single channel amps and Acustic Research speakers for the rear.
I've never heard anything as good before or since.
In the description of what equipment is necessary for CD4 decoding, it also should be mentioned that "low capacitance" cables were considered necessary between the phono cartridge and the demodulator. Also it should be mentioned that older/original CD-4 capable phono cartridges probably no longer work as the rubber bearing inside the cartridge has most likely dried out.
That's a great point! I know this from the guitar world - if you have a long patch cord between your guitar and your amp / pedal board, that cord will have significantly more capacitance than a shorter cable and the result is a significant loss in high end clarity. I'm guessing that there would be a similar effect in the hi-fi world - use cables that are too long and the CD-4 carrier signal strength will get reduced.
All I want is a Techmoan Crossover!!! Audiophile Nerdgasm deluxe!
I used to enjoy playing quad records with CD-4 encoding with my old top of the line Pickering Pickups at 16 RPM and got nice squeals.
Love this!
About the introduction of stereo, what about the binaural records of which Atlantic Records was one of the pioneers in the mid-50's? There were 2 separate groove section on the record which required a tandem tone arm. That was the first stereo record format.
You can't use just any phono cartridge to play a CD-4 record. Because the carrier frequency is 30khz, even high-end cartridges are incapable of reading this frequency range. One of my special CD-4 cartridges is a Shure M24H. It has an upper frequency range of 50khz.
It is true that you can find quadraphonic encoded recordings on CD. If you have a CD or LP with a stereo recording of "Hot Fun In The Summertime" by Sly & The Family Stone, it is SQ quadraphonic. The original versions available were only in mono or re-channeled stereo. Several of Sly & The Family Stone's original mono or fake stereo recordings were specially remixed for SQ quadraphonic on their "Greatest Hits" LP. True, discrete quadraphonic was also available on the Q8 tape cartridge. Not that long ago, Their "Greatest Hits" album was reissued on by Audio Fidelity on an SACD. This may be the first time that most have ever heard a discrete quadraphonic version of that album. As it is a hybrid SACD, on the regular CD layer is a first-time full mono version of the album.
Interesting info, thanks for sharing. One of the earliest stereo recordings that I can recall was for the Disney animated film Fantasia. I vaguely remember reading something about them recording three discrete channels onto tape. Also Bell Labs developed a way of recording binaural using two microphones mounted into the ears of a dummy head which they named Oscar.
Interesting side note- on Brian Eno's album Ambient 4: On Land, he has a wiring diagram for how to "extract" the surround channel out of a stereo recording by adding a third speaker which is wired from the positive terminals of the left and right speakers. By doing this you are effectively cancelling out the left/ right signal so anything that is mono doesn't go to the third speaker which plays the difference between left/ right channels. One term I have seen used for this is out-of-phase-stereo also known as the "oops" channel.
New to this channel, while I have no experience with quadraphonic LP pressings, I do have several quad CDs. The titles that come to mind right now are Lotus by Santana, Boxed by Mike Oldfield, and Exposed again from Mike Oldfield. I find that they play in excellent quad format via my BluRay player through my sound bar surround system. Being a fan, I would love to hear The Firesign in 4 channel separation. I can imagine that being awesome listening.
Quads CDs? Are you sure about that?
@@jamesparson Yes. Quad CDs do exist. The titles I mentioned were first available only as Quadraphonic LPs. For whatever reason when they were reissued on CD the songs were not remixed, or at least folded down, into 2 channel stereo mixes.
As strange as it may seem I found out Boxed played in Quad when I put ot on in my car. My car had 4 speakers and they produced 4 independent channels when I played Boxed.
A few years back I installed a BluRay player and a 5.1 soundbar in my living room. I use the BluRay as a CD player and played Lotus. The music moved from speaker to speaker around the room. I have some SACDs with a 4.0 or 5.1 layer that play in perfect balance on the soundbar from the BluRay.
If you enjoy Santana, Lotus is an amazing and recommended listen.
@@Vince_Tasciotti interesting
SONY Japan and Vocalion UK have released a lot of Quad LPs remastered in SACD 4.0 mixes over the years. I recommend Miles Davis' Bitches Brew in quad, it's a totally different experience!
They go back to the quad master tapes when available, or from the best copy of a quad LP they can manage to find when the original sources are lost.
I just got the BB SACD a few weeks ago - your recommendation is spot on!
@@TheMusicAddict And for all Quand lovers around, you might want to track down a TASCAM MU-40 (there were a few NOS on eBay that I missed recently) to display 4 VU Meters of pure Quad enjoyment.
The MU-40 has 8 inputs to you can also use it for 7.1 setups.
Great video! Have you played the quad vinyl version of STEELY DAN: CAN'T BUY A THRILL? Hear some tracks are a little different, as I discovered when I heard the quad version of INDIAN RESERVATION by THE RAIDERS on SA-CD. Also, what about quad on 8-track tapes? I am dying to hear SHIRLEY BASSEY: LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL that way. Noice that so many quad titles have also hit audio-only Blu-ray and Super Audio CD. Hope you get to listen to more of them down the line.
If you don't have a multichannel input receiver, just use 2 two channel receivers, or 2 two channel amplifiers.. Just put the two front channel outputs into one receiver or amplifier and the two rear channel outputs into the other receiver or amplifier. For that matter you could use four monaural (one channel) amplifiers from the 1950's by just feeding each of the four channel outputs into one of the four amplifiers. Of course you need four speakers.
I used 2 stereo amps in my system. As long as you have four amplifiers and speakers it works perfectly.
@@frankowalker4662 I agree, get two stereo amps (I don't call them receivers - those are radios). You have a better chance of finding two awesome matched top end stereo amps - Quad amps were probably not made to the same perfection of stereo amps to reduce cost. These days, you can gang the voumes together on two stereo amps with servos - like on high end mixing boards.
@@paulromsky9527 My set-up had two identicle 70 watt Fountain stereo amps, (one on top of the other), with matching speakers. The top amp being used as the input selector, master volume and front amp with the bottom one just the rear amp. My Majestic Demodulator has depth and seperation control, four push buttons Mono/Stereo/Ambience/Quad and a joystick for the balance. It sounded fantastic. I still have the De-mod but I'm not allowed to use it anymore. The neighbors ganged up on me. LOL.
@@frankowalker4662 Nice set-up. I never went Quad. I play bass so I am content with stereo, bass tends to be omnidirectional and most people can't detect the source spot in the image. I hear you on the neighbors... I used to live on 3/4 acre and played through two Morley Wahs... it muddied the sound to virtually pure sine waves... I rattled not only my windows but my neighbors too.
@@paulromsky9527 When I had it all set up properly in the 80's-90's I did'nt have any neighbors close by, but in 1997 I moved into a back to back terraced house with only one brick width seperation between all the walls.
You can hear when someone sneezes. LOL
Superb channel here, sub'd ! I'm about to purchase a surround master so fun times ahead. As you would be aware, I love finding new mixes or often completely different 'takes' of a song on a quad album. This happened quite often on CD-4 releases, Bette Midler, David Gates & Barbra Streisand albums come to mind.
Thank you so much for the kind words! And I completely agree on the joys of hearing new mixes or a completely different perspective on an album that you already know really well.
Great video. I always thought quadraphonic was either a mix of channels and phase shift, or a second high frequency carrier with other channels... so I guess it was both.
Sounds like you need two turntables: one for mono/stereo/QS/SQ and one for CD4 (why swap cartridges all time) and SQ, QS, and CD4 decoders and two stereo amps (to me a receiver is a radio not an amplifier). I would use two high end stereos and gang the volume knobs with servos.
Question. If I played a stereo vinyl record through as QS or SQ decoder, I would not expect to hear anything in the rear channels, but I bet pops and crackles would somehow decode and there would be some artifact of them in the rear channels. Am I correct? If so, could that be used to post process a recording to monitor the rear channels and then remove that noise from the 2 channel source by nulling it out?
You'll actually hear plenty in the rear channels when you play a stereo LP through a QS or SQ decoder. The results will depend on the source material, but you'll always hear something. Now with mono LPs, they'll do pretty much exactly what you said: you get most of the clicks and pops in the rears but none of the music.
@@TheMusicAddict Thanks. I learned a lot from your video. I always found it fascinating how stereo came from one groove. As you know (but for other readers), the Left + Right are encoded in the side to side (horizontal) displacement of the groove and the Left - Right is encoded in the up and down (vertical) displacement of the groove - when the groove gets narrower it pushes the needle up and when the groove gets wider the needle drops. So, when the needle moves diagonally in one direction that is pure Left information, and when the needle moves diagonally in the other direction that is pure Right information. Very clever to use Sine and Cosine in this. If you look at a cartridge that uses coils, you may see tiny cores not mounted on the side and on top, but at a V shape diagonally from each other, that is where the decoding is done - mechanical placement of the pickup coils.
Bass is often very dynamic (loud range) and in both channels, on LPs this would cause a very wide horizontal displacement of the groove and cause the needle to jump - that is skip inward or outward (as well as take more space on the record and limit its play time). The same is true for the vertical displacement because if the bass is panned to one channel, it could cause the needle to "jump" up and cause cut outs in the sound. So, the bass on all LPs is cut down a few dBs to prevent that, thus all stereo amplifiers for phonographs boost the bass to compensate for this (that is, when the Bass control is set to 0 dB normal). It's kind of opposite for Dolby Noise Reduction on tape where the treble is boosted on the magnetic fields so when the Dobly circuit attenuates (cuts) the high frequencies to cut the hiss noise, the treble info is cut as well but back to the desired levels.
My father used to have Quad recordings but on tape, real player from Phillips. 4 MFB Phillips speakers also. No LP's.
He was a sound engineer in that time.
My Kenwood KSQ-20 still works without any problems.. and I still love it.
Great video. The original Surround Master is probably the only thing I own that I will never sell. I'm dying for the V3, it's done some amazing things to my music, to me it fleshes out some of the details lost playing just in stereo, just amazing
This, 100%!
I have a Panasonic SE-405 CD-4 decoder that I feed into a Sony receiver that has 5.1 inputs (I have a Yamaha HTR-5830) as a backup). I also have a Akai 400-dss open reel). My SQ decoder is gone (smoked), but I used to play my Laserdisc movies thru it and saw some 'interesting' effects the mix engineers did not consider when flipping POV.
+1 on Tomita (I have 2 in CD-4 and a few more in open reel)
I have a Marantz 4400 with an onboard decoder. Could I run digital audio into the CD 4 channel? Would that work?
You could, with caveats. The audio would have to be a high enough sample rate to leave the carrier signal in tact. The audio would also have to not have the RIAA EQ curve applied to it. But otherwise, it would work just fine.
So when a quad mix LP is reissued on CD, is the quad encoding still in one of the three major formats described in this video, or is a more CD-friendly encode like Dolby Surround used? Or is it all over the place.
For the record, as a high school student in the early 1970s, I could only afford a relatively simple stereo system with bookshelf speaker. One day, the neighbor invited me over to hear their new quad setup. It was like the room opened up. I still remember it from 50 years ago. Wow.
Unless it’s a DTS CD, it’s always going to be the matrixed version, as the Red Book CD spec doesn’t allow for multichannel CD’s. The DTS CDs will try to find a discrete 5.1 source or the album will be remixed, but sometimes the matrixed quad masters are all they have.
You can decode the matrixed quad through any receiver that uses “Dolby Surround” or the first generation of Pro-Logic. I’d avoid Pro-Logic II; it doesn’t work anywhere near as well.
The matrixed formats SQ and QS actually were used as the basis of Dolby Stereo and by extension, Dolby Surround.
I could not have said it better as an old Quad collector (quadraphonic Quest)
Thank you very much!
i picked up a couple of CD-4 records and i'm excited to try out the stereo lab software you mentioned. really curious to see if my equipment is capable of picking up that 30khz carrier. i will have to get those tomita records!
I think that ISAO TOMITA recorded a quadraphonic album called Bermuda Triangle on RCA records RED Label but I have one quadraphonic album Dark Side Of The Moon. just wondering can I decode SQ4 or SACD on the YAMAHA RX-V485, I have played SACD discs using DOLBY NEO.6 Film
There were also CDs with Dolby Surround, so you would get surround sound with a device with Dolby ProLogic, which probably all home theater receivers and home theater amplifiers had in the 90s. Then came Dolby ProLogic 2, which would provide stereo sound even in the Surround channels
My VHS videotape of The Who's TOMMY had the Dolby Stereo 4 channel Quad mix, which properly decoded in my old Dolby Video "Stereo-Surround" preamp. (decoder )
The BluRay remixed to 5.1, but it retains the Original Quad mix with a Subwoofer signal thrown in, as an Audio Option.
I have a Surround Master v1 and a v2,
I use two receivers one for front channels and the other for the rear channels since I don't have a quad amp.
QS records can be decoded pretty accurately with a Dolby pro-logic 2 receiver.
I don't play my quad albums much anymore since I have Sacd, dvda and blu-ray quad and 5.1.
My newest receiver has Dolby Atmos but I've never added the extra speakers.
Some music was WRITTEN for quadraphonic. For example: Columbia MQ-31289 (SQ) / MAQ-31289 (Q8) The Columbia Brass Ensemble: Antiphonal Music for Four Brass Choirs recorded by Andrew Kazdin in the legendary Basilica di San Marco in Venice, Italy.
I remember this in the 1970s....I made my own Quad System out of my wards/airline stereo....it worked great 👍. .it is not the record it is the equipment you use
A good friend was and is a quad nut. Best tracks he played for me: Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondels (rare, 8 track only) and Frankenstein by The Edgar Winter Group. (Of course I like goofy effects where sounds swirl around the soundstage like a roller coaster.)
In 1972 my boss showed me his surround sound system in his living room. He explained that this was by the rear speakers being a half second behind the front speakers. Don’t remember the make of his system but all his equipment was super high end and very expensive in it’s day.
I own a PIONEER VSA 740 Pro logic amplifier. What I have noticed is that some cd's have quad properties to. For instance The Immaculate Collection by Madonna. It sounds really very good in pro-logic; far better than in standard stereo. Mono will only play thru the centre speakers. You already mentioned Pink Floyd, Dark Side Of The Moon sounds great on Dolby Pro-logic!
The Immaculate Collection is an interesting one to bring up - it was mixed in QSound, which was designed to get sort of a 3D soundfield out of two speakers. I've found that these recordings decode exceptionally well in QS, even though there's no technical relation to QSound. I really like Sting's "The Soul Cages" (another QSound recording) decoded through my Surround Master.
Have you had any expierence with the Sony SQD 2020 ?
I remember the excitement when quad came on market. However, two factors crippled the market. It made more sense to buy 2 double quality speakers at twice the price than 4 at half quality and price. Also, high end speakers had a sound stage that rivaled the quad systems. Two ears do not necessarily get excited about 4 sound sources. I am thrilled with the sound stage of my magneplanars and my great used find of a carver amp. Oddly, that amp was marketed for its sonic holography technology which also died a natural death. I leave the feature turned off.
I only ever encountered one Quadraphonic format Vinyl record, Ten Years After's, A Space In Time. I saw it frequently in the early 80's Even today I still encounter this Lp in vinyl dollar bins, 2nd hand stores and pawn shops. I am sure "A Space In Time" is the most common quadraphonic record since I never encountered another quad Lp except that one.
Great video dude thanx
When you were dishing out the QS formula I kept thinking this who sound better in the style of Tom Lehrer's "New Math". In fact I was actually singing the chorus to that song by the time you finished it. I heard two Lps in Quadraphonic sound at a friends house his dad had a nice setup with a receiver that had a built in quad decoder (Pioneer QX-949). Three years ago I found a early to mid 70's Panasonic all in one stereo (played quad records & 8-Track) that had quadraphonic decoder built in, and I wanted to buy it. However I was broke until payday, and by the time I had the money it was already sold. The thing was in excellent condition (just needed a new stylus.)
The other interesting thing about SQ is the fact you can record the Quad record, (in stereo) onto any other stereo format, (reel to reel/cassette/CD) and still get the full quad mix back again when you play it through a Decoder. I sampled a Quad test record into my Amiga computer, and when I played it back the seperation was perfect. (even if the sound quality was'nt. LOL)
I have 3 LP's in Quad; Black Sabbath Paranoid, Blue Oyster Cult Tyranny And Mutation and Deep Purple Stormbringer. I picked them up in a used record store and enjoy what seems to be a different mix of the albums. I still lean towards my stereo LP versions though.
My understanding is that regular matrix QS works owing to the psychoacoustics and open room setup. Even of the math shows the channels are not separated well enough such that the perceived Front and Back separation would not be good if you wear headphones with one ear for F the other for B. But the fact that your right ear will have a direct path to the RF speaker and also LF speaker; they'll cancel out the back speaker's in them coming from the front direction.
I.e. the math shows poor separation in RF, LF, RB, LB signals but when you sit in a room with two ears - the additional superposition affects the perception. I'd love to see a detailed math of signal and perception.
I still have a few DTS cd's. Works quite well, but in the end I prefer stereo for music.
O, talking about mono in the beginning. All my kids have a Bluetooth speaker to listen to, and those are mono as well, so back were we started from.
I was just at a store today that had a few hundred Quad LPs, with a few DBX LPs among them and they only wanted $5.00 to $7.00, which is impressive, esp. since some of the titles were from name artists. Some were also unopened. The same store is also about to open a tapes section in a few months, so we'll see what happens.
The Quad LP's were a novelty at best, they just never worked that great or sounded that good. If you were serious about QUAD, you had Quad Open Real Tapes or Quad 8-Track Tape Cartridges. The tapes had 4 channels of discreet sound, no decoding needed, just a 4 channel receiver/amp. My Dad's Lincoln had a factory Quadrasonic 8-Track Cartridge player that was actually really fun. Never heard a Quad LP that worked anywhere near as good as the tapes did. Price? Well, just like multi-channel SACD, DVD and Blu-Ray audio discs today, it was stupid expensive, but it was never meant for the masses, it was a specialty product out-the-gate. Kinda like 3D TV's and Blu-Ray players.
I have the quad 8 track in my '77 Mark V Cartier...my favorite option in the car.
Crazy herbie album in the bg:) Bennie maupin
You could probably do a whole episode just like this on the "modern" formats: DTS, AC3, SACD & DVD-V and DVD-A. I suppose if you HAD to you could include Blu Ray for the 4 people who have BluRay HD Audio players.
I just might, on all the above! I love surround in pretty much any form I can consume it!
At that point you're looking at a history of codecs as well as formats. Except for SACD, which does its own weird thing that is entirely incompatible with everything else. And kind of dumb. You could do a whole episode on why SACD is a very silly thing.
Also have to cover the eternal endurance of MP3. The technology has been obsoleted several times over, and yet it always remains popular because it's the only codec with universal support and has immense cultural recognition.
'The four people who have BluRay HD Audio players,' make that everyone who has a BD player, including in their consoles starting with the PS3. BD Audio shares a standard with BD movies and thus is fully compatible with standard BD players.
@@DFX4509B Fantastic, however irrespective of the topic. Blu-Ray never caught on like DVD did and is already on the way out. Market penetration in the US barely hit 49% at it's peak in 2020 and has dropped ever since. Several manufacturers have already stopped producing Blu-Ray equipment.
@@That_AMC_Guy Meanwhile BDs unless you can stream both 4K or 8K video and DTHD/DTS-HD Master audio in one stream now, still have that lossless audio trick up their sleeve by support of the aforementioned DTHD and DTS-HD Master codecs, and I don't see AVRs getting replaced outright by soundbars any time soon.
CD 4 actually used the same tactics as FM stereo. You can use stereo FM circuits to decode it. FM stereo uses a 19KHz pilot, 38 KHz suppressed carrier double sideband for L - R to matrix with L + R for stereo. CD 4 used 2 FM composite detectors, one for left, one for right. Pilot tone is 15KHz, scdsb of 30KHz instead of 38. You could use 2 FM stereo radios to do CD 4. That's one for left, one for right. That's 2 composite front / rear outputs. CD 4 can only do to maybe 12.5KHz frequency response due to the composite pilot of 15K anything higher for intentional uses would cause other distortion and undertones from audio frequency encroaching on the pilot tone.
Dolby surround couldn't do better 😎
Nothing says "1970's" more than the thumbnail for this video; the turntable platter with the strobe markings. In the 1970's as a kid, I dreamed of owing something like that. As an adult, I have to suffer with a nice turntable and a strobe mat. I am familiar with the various quad LP formats but had experience with Quad RTR tapes in that era.
If you have the Immersion Box Set of Dark Side of the Moon. You get a Blu-Ray with the Alan Parsons Quad Mix. It does not appear to be on the 50th boxset.
I never bothered with the Quad LPs but have a 4-channel Moody Blues tape.
What about the Dynaco Quadaptor!
Cheap and effective.
Talk about quad 8 tracks next!
The SQ equations make no sense to me. How come Lt and Rt don't appear anywhere in the decoding equations? I'd expect the decoded signals to be equal to some expressions involving the encoded ones. Very confused!
How well or bad do SQ and QS records sound when played through modern Dolby Surround or DTS Neo decoders? Have you tried that? The matrices are not quite the same, but the same can be said about playing SQ through QS or the other way around, which you have touched on.
I haven't tried it much myself because I have the Surround Master, but theoretically QS recordings should decode nicely via Dolby Surround. SQ? Probably not so well.
I've tried playing my SQ and QS LPs through my receiver (DTS Neo, Dobly etc) and while they give "interesting" effects after about half an hour they start to becoming fatiguing. I think from the quad forum you have to have a receiver that does good old fashion Dolby Pro Logic to play SQ LPs. The real advantage with the surround master is what it does to stereo in "involve mode", it's simply amazing! I now listen to all my music with the surround master, great stereo image in front and really nice surround effects behind.
I have a NAD masters series preamp which includes all the modern surround sound/digital modes, and one of them (I forget which one) is directly compatible with SQ. I tried it once about a decade ago and it worked!
I have a Marantz CD-400B demodulator. Playing a Sansui calibration disc, it works perfectly,
but only one of the few CD-4 LPs I have (Judy Collins - Colours Of The Day) comes out clean.
The rest produce terrible breakup and distortion. Since all of them were used records I bought on the cheap,
they could have been damaged by improper playback equipment, or maybe they were defective right off the presses.
I have this same demodulator but have yet to drop the money on the proper stylus and cartridge, and until this video didn’t realize I’d need a calibration disc.
@@danieldaniels7571 Yes. Fortunately I got one with the unit.
Some CD-4 demods have 4 controls to adjust.
The CD-400B has only two, but if they aren't set correctly it won't work right.
Can the Surround Master decode CD-4 LPs? Thank you for this video! It is most informative and inspiring! I immediately subscribed to your channel!
Unfortunately, it can't. I know that the folks at Involve Audio have looked into the possibility of making a CD-4 demodulator, but I don't think that it made financial sense for them to pursue. You either need to go the vintage route, or you need to try the Stereo Lab software (which works great!).
How is it possible to shift a signal by 90 degrees over a wide band of frequencies?
Whats about Dynaquad and EV-4 Stereo ....
These formats are also included
British label PYE records released a lot in the QS format. Mostly orchestras.
Thanks.
Back in the day I bought Pink Floyd quad albums to listen to different mixes in stereo. Interesting, if expensive exercise.
What is Phase 4 Stereo LP's ? I have a few of these and how do they differ from all the formats mentioned in this video ?
The name "Phase 4" certainly implies quadraphonic, but their releases are stereo only. So misleading!
CD as the name for an LP format? Ha! In addition to a specialty cartridge/stylus for CD-4, low capacitance cables should be used. Some of JVC's turntables, like the model VL-5 I had, came with low capacitance cables, and the CD-4 logo was on the dust cover.
Guess I might have cheated... Not particularly satisfied with SQ or QS I opted for four channel reel-to-reel tape. The separation is superior and set-up is no more than adjusting the volume controls. Built a Heathkit four channel amp in the process. About $400 in 1980 prices.
I use two Sound bars...that are placed in different areas.... they work great....I have two different types of sound
So its used similar matrix encoding as Dolby Surround. Or at least Dolby SR on 35mm Prints.
6:25 You should explain what phase shifting is...just for fun to confuse the youth....lol
I do have a quad setup and have been building a collection of multiple media options, r2r and records. I would love an in depth explanation of how the information for 4 channels are stored in a single groove. If anyone has answers other than the jacket explanation, I would love to hear how all of the information is stored in a single groove.
I have a copy of dark side-Pink floyd,not sure IF IS "SQ" or "QS"?
BTW,My DSM,was same price as non Quad lp.
The vast majority of DSotM quad LPs were SQ. From what I can determine, the only other version was catalog number EMZ-82005 from Japan. All of those copies have the text "Channel RM Sound" on the top right, where RM = Regular Matrix, which is another name for QS.