AEL Matrix Decoder

[Soundfield]

As a follow up to the posts on rare decoders earlier this year ( https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...dro-power-amplifier-decoder.26028/post-411107 ) and in a brief moment of welcome respite away from the family over these long days of the Christmas holiday (!) I was idly flipping through my copy of the famous HiFi News & Record Review seminal quad tome of March 1975:

when I noticed an advert for another one of those obscure matrix decoders from specialist manufacturers that popped up every so often, but no one ever seemed to own:

Acoustico Enterprises Ltd was a small UK manufacturer that has long since disappeared. Their SQSD1 decoder was a dual format SQ / QS decoder, but I can find absolutely no information on it at all. Did it ever even make it to market? I have the impression that a lot of these decoders were advertised rather speculatively by small manufactures in order to judge the market interest, if any, before going into full scale production. At a huge price tag of £165 (ex VAT) in 1975 (about £1,400 today!) I suspect few people were willing to take a risk on such a thing from a less than well known company. Would like to see inside one though!

 

[kfbkfb]

IIRC, the article in that issue about the QS Matrix system calls QS "discrete",
I'm surprised the other Quad format proponents (UD-4, SQ, CD-4) didn't
call them out for that statement.


Kirk Bayne

 

[A/V SQuad]

I saw the title of this thread and held my breath until I discovered that this was not the product of my first post college employer, that long defunct manufacturer of mediocre Cable TV, FM transmitter and other hardware, American Electronic Labs!

 

[The Quadfather]

So what you're saying is it probably wasn't all they say it was. That would explain why I have never heard of it. If it was all that, it would have had it's own thread in QQ. Nice looking piece though.

I saw the title of this thread and held my breath until I discovered that this was not the product of my first post college employer, that long defunct manufacturer of mediocre Cable TV, FM transmitter and other hardware, American Electronic Labs!