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.

 

[SomethingAnything]

I really enjoy playing my stereo, Quad and 5.1 albums through my 5.1.4 Atmos system. I have a new Yamaha AVR and I use the Auro 3D selection. I find that the heart of the original mix/remix remains, and, through Auro 3D, the other speakers tastefully enhance the listening experience.

 

[barfle]

My 5.1 system plays quad recordings quite nicely.

I’m setting up 5.1.4 with a Marantz 7706, and if you don’t have a 7.1 bed, it drops the back channels and folds them into the sides. Huh?

My analog quad decoders are switched into the four corner speakers, just as JVC, Sony, and God intended. Digital quad sources played through my Oppo 105 play in all four corners as well.

 

[rmorit01]

On my system I do exactly that I switch the configuration from 5.1 to 4.0.

My equipment is a newer Denon AVR-2800H. I use an oppo 203 for Blu-ray quaddio mixes.

Oppo is HDMI to the Denon. The Denon allows for two sets of speakers configurations with different audessy corrections applied.

My front/rear speakers are Epicure M202 configured as 4 full range for quad.. I use an M&K center channel as it matches the 4 ohm rating of the EPIs and I use a home brewed subwoofer for the 5.1 configuration

Prior to setting a 4.0 configuration Blu-ray 4 channel would have the Denon using 5.1 so the center channel and subwoofer was used. I came from vintage Sansui Quad receivers so this setup works for me.

Though for pure stereo and turntable use i use a dedicated two channel receiver and another set of epicure model 5s and a separate subwoofer to manage the crossover.

Bob

 

[mandrix]

Because a variety of AVR's / Receivers don't playback pure 4.0 correctly due to the media chips installed, these days commercial releases (few but exist) of Quad usually employ a silent C and/or Lfe channel for compatibility.
Many of us have old rips of pure Quad channel, and along the way some devices, as said above, would only playback as stereo.

Otherwise it's easy enough to take a 4 channel song and add a silent C and and/or Lfe with Music Media Helper (free here on the forum) for compatibility or do it manually with a DAW or other apps.

Some years back I found my self authored DVD-A Quad discs refused to play more than stereo when I changed AVR's. Adding at minimum a silent C channel solved it.

 

[Nyad]

Specifically in my case I had an old Onkyo TX-NR609 which played the Pink Floyd Quad mixes of DSOTM &WYWH, from the blu-rays, then when I upgraded to a Sony STR-DN1080 it would not (it defaulted to stereo losing the rears)

 

[mandrix]

Specifically in my case I had an old Onkyo TX-NR609 which played the Pink Floyd Quad mixes of DSOTM &WYWH, from the blu-rays, then when I upgraded to a Sony STR-DN1080 it would not (it defaulted to stereo losing the rears)

I Had a NR609 myself. My next was a NR656 and that's when the quad problem started. I had thought the DVD-A authoring program had went wonky on me until I discovered about the changes in media chips.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Once the issue was discovered, for the life of me I can't understand why it never became a standard practice to include silent CC and LFE channels on classic Quad reissues. Some releases do, some don't, some do a 5.0 release. What could it possibly hurt to release them in a 5.1 file format. I've heard the codecs they use can compress a silent channel down to near nothing, so it's not a question of storage space. It doesn't hurt the Quad purist regarding playback. Are they afraid people will be confused by a 4.0 soundtrack and an AVR saying it's playing 5.1? If so, they have badly misjudged thier target market.

When I rip Quadio I add the silent channels. I'm certain from that point onward the files will play back properly regardless of the playback equipment. The gear I use today has no problem with 4.0., but what about future gear?

 

[jimfisheye]

The surprise is more the laziness in following format spec. 4.0 was never deprecated. Obviously it got forgotten about and then followed by not tested because no one had an 'older' quad recording among the test files. Whatever happened, here we are looking right at it! If there's widespread use of some preprogrammed chip with errant code, well that's pretty special.

Shouldn't have to work around it... but broken products still abound. Some software media players too! So it's probably lazy programming case to case. Anyway it's an easy enough fix and the quad in 5.1 with silent channels doesn't have any downside. Flac makes those silent channels take zero more space. No risk of weird play in some rogue media player.

There's a quick command in ffmpeg. You could blast through a whole music archive folder with one command if you wanted to. The command is "-ac 6". It puts 4.0 or 4.1 files to 5.1 correctly. Careful with command line and entire media libraries! Backups are nice, etc.

 

[mandrix]

Once the issue was discovered, for the life of me I can't understand why it never became a standard practice to include silent CC and LFE channels on classic Quad reissues. Some releases do, some don't, some do a 5.0 release. What could it possibly hurt to release them in a 5.1 file format. I've heard the codecs they use can compress a silent channel down to near nothing, so it's not a question of storage space. It doesn't hurt the Quad purist regarding playback. Are they afraid people will be confused by a 4.0 soundtrack and an AVR saying it's playing 5.1? If so, they have badly misjudged thier target market.

When I rip Quadio I add the silent channels. I'm certain from that point onward the files will play back properly regardless of the playback equipment. The gear I use today has no problem with 4.0., but what about future gear?

Yes good question. I have no idea if my current AVR has problems with true 4 channel or not. I probably have some pure quad .iso rips but I'm not going to dig through them.
Easy enough to strip out extra channels, but not sure it's worth the bother for me just to test.
The manufacturers do what they want. I'm sure a lot of engineers just think "4 channel is dead" so why bother? It's like the genius idea of some AVR's to playback Quadio (5.1 really, with empty C/Lfe) using all available base speakers, e.g., 5.1 playing as 7.1 unless some aspect of speaker calibrations are bypassed by using either Pure Audio or Direct audio modes.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Unfortunately, these solutions do not help those who play discs exclusively.

 

[mandrix]

Unfortunately, these solutions do not help those who play discs exclusively.

What kind of quad discs do you have?
Been a few years since I authored any quad DVD-A but I always put in at minimum a silent C channel.
If talking about matrixed LP's I don't know what to do other than extract the channels and author a disc with silent C and/or Lfe channels. I don't know anything about authoring BD's, just DVDA and SACD.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Purchased commercial discs. I believe Quadio Bluerays are formated as 4.0 24/192 with no silent channels.

 

[mandrix]

Purchased commercial discs. I believe Quadio Bluerays are formated as 4.0 24/192 with no silent channels.

I believe they are all 5.1 with two silent channels.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I believe they are all 5.1 with two silent channels.

Im pretty sure that when I rip them I have to add silents via MMH.

 

[mandrix]

Im pretty sure that when I rip them I have to add silents via MMH.

Hmm. Well I play most things off the pc with PowerDVD. I don't believe it compensates for channel arrangements. Let me check something.

 

[mandrix]

I just checked the output from my AVR whilst playing one of the recent Alice Cooper Quadio's, and it indeed says 4.0 input. Having no need to rip beyond .iso all I can assume is my AVR has no problems playing 4.0.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I just checked the output from my AVR whilst playing one of the recent Alice Cooper Quadio's, and it indeed says 4.0 input. Having no need to rip beyond .iso all I can assume is my AVR has no problems playing 4.0.

My gear doesn't either. But if I pass a 4.0 file to my son (Pioneer 7.1 AVR), it plays in stereo with only 2 of the 4 channels.

My point is, why doesn't Rhino format Quadio releases as 5.1? Same issue with quad floyd inside the immersion box sets I believe.