Can I listen to a Quad mix on a standard 5.1 or Atmos equipment?

[Zooboo]

Hi there,

I'm new here on the QQ forums and I'm just discovering the joy of spatial audio. I'm scrolling the Surround Polls looking for new music to add to my spatial collection. I'm seeing a fair number of titles marked as "Quad".

Now I wonder if a Quad mix works on a standard 5.1 or Atmos equipment? Can I achieve a sound close to "Pure Quad" if I disable the Center channel on a 5.1 audio system?

Thank you for your help!

Eric

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Hi there,

I'm new here on the QQ forums and I'm just discovering the joy of spatial audio. I'm scrolling the Surround Polls looking for new music to add to my spatial collection. I'm seeing a fair number of titles marked as "Quad".

Now I wonder if a Quad mix works on a standard 5.1 or Atmos equipment? Can I achieve a sound close to "Pure Quad" if I disable the Center channel on a 5.1 audio system?

Thank you for your help!

Eric

You dont need to disable the center channel to play quad on a 5.1 system. But to play 5.1 as quad you do need to disable the center and LFE channels.

There is an issue where some newer equipment doesn't recognize true quad (4.0) and defaults to stereo playback, thereby losing 2 channels of information. It's all equipment dependant, so you'll need to check yours. Start here:

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...ecode-4-0-pcm-mlp-recordings-over-hdmi.26998/

 

[jimfisheye]

The 4 corner channels are still the quad channels. Quad plays on a 7.1.4 Atmos system 1:1 and the extra speakers are simply silent.

Caveats:
Some hardware players and software media players will not handle anything in between 2.0 and 5.1 correctly. Lazy programming...
Workaround: Put 4.0 to a 5.1 'container' with silent extra channels.

There's a big old screw up with 5.1 originally having two different formats. That leads to the rear channels in 5.1 getting played out the side channels in a 7.1.x system. This can be a PITA and some people even swap speaker cables between formats to deal with it. Easier with computer based hi-fi to setup for to switch between.

Ultimately you can have a 7.1.4 system that plays every format strictly 1:1 as it was mixed to be heard. Just a couple software hiccups to deal with depending on your choice of setup.