Chicago Quadio - 9 Quad Albums on Blu-ray Audio.

[blue.monk]

I listened to some of the stereo tracks on Chicago II this afternoon. Side two definitely has some issues and sounds even worse than the redbook CD. I wouldn't say that side 2 on the Blu-ray is all out mono, but the stereo separation is definitely minimal.

Yeah, after comparing it to the vinyl it sounds like all of Side 2 has the left channel doubled rather than a fold down or narrowing of the stereo. One big clue is "Colour My World". The stereo has drums leaning left so with left channel in both speakers the drums become far too hot. The same flaw occurs for that track on the Greatest Hits disc (IX). Hopefully Rhino will make corrected discs. I'll send them a note.

 

[Cibola]

I have now tested my system with my fronts and center set to "small" and with my fronts and center set to "large."
In both cases the sub was somewhat active, but not goin crazy or anything and the bass level was great. Is there a particular album folks are complaining about?
I did my tests on Chicago V, Saturday in the Park.

With respect to 4.0 discs including the AF SACD's, this is what I've been fiddling with for months. If I set the fronts to Small and use the Mutichannel setting on my modest Onkyo AVR the subwoofer is definitely active and with some discs but not all, sounds a bit boomy other times very good. I've also tried setting both the fronts and surrounds (5.1 here) to large using the Direct setting and can often but not always get decent sounding bass. Only in a rare occasion with a disc that I can't recall was I concerned about abusing my relatively small fronts and surrounds when set to Large. I would be interested to hear from those with legacy quad setups, just how much low frequency stuff they get from their surrounds or rear speakers and how large the woofers are. Is it possible that there are limiters of some sort with the newer and smaller speakers that prevent them from exceeding their capabilities? And I wonder if my perception is biased based on the incredible wall shaking effect, mostly with movies and discs like the DSOTM Blu-ray (Imaginary Day too) that can be had with LFE and just a single twelve inch sub.

 

[Robert van Diggele]

Have you ever used Audiomuxer? It makes stuff like that very simple. You may need the arcsoft dts ma files to get it going but other than that, it is a simple process. Flac wrapper is for dts. You want a flac file with the full 24/192.

I use Audiomuxer too, but mainly to convert direct stream demux files I extracted with dvd audio extractor. It is at the conversion stage in Audiomuxer that I get troiubles sometimes with these DTS files.

 

[holland123]

Ok guys here's the deal, these discs are mastered for true Quad. Which means 4 Full range speakers! There should be no center and No Lfe channels. C'mon Quadraphonic quad we know this stuff, its quad 101. All of the complaints about this set have really been complaints about people's own music playback systems. The bottom line is that so called bass mgmt is the real problem with discs like this played back on blu-ray. (With dvd-audio you couldn't have this problem but I seem to remember some bitching about lack of bass mgmt. back then too), shhh who said that?. With material like this, on blu-ray, bass mgmt. should be either turned off if possible, or played back through analog outs, where there should be silence in the sub, or simply unplug the sub.

Lets face it, so called bass mgmt. Is a lot like asking a 3 year old to cook you a pizza. God only knows what you'll get and chances are someones getting burned! So bass mgmt really = bullshit. It should really be called bass mismanagement because there actually is no control.

I listened to cta today which is one of my top ten all time deserted island picks. I am a Big fan of their first 7 albums. And the sonics have never been more full with a depth of tone I have not heard on any other release. Yes this completely trumps ( oh shit lets not go there) the previous quadio cta release, no comparison. Beats the gold disc and even the hi rez vinyl rips I've heard, hands down. There are a couple of minor things that I would have adjusted but for the most part it is outstanding. Yes I too like a sub bass channel so thinking about experimenting with a manufactured Lfe from the source material and reburn to dvda. But after only giving the cta disc a serious listen today I know this set is going to be outstanding. Next up will be III. (Skipping II for now cuz the dvda will be hard to top) Very very glad I purchased. And bull moose had it at my door the day after it's release! The moose rocks. Kevin

 

[elroy]

Aargh!!! I went with Amazon Italy because of their low US price, I figured I could wait a week or so longer, but all these great comments have me drooling and regretting going that route.

At least I hope that this means I can expect it the first week of July:

Arriverà 30 giu - 7 lug

My Italian is rusty...glad everyone is enjoying it!

 

[skherbeck]

I've been using AnyDVDHD for decrypting and Audiomuxer "extract audio from Blu-ray" tool for ripping the 192kHz quad streams and having no problems... completely bypasses using DVD-AE. Very Easy! (Finally something easy!)

 

[ar surround]

With respect to 4.0 discs including the AF SACD's, this is what I've been fiddling with for months. If I set the fronts to Small and use the Mutichannel setting on my modest Onkyo AVR the subwoofer is definitely active and with some discs but not all, sounds a bit boomy other times very good. I've also tried setting both the fronts and surrounds (5.1 here) to large using the Direct setting and can often but not always get decent sounding bass. Only in a rare occasion with a disc that I can't recall was I concerned about abusing my relatively small fronts and surrounds when set to Large. I would be interested to hear from those with legacy quad setups, just how much low frequency stuff they get from their surrounds or rear speakers and how large the woofers are. Is it possible that there are limiters of some sort with the newer and smaller speakers that prevent them from exceeding their capabilities? And I wonder if my perception is biased based on the incredible wall shaking effect, mostly with movies and discs like the DSOTM Blu-ray (Imaginary Day too) that can be had with LFE and just a single twelve inch sub.

Daniel,

I use large floor standing speakers for both my fronts and surrounds - dual 12" and 10" side firing woofers. I can tell you with certainty that all of the bass emanates from the front pair. At times with these discs, I have found the bass to be a bit strong but exceptionally clean which allows for easy adjustment with the tone controls. I thought that subwoofers could easily adjust bass response simply by increasing or decreasing its volume. Have you tried moving your subwoofer around the room to find the best location providing the least problem with standing waves? I know that some people use multiple subwoofers to balance out their listening room's bass response. I've heard of people putting one subwoofer in the front and another in the rear. Some even use 4 subwoofers, one in each corner. But these are very expensive solutions.

 

[MarkN]

I've been using AnyDVDHD for decrypting and Audiomuxer "extract audio from Blu-ray" tool for ripping the 192kHz quad streams and having no problems... completely bypasses using DVD-AE. Very Easy! (Finally something easy!)

That's also how I ripped the Chicago Blu-rays. It worked for the stereo and quad tracks with no problems. Before using that approach, I tried demux-ing with DVD Audio Extractor and then converting to flac with audiomuxer. That was failing on several of the tracks from the first album. I didn't try the other discs but switched to using audiomuxer only at that point.

Using audiomuxer and AnyDVDHD, it can be done in one step if you check the 'Load In AudioMuxer And Split In Chapters', 'Rename', 'Re-tag' and 'Export To Flac' boxes on the 'Extract Audio From Blu-ray' screen, then fill in the album artist, album name, year, genre and track names on the screen that pops up after you start the extract process. This creates separate flac files for each track, re-named as the track names, and tagged properly with the album, artist, track, year and genre fields.

Also, on these discs, when you are selecting the MPLS files, all of the discs have two files. The first one is a single track for the entire disc, and the second one has the tracks split into chapters. You want to select the second mpls file to get separate flac files for each track.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

The bottom line is that so called bass mgmt is the real problem with discs like this played back on blu-ray. (With dvd-audio you couldn't have this problem but I seem to remember some bitching about lack of bass mgmt. back then too), shhh who said that?. With material like this, on blu-ray, bass mgmt. should be either turned off if possible, or played back through analog outs, where there should be silence in the sub, or simply unplug the sub.

So bass mgmt really = bullshit. It should really be called bass mismanagement because there actually is no control.

I guess I don't understand and/or agree with your comment. Yes these are 4.0 quad disks, so there is no LFE or center channel. In this case, bass management systems should simply route low bass (based on the crossover frequency selected) to the sub for any front or rear speaker that is set to small. Since there is no LFE channel, this would just be the bass that would normally be reproduced by the FR,FL,RR,RL speakers. If all speakers are set to large, the bass is not routed to the sub and the sub should not be active at all. If you truly do have small speakers which are not capable of low bass output and you turn all bass management off, the low bass will not be reproduced. The small speakers cant reproduce it, and there is no LFE channel, so there should be zero activity from the sub.

On my system I do not use the pre pro's bass management because when playing 5.1 PCM/flac or analog stereo there is no option to allow my pre/pro to perform the above function (unless I want to digitize the analog signal and then re-convert it). So I use a separate stand alone crossover that is inserted between the pre pro and the power amp and set all speakers to large. The bass management is accomplished in the analog domain just before the power amps. The crossover also sends any LFE signal to the sub. This method accomplishes the same thing but is on continuously for all sources, like adding an additional low bass woofer to each speaker.

I know there was some controversy regarding the proper level of the LFE channel from various formats (DVDA, SACD, DVD, etc), and that is discussed elsewhere on this board, but when playing a 4.0 source, I would think most BM systems would get it right.

 

[Cheezmo]

Hang on, in both scenarios I described, wouldn't bass information from the rears be sent to the sub, given bass management?

Yes, I missed that. rears to small you should still get bass to the sub. Sorry for my confusion.

 

[Clint Eastwood]

If you haven't purchased the Chicago set....right now on deepdiscount the price is $124.40 plus $2.99 and with the current promo code PEQUOD you get 10% off..if you don't have to pay tax that brings the total to around $115...HERE...this prom code expires Friday 6/24 at NOON CT

 

[seilerbird]

If you haven't purchased the Chicago set....right now on deepdiscount the price is $124.40 plus $2.99 and with the current promo code PEQUOD you get 10% off..if you don't have to pay tax that brings the total to around $115...HERE...this prom code expires Friday 6/24 at NOON CT

Or you can order it from ImportCDs for $20 less.

http://www.importcds.com/chicago-quadio-box/603497880669

 

[Cibola]

Daniel,

I use large floor standing speakers for both my fronts and surrounds - dual 12" and 10" side firing woofers. I can tell you with certainty that all of the bass emanates from the front pair. At times with these discs, I have found the bass to be a bit strong but exceptionally clean which allows for easy adjustment with the tone controls. I thought that subwoofers could easily adjust bass response simply by increasing or decreasing its volume. Have you tried moving your subwoofer around the room to find the best location providing the least problem with standing waves? I know that some people use multiple subwoofers to balance out their listening room's bass response. I've heard of people putting one subwoofer in the front and another in the rear. Some even use 4 subwoofers, one in each corner. But these are very expensive solutions.

Thanks for the information ar, I'd been wondering about those large surrounds, unfortunately I've never had a chance to hear a true Quad system. You're right, my sub is easily adjusted when necessary which isn't often but up until recently I've played almost exclusively 5.1 DVD-As and SACDs and prefer to listen in Direct mode and the lower frequency stuff from the sub is 99% fine. It has been mentioned fairly recently in another thread that some experience boomy sub issues with (some?) 4.0 SACDs that is caused by a glitch. I need to spend much more time with the Chicago Quadio's that got here Monday, so far have only listened to CTA. My first impression is that I'm very happy to have the set.

 

[peterzach]

For those ordering in Canada and for that matter I think might be best price for others as well, as this comes to $124 Canadian, under $100 for Americans, from this reseller:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01EWGTEGS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A2XT3808H2FW6H&psc=1

 

[jefe1]

I thought the following review of this set was quite interesting for its tidbit(s) of quad history and review of this set so Im pasting it in below. The poster seems to think X did not come from a master tape source and complains about its quality. Interestingly nothing is mentioned about the mono problem on the stereo II and no other reviewer mentions this too.
I don't have my set yet so have not listened.

But, don't companies listen to test discs before they release them? Surely someone would have noticed a problem with the stereo II and had it corrected before it was sent out....

VERY NEARLY PERFECT June 18 2016

By Alexander D. - Published on Amazon.com

Verified Purchase

Great Job in remastering all except for one disc.. (IV, Live At Carnegie, was never released in Quad. Therefore, it is not in this set.)
There are none of the (mostly) extra tracks and alternate takes which Rhino included on the remastered releases of the last decade. There were bonuses on II, and V through X (and most of XI though XX, as well). This, for some, may be an irritation, but, then again, these gems were never originally released, let alone in QUAD! (Thanks to Lee Loughnane's personal oversight of the last decades' Rhino re-releases, we have these fine bonus materials. Some are fantastic. Try VIII. The extras, shine!)

As I maintain, the remastering is outstanding on all but one album. (I'll explain. You'll learn about it later, Dear Reader.) Some background. Quad media was competing and confusing galaxy of formats and each format required its' dedicated decoder. Systems were utterly incompatible with each other. There were systems such as SQ, QS, Discrete (Warner and others), etc. Think about VHS/BETA, and make it even more complicated and you'll get the notion of how the consumer was baffled. That was the world of Quad in the 1970's. CBS/Columbia released the same as this 2016 set in two Quad formats, individually, in the early-to-mid 1970's.. The Columbia LP's were "matrix" quad, known as "SQ". Yes, there were 4 channels, but the 4, or quad, was not truly pure or "discrete'...not really separate. There was much cross-channel mixing of the four channels. Columbia also released the same on 8-Track cassette...remember those? Remarkably, the four channels were truly discrete. If you had a 8-track quad system and added noise/hiss reduction gear, such as was produced by Phase-Linear and added a decent expander/compander into the system (such as made by DBX, et al.) you would have had a truly amazing aural experience, back in the day.
Columbia pressed only a very few of X on LP Matrix/SQ. The few out there are test pressings and they are rare!!! The 8-track version of X was truly discrete quad and was widely available.
X was to be the last of the Chicago Quadraphonic releases. (The record industry gave up on Quad about 1977....Columbia/CBS destroyed all of their Quadraphonic Matrix studio equipment, soon after, in the 1980's. An acquaintance of this writer related how they literally took axes and sledgehammers to their SQ recording equipment in NYC and LA, as he had witnessed it.THIS was truly shortsighted. A tragic shame...The other major record companies followed suit, and abandoned Quad (Without the attendant violent destruction of their proprietary Quad recording equipment). What they all didn't realize or foresee was that the future of multi-channel home entertainment was about to be reignited, with its' re-Genesis, merely a decade away, in the future. The renaissance began with Laser Discs of the 90's Multi-channel is the accepted standard today for all mid and upper-end systems...It is ubiquitous. There are not just 4 (or, Quad) channels which are on a contemporary DVD, but, up to 12 discrete channels are encoded on some newer, higher budget movies!) Quad is considered quaint, now. BUT, SO MUCH great music was rendered into 4 channels for the world, in the 70's! That material can not-and should not-be ignored.
The Quad releases of the 1970's suffered from the limitations of their respective mediums: LP's had clicks, hisses, limited dynamic range, bass rumble, non-linear equalization(EQ) curves, etc. 8-Tracks were even more problematic, with high noise/hiss levels and terrible wow and flutter. High frequencies were attenuated and worse, obscured by the highest hiss levels.Some labels tried encoding Dolby B on their tapes. Consumers complained it made the music sound "dull", when the Dolby button was engaged, even though hiss was drastically reduced and Signal to Noise ratio greatly improved.. (Mercifully, clicks were an artifact of LP's, only.)
Rhino has done a magnificent job of removing most hiss from their source tapes. The Wizards at Rhino/Warner have very subtly added harmonization to certain passages- very tastefully, in my humble estimation. The tracks have received wonderful ratios of expansion. The very best? The four channels are now truly discrete...just like on those 8-Track QUAD cassettes!!!!!

My only "beef"? X sounds like it was directly copied from one of those extremely rare Matrix/SQ LP's test discs. I can't believe X was copied from the master tapes/source materials. The results would have been much better, had this been the case. (I heard "scuttlebutt" that one of the original four members of Chicago owned one of these Quad LP test pressings. That member's disc, I would wager, is the source for this release of X.)
The engineers have done an admirable job of trying to fix up their source of X. They have attempted to eliminate most of the clicks pops and hisses, but the dynamic range is lacking on the X disc. Listen, carefully, and you'll hear scratches and pops of an LP. (I was able to transfer my 8-Track/discrete copy of X to a digital medium in the early 1980's...before the acetate or, tape, deteriorated- which most all of my collection,- 8-track, cassette, reel-to-reel, did, by the mid-1990's.) My digital copy of the processed 8-track discrete quad sounds much better. It has less noise, better separation, finer "presence" and brighter EQ than the version of X, in this collection....(...and, no. I will not make anybody a copy). Otherwise, the 2016 set is amazing!
Kudos to the engineers who mastered this tome! (...except for X, of course....Nonetheless, it was a noble effort, fellows!)
If you love the great Chi albums of '69-'76 AND you have Blu-Ray player AND a decent Amp. with DTS-HD capability and integrated Bass Management AND four fine speakers, each of equal quality AND a dedicated Bass Speaker/Sub-woofer AND you want to experience some of the best, high-quality music, BOTH ARTISTICALLY WORTHY AND AS A TECHNICAL MASTERPIECE, BUY THIS SET.

You will be smiling for many, many hours, as soon as you experience this music and- for years to come... I'm not kidding... get it. before it sells out. (Blu-Ray Quad is still very much a niche thing...who knows if this particular quad re-incarnation will survive? Most recent Chicago SACD multi-channel releases (I believe these are limited to CTA/I, II, V, and VI) are OOP and command a high price on Ebay/Amazon....A curiosity: CTA/I was also released as quad,about three years ago. It sold out and it is not being re-issued.. Good luck finding it for the original release price, if you can find it at all!!!)

 

[Tornado Red]

First listen this morning, and it's mighty fine Just playing CTA so far and it rocks! I have a 7.2 set up, getting the quad rear info in the side and rear surrounds as expected, and it sounds great. I have my AVR set for "stream direct" which sends 80hz and down to the subs, even in stereo listening. The subs are a 10" and 12", and I have them running 28/40. The bass is fabulous, not boomy at all. I think we would be remiss in thinking our settings that we like will run the gamut of all these discs without making some minor adjustments though. I have sub remotes in case there was any fear that I might have to get off my lazy a** to do the fine tuning...

A special shout out to my two kids for chipping in on this tremendous Father's Day gift...:51banana:

 

[Clint Eastwood]

First listen this morning, and it's mighty fine Just playing CTA so far and it rocks! I have a 7.2 set up, getting the quad rear info in the side and rear surrounds as expected, and it sounds great. I have my AVR set for "stream direct" which sends 80hz and down to the subs, even in stereo listening. The subs are a 10" and 12", and I have them running 28/40. The bass is fabulous, not boomy at all. I think we would be remiss in thinking our settings that we like will run the gamut of all these discs without making some minor adjustments though. I have sub remotes in case there was any fear that I might have to get off my lazy a** to do the fine tuning...

A special shout out to my two kids for chipping in on this tremendous Father's Day gift...:51banana:

What does Petey think?

 

[JonUrban]

Hmmm. I am not sure about the Amazon reviewers speculation about Chicago X being created from an SQ Test Pressing?? All SQ Chicago X's were test pressings. Um, no. As far as I can tell, that album was never an impossible disc to find back in 76 77. I never had trouble getting one, and back in the eBay crazy quad days of '99-'03 they never went for "shocker" prices.

I will have to listen closer to the BluRay for signs of SQ decoded LP tracks but I would find that incredibly hard to believe. Heck, there is that leaked Chicago X DVD-A out there and that thing sounds great, so how could they not have found the original quad master when the amazon author mentions that the Q8 source was "fine".

Some of these old quad rumors (like the CCR Gold CD-4 being rare because a truck crashed with all of the LPs in it) are funny to me but in a few years or decades they may become taken more as fact that fiction.

Far be it from me to make a definitive word about this, but it really seems like an odd turn, esp since it's the first time I've ever heard about this - or about the SQ equipment being bashed with hammers and axes in NY and LA.

 

[edisonbaggins]

X sounded fine to Baggy, FWIW :music@:

 

[timbre4]

The guy fancies himself a writer. I grimaced at every reference to an eight track cassette! The X story sounds bogus to me. I saw the SQ / Q8 available commercially without any issue and the DVDA would indicate the Masters were readily available.


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