1970s Record Labels' Questionable Quad Release Program

[par4ken]

TEAC made Q4 decks with independently switched record and play of all four channels from the beginning. They added Simul-Sync later. The very fact that they added Simul-Sync shows the home studio was a major market desire. It is not used for Q4 reproduction.

Those decks were not really suitable for home (studio) recording until Simul-Sync was added. That secondary use had absolutely nothing to do with the demise of quad! Q4s were always a very small part of the quad market from the beginning. Quad died because the greedy industry had expected it to boom and when sales were less than expected abandoned the very idea. That applied to all formats not just Q4's. I was still able to buy Stereotape Q4s into the eighties long after supplies of other formats had dried up.

I would suggest that they were available a bit longer because of the popularity of Quad reel decks, even if much of that use was for home recording.

 

[Q-Eight]

That reminds me, I found an article in Billboard a while back about the launch of the Reel Society in mid-1976 that has some good info about how it got started.

I got kind of excited at the sentence that said "Three John Denver albums, and Tomita's "Snowflakes are Dancing," possibly in quad, arrive from RCA." but I think what they mean is three John Denver albums in stereo, and the Tomita album in stereo and possibly quad - though I guess the possibility exists that RCA was sitting on some unreleased John Denver quad mixes, given how popular he was in that era, and the only Poems, Prayers and Promises was released on Q8.

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THREE John Denver titles???? Man, somebody get on the Horn to Mr. Dutton. Those should be found!!

 

[4-earredwonder]

My Mother had the album "Sing Along with Mitch", I still have it somewhere. It is one of those that I never ever liked.

By the time of SQ there was a lot of rock on Columbia Records. Many of the biggest names in fact. The best selection in the Quad era came from CBS (Columbia/Epic)!



I don't really fault Capitol too much, they just took a bit slower approach, largely missing the bus. Sadly it was a bus that ended up going nowhere. There were a lot of rock Q8's released on Capitol. Why so reluctant to release popular titles in SQ might just have been a bad management decision. They wanted to see how quad and the format war would shape up, then an impatient industry destroyed the very idea before it was given a half a chance!

The more popular SQ albums that did get released (EMI Canada) like Mandingo III, John Keating Incorporated Hits In HiFi and Space Experience were fantastic!

Again, I state, that unlike Columbia and RCA who basically owned the patents on SQ and CD~4, respectively, Capitol would've had to pay licensing fees to produce SQ/CD~4 discs so chose the Q8 route instead, which, BTW, was discrete [no decoders necessary] and probably incurred no further licensing fees!

 

[par4ken]

Again, I state, that unlike Columbia and RCA who basically owned the patents on SQ and CD~4, respectively, Capitol would've had to pay licensing fees to produce SQ/CD~4 discs so chose the Q8 route instead, which, BTW, was discrete [not matrix encoded] and probably incurred no further licensing fees!

I don't think that licensing fees would deter a large label like Capitol. And Capitol did release some SQ encoded records. Capitol was part of the EMI group which also released a lot of SQ in Europe. EMI (Capitol's) classical label released SQ records well into the eighties.

If licensing fees were an issue they could have went with QS without using the logo like ABC did. I still don't get what Sansui was thinking that it's ok to use their encoder if you don't advertise the fact!

Discrete sources were crying out to be matrix encoded to permit LP release and FM radio airplay!

 

[4-earredwonder]

I don't think that licensing fees would deter a large label like Capitol. And Capitol did release some SQ encoded records. Capitol was part of the EMI group which also released a lot of SQ in Europe. EMI (Capitol's) classical label released SQ records well into the eighties.

If licensing fees were an issue they could have went with QS without using the logo like ABC did. I still don't get what Sansui was thinking that it's ok to use their encoder if you don't advertise the fact!

Discrete sources were crying out to be matrix encoded to permit LP release and FM radio airplay!

Well, you're correct and Capitol's Classical division, EMI/ANGEL did release a veritable 'slew' of SQ encoded discs .... but unfortunately, the pressings at the time were atrocious, IMO. Kept returning them for replacements which still manifested ticks/pops to the MAX!

And ironically, at the time, Classical labels Philips and DGG recorded Quadraphonically but NEVER released SQ/CD~4 VINYL ... until a few years ago when classical label Pentatone finally released them on QUAD SACD from DGG/Philip's analogue QUAD masters!