This was a rumor for years. Now that it's apparently true, is there a list of the albums that were confirmed to be encoded in QS?
Exploring Billboard for Quadraphonic Information
- Thread starter Old Quad Guy
- Start date
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Too bad the article didn’t say what the 12 secret QS Capital Quad records were. But, “Dark Side of the Moon” a secret QS Quad? The article did give an approximate date of release. Now, we would need to back track to see what and when the records were released. That is, if it happened as the article said it did.
EDIT: Check here:
http://www.surrounddiscography.com/quaddisc/quadrumr.htm
According to the above link, the article is in error. Quote:
“It is known that his article was in error as no US versions were issued in Quad on LP and the confusion probably came from the stereo version played through a QS decoder.”
Edit 2: However, it’s still worth looking around and not assuming everything has been found. You never know what you might find out there..
It's not true.
The only album he bases his assumption on is Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon . This assumption coincides with recent Capitol releases in Q8 , and fwiw Dark Side gives good results thru the Sansui decoder.
For it to be fact we would have had this acknowledged by more than one, editor for audiophiles long ago , in the quad or stereo press. Note he has a vested interest in QS being from Sansui.
Not even The Four Channel Scene , Sansui's newsletter, ever acknowledged this to be true in either the International edition or North American .
But it would have been nice to be factual.
Last edited:
October 5, 1974
Lunch With The Editors
of Billboard
CBS' Irwin Segelstein
One year after the former CBS-TV executive
took over Columbia Records he's become
an aware music man. Check out his views.
Irwin Segelstein was a programming vice president at CBS-TV when he was selected to replace Clive Davis as president of CBS Records on the Memorial Day weekend of 1973. In his first year in the record industry he has had to do some on the job training, he admits to learn all the intricacies of the music field.
During his Luncheon With The Editors Of Billboard in Los Angeles, Segelstein cautiously and carefully answered questions about CBS and the industry from a number of Billboard editors including Lee Zhito, Eliot Tiegel, John Sippel, Nat Freedland, Bill Wardlow, Bob Kirsch and Claude Hall.
On The Appointment of Bruce Lundvall As The Label's First
General Manager
"Some things happened in the last year to make it a little more difficult to run a record company as entirely a one man show. Among them: material shortages, crisis in vinyl and manufacturing.
Now we have to pay a lot more attention to these things so a lot of my time has gone into that. Another reason is that I just think the marketing and a&r operation has to be better integrated and Bruce seems to be the right man to be able to coordinate these areas of marketing, sales, promotion and a&r."
Weren't these functions integrated before?
"Yes, but under one person. Other than me. It just struck us as the right way to run a business our size is to delegate responsibilities in several areas as Walter Dean is responsible for business affairs. It doesn't mean I'II be less into things.
Hopefully I'II be more into things and I'll be able to pick and choose what I can do."
Who reports to you now?
The finance people, Walter Dean, Don Ellis and the Epic a&r operation, Ron Alexenburg in sales and distribution for Epic and Lundvall."
Who reports to Lundvall?
"A&r, sales, merchandising and promotion."
On CBS' Retention Of The SQ Matrix Quad System
“SQ has represented some pretty good sales for us. We have a vested interest in SQ but I don't have any long term interest in having the fight between the color wheel and the RCA color system. We're talking about 4-channel sound and what we're all interested in doing, hopefully, is seeing whether there is a market for 4-surround sound. We think it's the best system so we're releasing in SQ. Other people agree with us, few don't."
Why hasn't quad taken off spectacularly?
"Well I don't know. It's not a quantum jump as mono to stereo was, or as the LP was. How do you know it hasn't taken off? That's an assumption. There is clearly interest as the hardware sales show. But some of the retailers feel that the public is confused."
Isn't Columbia contributing to the confusion by carrying this battle between matrix and discrete?
"We're trying not to. We're trying to discuss quad in its generic rather than its specific terms to help take some of the confusion out."
On The Home Video Market
Is it conceivable that just as CBS disengaged itself from EVR that it will do the same thing with SQ and swing to CD-4 to unify the industry with one system?
"CBS disengaged itself from EVR because it was losing money. It was a terrific piece of technology. Why don't you talk about the videodisk? It sits there as a piece of technology and nobody wants to make a software effort. It's only RCA that's sitting there with all that hardware stuff.
“If there will be a market for an audio/visual home experience on some sort of recorded medium, I think you'd have to make the natural assumption that CBS Inc. as a corporation with its various creative parts will be a major factor in that we have the capability to bring to that kind of new technology a great deal of assorted skills from all directions, both marketing and creative. So that when there's a future, if there is a future, there's no doubt in my mind that CBS will be a part of It.
“And we are deeply involved in trying to study and determine the future and to figure out how we can participate in it best, not on any kind of divisional basis, but on a corporate basis."
On A New Plastic LP Jacket
Is CBS getting ready to come out with a styrofoam album jacket?
“I think we're looking into it. If this new pack solves problems of weight and size and all the other things, including something as simple as making sure that the record grooves don't get squeezed into the tightly packaged pack then it will become a norm and we will have to figure out how to make them look as attractive as the kind of things we market now. It clearly has the simplest application in things like mail-order and record clubs. It's lighter in weight and it's well protected and doesn't get beat up by the postman as he folds it and sticks it in your box on RFD number three in Des Moines and in packages at Christmas time."
On TV Advertising As A New Medium
“Television does sell goods. The record business, as a business, has not really been nor has it had the need to be a sophisticated marketer in the sense that General Mills or Procter & Gamble has been a sophisticated TV marketer.
“We're not going to plunge into TV because it's there.
We've done a few tests, we've had in some cases good results, in some cases bad results. We're into a television test at retail, use of television, marketing of television at retail and we're going to measure those results. And I think we can sell records that way. But I don't think we can sell all kinds of records that way."
What kinds of records are you selling that you've had good results with?
"I don't think I want to tell you that."
How about the bad ones?
"I don't want to tell you that either."
What kind of testing was it? Was it in a specific market?
"Yes, there were various branches that tried one thing or other things."
When you speak of being sophisticated in TV marketing, what do you mean?
"You can get a targeted audience at certain times by buying adjacencies. We can try to buy them near the music shows on television on a local basis. All the know-how that any major industry has built up, from automobiles to breakfast cereals to the soaps--this is the kind of thing that we're expecting to build up on the record side, to be at least as professional in our use of the media as the other marketers are.
"And I don't think the industry has had the need to do it because there's an essential difference. We sell a product about which our buyers are really quite a bit more passionate than they are about some of the other products so that our job hasn't always been that hard. But we still have to put together as many facts as we can as to who goes into stores and who buys what.”
On Data Gathering
Have you used the Discount Record chain (which CBS owns) to discover who buys what?
"No, we have not used them. It's not a division I have any responsibility for. Because we have a very tight and well organized branch system and we have some superior people running our sales force, we can get some pretty good input on what is really happening in the marketplace by just old fashioned questioning and guys going into racks, one-stops, retail stores, department stores, mass merchandisers, and we can get some feel as to what's happening or moving.
"I just think that in order to make a profit in this business, the record companies are going to have to face growing up and considering themselves, at least partially on the sales side, a business."
On Growing Up
“We have to remember that we are a $2 billion industry-that's suggested retail list which is one of the fictions of our business. Growing up means knowing how to be efficient in your marketing operation so that you and your customer can be better at the buying and selling process so there's a better margin for everyone involved. We just have to get better at marketing. We have to be as good as all the other businesses in the United States are.”
On TV Rock Shows
"They're not a record experience nor are they a concert experience. Nor are they dull. They're a television experience.
And you have to deal in those terms. And there is a problem and it's not unique to rock shows. Television tends to be a cool medium.
"It's a medium of Perry Como and Dean Martin. It's not a medium where Sammy Davis makes it. Just as Ethel Merman could never make it in films, but is fantastic on stage. You see a guy sits at a board in television and every time it really gets great, he keeps riding the gain down. It blands everything down and that's what wrong with the shows, the excitement of the live performance is missing.
"The sound, the mix, it tends to be bland. It's blanded deliberately because of signal problems and transmitter cutoffs at the low and high frequencies. So that some of the acts find some of their energy, their vibrations and excitement is lost.
"Well, a lot of acts are upset about that. So the choice has to be made as to whether the act gets more than it loses by going on. It is obviously not as exciting to watch group X appear on
‘In Concert' as it is to see them at the Felt Forum or at the Troubadour because the medium is totally different. But it may be better to see them there than not to see them at all."
How important is the appearance of an artist on one of those TV music shows in launching his career or increasing his record sales?
“The answer is we have not been able to measure any appreciable record sales directly related to an appearance on a Friday night on ‘In Concert’ in terms of Saturday sales. Maybe it's because we don't tie in well enough at our point of sale level and maybe it's because it's not really effective. I don't think we know the answer to that."
Why doesn't CBS have a rock music show on its network?
They're doing very well with what they're doing. ABC doesn't have a show on the air because they have the greater good of music at heart. It is because in simple terms, ABC has thorough disaster at late night. Not in terms of quality of programming. Merely in rating terms. So they go to another format. 'In Concert' is not a hit in television terms.
"It's only if you're in the music business that you think it's important. If you're in television you think Johnny Carson is a hit; you think the 'CBS Movie’ is a hit. 'In Concert’ is third in the time period. It is terrific for people in the music business because we're dealing not with total audience terms but with a targeted audience. But you don't really for one moment believe that the other networks are keeping music off because it'll do well. They're keeping it off because they don't think it will compete. They won't take Carson off for a music show.
There is nonetheless some impact. 'Midnight Special’ is not competitive, it's on after all the other shows go off the air.
In other words it's station time. If CBS could recapture more station time they'd put music on."
On Musical Trends For Tomorrow
Our art is a reflection of ourselves. We swing from a Spock way of raising children to an anti-Spock, from permissive to non-permissive. And that's true in the arts. We have been through a counter reaction to the things that took place in music in the 60s and now we're waiting for the next reaction, action and reaction. When a guy sits down to write a song today he's not writing commercial music. He's writing what he wants to write.
"I think the Tin Pan Alley days are over. We're going through some shock waves today and it will inevitably find its way into the drama and the music of tomorrow. But nobody can project it or predict it will happen."
On Signing Distribution Deals
“We are not going to market labels as a way of making a living unless, and this is very important, unless the people we work with have a capacity to bring us something that we cannot do for ourselves. I mean there is no way that a short, fat Jewish kid from the Bronx is going to produce the kind of music that Philadelphia International produces for us. And there is no way we can bring to it a relationship with Kris Kristofferson such as Fred Foster can bring to it.
"So that labels are something we will market because they bring something unique and special to us and not because we're going into the business of delegating to others the production of music."
On the CBS-Melodiya Deal
“This is an opportunity to release some extraordinary artists in the United States. ... I don't know that they'll let me into the Soviet Union because all my rabbinical contemporaries will be jailed, no doubt. I have no intention of going there myself."
Would you be making available to other labels distribution into Eastern European markets? You're sort of a Marco Polo or Kissinger in that you've been able to open and establish a bridge into Communist bloc countries.
"I hadn't thought about it at all. I'm not sure I'm that philanthropic. Maybe Walter Yetnikoff would like to try it."
On Classical Sales
“In the last 15 months it hasn't changed one way or another. It's not without profit but it isn't really exactly a major profit area. But over a long period of time there is profit. We do it because we're a full-line record company. We do it because its part of our obligation and charter.”
On the Black Composers Series
What kind of sales have you had?
"We got a lot of nice press. As for sales it's been probably a total disaster. But I wouldn't say that. It was something we wanted to do and we did it and we sold some records. What happens is, of course, that classical music tends to have a long life."
On His Ideas For Leaving His Imprimatur On The Label
Do you look forward to the Segelstein era at Columbia as leaving some kind of mark?
"You're asking the question too soon. I can't think of anything witty to respond with. I'm not sure I ever think of leaving my mark. That's too arrogant an attitude. I think there are things worth recording and I think we have always recorded something that needs to be put down and inevitably there will be things that need to be recorded totally without respect to whether they make a profit.”
On His Transfer From Television To Records To Replace Clive Davis
(Segelstein says he doesn't know the sequence of events surrounding Davis being fired and his being called by some one at corporate to ask if he was interested in working for the record division).
"I had come to work at the television network in 1965. I was the vice president in charge of programs in New York and I worked at that job for a while and somewhere along the way I got promoted into a job that extended my responsibilities beyond just New York programming to include all current programs on the schedule. So that the guy I worked with, Fred Silverman, and I sort of split up television. He focused on the development side and I focused primarily on current programs.
"I supposed they wanted someone who was not a lawyer, someone who had background in talent relations. I tend to believe that dealing with artists is probably the same whether they are in television, records or publishing. Anyway somebody thought I might be a reasonable choice.”
How do you get on the job training when you're the president of the company?
"It's very hard. You just ask people what that means or why. What you do is listen to a lot of radio and you listen to a lot of records and you read a lot of magazines and you work very hard and you talk to as many people as you can and see if you can telescope the whole history of music into one year."
Lunch With The Editors
of Billboard
CBS' Irwin Segelstein
One year after the former CBS-TV executive
took over Columbia Records he's become
an aware music man. Check out his views.
Irwin Segelstein was a programming vice president at CBS-TV when he was selected to replace Clive Davis as president of CBS Records on the Memorial Day weekend of 1973. In his first year in the record industry he has had to do some on the job training, he admits to learn all the intricacies of the music field.
During his Luncheon With The Editors Of Billboard in Los Angeles, Segelstein cautiously and carefully answered questions about CBS and the industry from a number of Billboard editors including Lee Zhito, Eliot Tiegel, John Sippel, Nat Freedland, Bill Wardlow, Bob Kirsch and Claude Hall.
On The Appointment of Bruce Lundvall As The Label's First
General Manager
"Some things happened in the last year to make it a little more difficult to run a record company as entirely a one man show. Among them: material shortages, crisis in vinyl and manufacturing.
Now we have to pay a lot more attention to these things so a lot of my time has gone into that. Another reason is that I just think the marketing and a&r operation has to be better integrated and Bruce seems to be the right man to be able to coordinate these areas of marketing, sales, promotion and a&r."
Weren't these functions integrated before?
"Yes, but under one person. Other than me. It just struck us as the right way to run a business our size is to delegate responsibilities in several areas as Walter Dean is responsible for business affairs. It doesn't mean I'II be less into things.
Hopefully I'II be more into things and I'll be able to pick and choose what I can do."
Who reports to you now?
The finance people, Walter Dean, Don Ellis and the Epic a&r operation, Ron Alexenburg in sales and distribution for Epic and Lundvall."
Who reports to Lundvall?
"A&r, sales, merchandising and promotion."
On CBS' Retention Of The SQ Matrix Quad System
“SQ has represented some pretty good sales for us. We have a vested interest in SQ but I don't have any long term interest in having the fight between the color wheel and the RCA color system. We're talking about 4-channel sound and what we're all interested in doing, hopefully, is seeing whether there is a market for 4-surround sound. We think it's the best system so we're releasing in SQ. Other people agree with us, few don't."
Why hasn't quad taken off spectacularly?
"Well I don't know. It's not a quantum jump as mono to stereo was, or as the LP was. How do you know it hasn't taken off? That's an assumption. There is clearly interest as the hardware sales show. But some of the retailers feel that the public is confused."
Isn't Columbia contributing to the confusion by carrying this battle between matrix and discrete?
"We're trying not to. We're trying to discuss quad in its generic rather than its specific terms to help take some of the confusion out."
On The Home Video Market
Is it conceivable that just as CBS disengaged itself from EVR that it will do the same thing with SQ and swing to CD-4 to unify the industry with one system?
"CBS disengaged itself from EVR because it was losing money. It was a terrific piece of technology. Why don't you talk about the videodisk? It sits there as a piece of technology and nobody wants to make a software effort. It's only RCA that's sitting there with all that hardware stuff.
“If there will be a market for an audio/visual home experience on some sort of recorded medium, I think you'd have to make the natural assumption that CBS Inc. as a corporation with its various creative parts will be a major factor in that we have the capability to bring to that kind of new technology a great deal of assorted skills from all directions, both marketing and creative. So that when there's a future, if there is a future, there's no doubt in my mind that CBS will be a part of It.
“And we are deeply involved in trying to study and determine the future and to figure out how we can participate in it best, not on any kind of divisional basis, but on a corporate basis."
On A New Plastic LP Jacket
Is CBS getting ready to come out with a styrofoam album jacket?
“I think we're looking into it. If this new pack solves problems of weight and size and all the other things, including something as simple as making sure that the record grooves don't get squeezed into the tightly packaged pack then it will become a norm and we will have to figure out how to make them look as attractive as the kind of things we market now. It clearly has the simplest application in things like mail-order and record clubs. It's lighter in weight and it's well protected and doesn't get beat up by the postman as he folds it and sticks it in your box on RFD number three in Des Moines and in packages at Christmas time."
On TV Advertising As A New Medium
“Television does sell goods. The record business, as a business, has not really been nor has it had the need to be a sophisticated marketer in the sense that General Mills or Procter & Gamble has been a sophisticated TV marketer.
“We're not going to plunge into TV because it's there.
We've done a few tests, we've had in some cases good results, in some cases bad results. We're into a television test at retail, use of television, marketing of television at retail and we're going to measure those results. And I think we can sell records that way. But I don't think we can sell all kinds of records that way."
What kinds of records are you selling that you've had good results with?
"I don't think I want to tell you that."
How about the bad ones?
"I don't want to tell you that either."
What kind of testing was it? Was it in a specific market?
"Yes, there were various branches that tried one thing or other things."
When you speak of being sophisticated in TV marketing, what do you mean?
"You can get a targeted audience at certain times by buying adjacencies. We can try to buy them near the music shows on television on a local basis. All the know-how that any major industry has built up, from automobiles to breakfast cereals to the soaps--this is the kind of thing that we're expecting to build up on the record side, to be at least as professional in our use of the media as the other marketers are.
"And I don't think the industry has had the need to do it because there's an essential difference. We sell a product about which our buyers are really quite a bit more passionate than they are about some of the other products so that our job hasn't always been that hard. But we still have to put together as many facts as we can as to who goes into stores and who buys what.”
On Data Gathering
Have you used the Discount Record chain (which CBS owns) to discover who buys what?
"No, we have not used them. It's not a division I have any responsibility for. Because we have a very tight and well organized branch system and we have some superior people running our sales force, we can get some pretty good input on what is really happening in the marketplace by just old fashioned questioning and guys going into racks, one-stops, retail stores, department stores, mass merchandisers, and we can get some feel as to what's happening or moving.
"I just think that in order to make a profit in this business, the record companies are going to have to face growing up and considering themselves, at least partially on the sales side, a business."
On Growing Up
“We have to remember that we are a $2 billion industry-that's suggested retail list which is one of the fictions of our business. Growing up means knowing how to be efficient in your marketing operation so that you and your customer can be better at the buying and selling process so there's a better margin for everyone involved. We just have to get better at marketing. We have to be as good as all the other businesses in the United States are.”
On TV Rock Shows
"They're not a record experience nor are they a concert experience. Nor are they dull. They're a television experience.
And you have to deal in those terms. And there is a problem and it's not unique to rock shows. Television tends to be a cool medium.
"It's a medium of Perry Como and Dean Martin. It's not a medium where Sammy Davis makes it. Just as Ethel Merman could never make it in films, but is fantastic on stage. You see a guy sits at a board in television and every time it really gets great, he keeps riding the gain down. It blands everything down and that's what wrong with the shows, the excitement of the live performance is missing.
"The sound, the mix, it tends to be bland. It's blanded deliberately because of signal problems and transmitter cutoffs at the low and high frequencies. So that some of the acts find some of their energy, their vibrations and excitement is lost.
"Well, a lot of acts are upset about that. So the choice has to be made as to whether the act gets more than it loses by going on. It is obviously not as exciting to watch group X appear on
‘In Concert' as it is to see them at the Felt Forum or at the Troubadour because the medium is totally different. But it may be better to see them there than not to see them at all."
How important is the appearance of an artist on one of those TV music shows in launching his career or increasing his record sales?
“The answer is we have not been able to measure any appreciable record sales directly related to an appearance on a Friday night on ‘In Concert’ in terms of Saturday sales. Maybe it's because we don't tie in well enough at our point of sale level and maybe it's because it's not really effective. I don't think we know the answer to that."
Why doesn't CBS have a rock music show on its network?
They're doing very well with what they're doing. ABC doesn't have a show on the air because they have the greater good of music at heart. It is because in simple terms, ABC has thorough disaster at late night. Not in terms of quality of programming. Merely in rating terms. So they go to another format. 'In Concert' is not a hit in television terms.
"It's only if you're in the music business that you think it's important. If you're in television you think Johnny Carson is a hit; you think the 'CBS Movie’ is a hit. 'In Concert’ is third in the time period. It is terrific for people in the music business because we're dealing not with total audience terms but with a targeted audience. But you don't really for one moment believe that the other networks are keeping music off because it'll do well. They're keeping it off because they don't think it will compete. They won't take Carson off for a music show.
There is nonetheless some impact. 'Midnight Special’ is not competitive, it's on after all the other shows go off the air.
In other words it's station time. If CBS could recapture more station time they'd put music on."
On Musical Trends For Tomorrow
Our art is a reflection of ourselves. We swing from a Spock way of raising children to an anti-Spock, from permissive to non-permissive. And that's true in the arts. We have been through a counter reaction to the things that took place in music in the 60s and now we're waiting for the next reaction, action and reaction. When a guy sits down to write a song today he's not writing commercial music. He's writing what he wants to write.
"I think the Tin Pan Alley days are over. We're going through some shock waves today and it will inevitably find its way into the drama and the music of tomorrow. But nobody can project it or predict it will happen."
On Signing Distribution Deals
“We are not going to market labels as a way of making a living unless, and this is very important, unless the people we work with have a capacity to bring us something that we cannot do for ourselves. I mean there is no way that a short, fat Jewish kid from the Bronx is going to produce the kind of music that Philadelphia International produces for us. And there is no way we can bring to it a relationship with Kris Kristofferson such as Fred Foster can bring to it.
"So that labels are something we will market because they bring something unique and special to us and not because we're going into the business of delegating to others the production of music."
On the CBS-Melodiya Deal
“This is an opportunity to release some extraordinary artists in the United States. ... I don't know that they'll let me into the Soviet Union because all my rabbinical contemporaries will be jailed, no doubt. I have no intention of going there myself."
Would you be making available to other labels distribution into Eastern European markets? You're sort of a Marco Polo or Kissinger in that you've been able to open and establish a bridge into Communist bloc countries.
"I hadn't thought about it at all. I'm not sure I'm that philanthropic. Maybe Walter Yetnikoff would like to try it."
On Classical Sales
“In the last 15 months it hasn't changed one way or another. It's not without profit but it isn't really exactly a major profit area. But over a long period of time there is profit. We do it because we're a full-line record company. We do it because its part of our obligation and charter.”
On the Black Composers Series
What kind of sales have you had?
"We got a lot of nice press. As for sales it's been probably a total disaster. But I wouldn't say that. It was something we wanted to do and we did it and we sold some records. What happens is, of course, that classical music tends to have a long life."
On His Ideas For Leaving His Imprimatur On The Label
Do you look forward to the Segelstein era at Columbia as leaving some kind of mark?
"You're asking the question too soon. I can't think of anything witty to respond with. I'm not sure I ever think of leaving my mark. That's too arrogant an attitude. I think there are things worth recording and I think we have always recorded something that needs to be put down and inevitably there will be things that need to be recorded totally without respect to whether they make a profit.”
On His Transfer From Television To Records To Replace Clive Davis
(Segelstein says he doesn't know the sequence of events surrounding Davis being fired and his being called by some one at corporate to ask if he was interested in working for the record division).
"I had come to work at the television network in 1965. I was the vice president in charge of programs in New York and I worked at that job for a while and somewhere along the way I got promoted into a job that extended my responsibilities beyond just New York programming to include all current programs on the schedule. So that the guy I worked with, Fred Silverman, and I sort of split up television. He focused on the development side and I focused primarily on current programs.
"I supposed they wanted someone who was not a lawyer, someone who had background in talent relations. I tend to believe that dealing with artists is probably the same whether they are in television, records or publishing. Anyway somebody thought I might be a reasonable choice.”
How do you get on the job training when you're the president of the company?
"It's very hard. You just ask people what that means or why. What you do is listen to a lot of radio and you listen to a lot of records and you read a lot of magazines and you work very hard and you talk to as many people as you can and see if you can telescope the whole history of music into one year."
April 5, 1975
A&M Goes CD-4 Discrete
By CLAUDE HALL
LOS ANGELES-
A&M Records, after experiments in all three of the major quad systems, announces a long-term commitment to the CD-4 discrete record system. The commitment by A&M, considered a prestige label, is being heralded by many music industry executives as a major break-through in the war between discrete and matrix.
A first CD-4 discrete LP on A&M was the recent Rick Wakeman “Journey To The Center Of The Earth." released before Christmas.
An earlier LP by Wakeman-"Six Wives Of Henry VIII" —was an SQ (CBS) matrix quad release. Quincy Jones, the Carpenters and Cat Stevens have been among the SQ releases of A&M's 30 quad albums to date. Joan Baez had "Come From The Shadows" in the Sansui QS matrix system.
All future A&M releases, including Wakeman's next LP "The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table" will be in the CD-4 discrete system developed and pioneered by JVC, Japan.
Other labels exclusively in CD-4 include RCA; the WEA Group of Warner Bros., Atlantic and Asylum/ Elektra; and Shadybrook (the Joe Sutton/ Brad Miller label featuring the Mystic Moods).
Gil Friesen, senior vice president, announced A&M's exclusive commitment to the CD-4 system. Masters will be cut at the JVC Cutting Center here and records will be pressed at Monarch. Price will be
$6.98.
Albums to be released shortly in CD-4 discrete include "Coney Island" by Herb Alpert and "Chase The Clouds" by Chuck Mangione.
The quad albums will be released day-and-date with the stereo versions. The label plans releasing about six albums in the first year as a discrete advocate, all by best-selling artists.
A number of A&M executives have been closely watching the quad field and analyzing the SQ and QS matrix formats, with discrete coming out on top as providing the best 4-channel capabilities.
A spokesman at the label says that only new product would be devoted to the CD-4 system; at present there are no plans to dig into the catalog and reissue in discrete, the older 4-channel product that was in one or another of the matrix systems.
Most of A&M's past quad albums had been in SQ matrix.
A&M Goes CD-4 Discrete
By CLAUDE HALL
LOS ANGELES-
A&M Records, after experiments in all three of the major quad systems, announces a long-term commitment to the CD-4 discrete record system. The commitment by A&M, considered a prestige label, is being heralded by many music industry executives as a major break-through in the war between discrete and matrix.
A first CD-4 discrete LP on A&M was the recent Rick Wakeman “Journey To The Center Of The Earth." released before Christmas.
An earlier LP by Wakeman-"Six Wives Of Henry VIII" —was an SQ (CBS) matrix quad release. Quincy Jones, the Carpenters and Cat Stevens have been among the SQ releases of A&M's 30 quad albums to date. Joan Baez had "Come From The Shadows" in the Sansui QS matrix system.
All future A&M releases, including Wakeman's next LP "The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table" will be in the CD-4 discrete system developed and pioneered by JVC, Japan.
Other labels exclusively in CD-4 include RCA; the WEA Group of Warner Bros., Atlantic and Asylum/ Elektra; and Shadybrook (the Joe Sutton/ Brad Miller label featuring the Mystic Moods).
Gil Friesen, senior vice president, announced A&M's exclusive commitment to the CD-4 system. Masters will be cut at the JVC Cutting Center here and records will be pressed at Monarch. Price will be
$6.98.
Albums to be released shortly in CD-4 discrete include "Coney Island" by Herb Alpert and "Chase The Clouds" by Chuck Mangione.
The quad albums will be released day-and-date with the stereo versions. The label plans releasing about six albums in the first year as a discrete advocate, all by best-selling artists.
A number of A&M executives have been closely watching the quad field and analyzing the SQ and QS matrix formats, with discrete coming out on top as providing the best 4-channel capabilities.
A spokesman at the label says that only new product would be devoted to the CD-4 system; at present there are no plans to dig into the catalog and reissue in discrete, the older 4-channel product that was in one or another of the matrix systems.
Most of A&M's past quad albums had been in SQ matrix.
barfle
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
I'm probably unique on this forum (and maybe the world) by having an EVR system, also known as a Teleplayer. In fact, I have three - two of them for parts. It's actually a film-based video player that used a flying-spot scanner (not complicated if you understand video, but there's more information on-line than I wish to post here). I also have about 20 films for the player. Not totally sure if I'm going to convert them to DVD just to preserve the equipment, but yeah, it's really cool technology.
Too bad it was so expensive - something like $1500 in 1970, when that was a pretty good month's pay for a kid like I was then. I've been scarfing up films whenever they come available, but I haven't seen any for about five years. Like I said, I may be unique.
First Ford Q8 tape system, integral with AM / FM / MPX radio, built by Motorola, was introduced for 1976 Continental, Mark IV and Thunderbird models.
December 13, 1975
ON '76 LINE
Ford/ Motorola Car 'Q'
Hopes To Rival Stereo
DETROIT-
Almost 10 years to the date that the first Stereo 8 tape cartridge systems were introduced by Ford in its top-line 1966 autos, a Quadrasonic 8 system built by Motorola to strict Ford specs was debuted on the 1976 Lincoln Continental, Mark IV and Ford Thunderbird (Billboard, Oct. 18).
John King, Ford executive engineer involved in the original stereo tape project with Lear Jet and Motorola, is hoping the new unit, to be expanded to other Ford models next year, will do as much for the 4-chan-nel market as the 2-channel version did in that area a decade ago.
The combined Q8 tape and AM/ FM stereo multiplex radio chassis has the same 158-cubic-inch, mini-
size general appearance and control locations as the stereo 8 radio introduced in 1974.
An RCA Q8 sampler of a dozen artists is provided with each quad player, similar to the ongoing Stereo 8 program in effect at most Ford dealerships since the first introductions. King emphasizes that the software is even more essential to the success of the quad program.
Since an AM radio and four speakers-two door-mounted and two on the rear package tray-are standard in the Continental, Mark IV and Thunderbird list price differential is $387 in the two Lincolns and $382 in the T-Bird. factory installed. Dealer installation is about $417 in any of the three cars.
Special features of the new Q8 system, integral with an AM/FM stereo multiplex radio, include:
• Electronic FM tuning using varactor diodes and a potentiometer driven from a pushbutton tuner shaft, saving space and providing internal package flexibility.
• Concentric 4-channel volume and tone control knobs using a separate gear-driven tone control.
• Single control knob for front/ back balance in normal position, left/right balance by pushing a knob and turning.
• Tape player acceptance of either a Q8 or Stereo 8 cartridge with automatic switching using the notch on quad 8-track, and all 2-channel material played through four speakers.
• Mini-size 08 tape radio chassis: weight 6.7 pounds; dimensions 7.3 inches wide by 7.4 deep by 3 high.
• Four monolithic IC power amps with output of 3 watts per channel RMS.
According to King, the new Q8 units "are selling extremely well," and although he admits it's far too early to measure the success of the program, initial reports are encouraging to both Ford and Motorola.
Actually, there are 2 flavors of Dolby Surround encoding - the original, with the 100Hz to 7kHz bandpass filter + the modified Dolby B NR and the downmix version without the bandpass filter and without the Dolby B NR.
(too bad they didn't use the later downmix version as the original - it's just the Hafler/DynaQuad system, which has a full bandwidth surround channel)
Kirk Bayne
(too bad they didn't use the later downmix version as the original - it's just the Hafler/DynaQuad system, which has a full bandwidth surround channel)
Kirk Bayne
Interesting that Chase the Clouds Away was released in CD-4, but Coney Island in quad (even a Q8) never happened. I wonder if that means, baring the big Universal fire, that the quad masters of that one might be lurking somewhere.
Slightly off topic, but I’ve never seen this artwork before from Kraftwerk. I also didn’t know they toured here back then.
October 26, 1974
AT THE PLAYBOY
GE Shows Its 4-Channel Broadcast System In S.F.
By CLAUDE HALL
SAN FRANCISCO-
General Electric unveiled its quadraphonic broadcasting system-currently one of five being tested by the National Quadraphonic Radio Committee here-Wednesday (16) at the Playboy Club and, after a few minor technical difficulties, the event was successful. One of the minor problems was in changing antennas to get a cleaner broadcast reception.
Announcing that GE was holding the demonstration to "promote discrete broadcasting and not anyone's particular system," C. Frank Hix Jr., manager of engineering for GE's audio products department, stated that demo tests are almost complete for all five systems currently before the NQRC. These include Lou Dor-ren's Quadracast Systems Inc. unit, plus the systems of GE, Nippon/Co-lumbia, Zenith and RCA.
K101-FM did the broadcast received at the Playboy Club. The only two systems actually before the FCC on petition are GE and Lou Dorren.
James Gabbert, owner of K101-FM and new president of the National Assn. of FM Broadcasters, detailed the history of FM and stereo and the first trial broadcasts of quad.
NQRC tests are being performed after midnight on the station and, while the broadcasts probably sound like weird noises to anyone listening over radio, to the engineers the sounds represent acoustic tests.
Hix says that the full series of tests. which should be finished by next March or April are aimed at providing the public with the best system possible. Criteria studied include:
• Compatibility with monaural or stereo receivers:
• The most separation:
• Finding a system that will allow receivers a wide range of prices:
• Finding a system which would allow FCC rulemaking to be as simple as possible;
• Finding a system with a high protection ratio so signals of radio stations don't interfere with each other.
Earlier studies with a wide range of listeners from both coasts have revealed, Hix says, "that the value of quad is definitely there."
Present during the broadcast, among others, were Dorren: Tony Csicsatka, inventor of the GE stereo system and the GE quad broadcasting system: Pieter Fockens, group leader from Zenith's Chicago research lab; and Larry Middlekamp, chief of the FCC research branch in Maryland.
AT THE PLAYBOY
GE Shows Its 4-Channel Broadcast System In S.F.
By CLAUDE HALL
SAN FRANCISCO-
General Electric unveiled its quadraphonic broadcasting system-currently one of five being tested by the National Quadraphonic Radio Committee here-Wednesday (16) at the Playboy Club and, after a few minor technical difficulties, the event was successful. One of the minor problems was in changing antennas to get a cleaner broadcast reception.
Announcing that GE was holding the demonstration to "promote discrete broadcasting and not anyone's particular system," C. Frank Hix Jr., manager of engineering for GE's audio products department, stated that demo tests are almost complete for all five systems currently before the NQRC. These include Lou Dor-ren's Quadracast Systems Inc. unit, plus the systems of GE, Nippon/Co-lumbia, Zenith and RCA.
K101-FM did the broadcast received at the Playboy Club. The only two systems actually before the FCC on petition are GE and Lou Dorren.
James Gabbert, owner of K101-FM and new president of the National Assn. of FM Broadcasters, detailed the history of FM and stereo and the first trial broadcasts of quad.
NQRC tests are being performed after midnight on the station and, while the broadcasts probably sound like weird noises to anyone listening over radio, to the engineers the sounds represent acoustic tests.
Hix says that the full series of tests. which should be finished by next March or April are aimed at providing the public with the best system possible. Criteria studied include:
• Compatibility with monaural or stereo receivers:
• The most separation:
• Finding a system that will allow receivers a wide range of prices:
• Finding a system which would allow FCC rulemaking to be as simple as possible;
• Finding a system with a high protection ratio so signals of radio stations don't interfere with each other.
Earlier studies with a wide range of listeners from both coasts have revealed, Hix says, "that the value of quad is definitely there."
Present during the broadcast, among others, were Dorren: Tony Csicsatka, inventor of the GE stereo system and the GE quad broadcasting system: Pieter Fockens, group leader from Zenith's Chicago research lab; and Larry Middlekamp, chief of the FCC research branch in Maryland.
September 21, 1974
Japan Sees UD-4;
CD-4 Disks Grow
By HIDEO EGUCHI
TOKYO-
Music lovers, hi fi enthusiasts and buyers from overseas will be able to compare the UD-4 system with CD-4, SQ and RM for the first time at the 23rd All Japan Audio Fair, Nov. 6-10, if everything goes according to plan.
"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of 4-channel," quips Takami Shobochi, president of Nippon Columbia, joint developer and major proponent of the UD-4 system- basically a combination of matrix and discrete systems.
"It may lead to some confusion among consumers, but I'd like them to choose the best," Shobochi says.
For the record manufacturer, the UD-4 system means that a program need only be produced in a single format to cover all existing modes of playback. For the radio broadcaster, it offers FM carrier signals of a limited band width.
Consequently, the UD-4 system will play an important role in the future of high quality 4-channel sound reproduction and constitutes a major advance in regard to the feasibility of 4-channel stereo broadcasting, its proponents say.
The "universal discrete 4-chan-nel" system was jointly announced here Sept. 2 for the first time in Japan by Nippon Columbia and Hi-tachi, whose engineers developed the system together with Dr. Duane H. Cooper of the University of Illinois. It was demonstrated earlier this year to members of the Audio Engineering Society, also at the Berlin Radio/TV Exhibition and London Radio Show. It was shown last May 14 to Billboard's Tokyo news bureau by Dr. Toshihiko Takagi, general manager of Nippon Columbia's research laboratories at Kawasaki. Most recently it was shown at the Sept. 9-12 AES in New York.
No comment on the UD-4 system has been made by the Japanese industry to date, inasmuch as Nippon Columbia has not openly made comparison tests with CD-4, SQ and RM so far. Also, the Japan Phonograph Record Assn. and the Electronic Industries Assn. of Japan have adopted CD-4, SQ and RM as the only three standard systems ever since April of 1972 and the two manufacturers’ associations are not in the mood to approve a fourth. The Japan Audio Society is taking a neutral stand.
Although Hitachi and Nippon Columbia are out to win universal
Japan Bow For UD-4;
CD-4 Push
adoption of their UD-4 system among the world's leading record manufacturers, audio equipment makers and FM radio broadcasters, it requires a noncompatible demodulator, expected to retail for 50,000 yen or over $160 in Japan, besides an RM (Nippon Columbia
QX) decoder.
The UDA-1000 demodulator, about 15-inches wide, 12 deep and 5½ high, will be marketed overseas under Nippon Columbia's Denon brand, says Takayasu Yoshida, deputy general manager, international trade division. Johnson's of Hendon, Ltd., will be U.K. distributor, but no U.S. marketing plans are firmed.
By comparison, current list prices in Japan of CD-4 demodulators from the Victor Co. of Japan (JVC/ Nivico) are 33,000 yen ($110) and 52,000 yen ($173). Sony's new variable blend SQ full logic decoder is tagged at 69,800 yen ($232), while list prices of other Sony models are 21,800 yen ($72) and 49,800 yen ($166).
Retail prices of Nippon Columbia home stereo sets with built in UD-4 demodulator and QX (RM) decoder will range from 180,000 yen ($600) , to 300,000 yen ($1,000), says Yoshiaki Hosogai, manager, product planning and market research. The high-end model, which also has a built-in CD-4 demodulator and SQ decoder, was shown to the Japanese industry Sept. 2 and is scheduled for marketing by year-end in Japan only.
In the meantime, Hitachi is manufacturing the UD-4 ICs and is believed to be working on an export model record player with built-in UD-4 demodulator. Hitachi/ Maxell, manufacturer/exporter of UD (ultra dynamic) blank loaded cassettes, may come out with a UD-4 demonstration tape. Nippon Columbia manufactures prerecorded music cassettes besides blank loaded tape.
Since the UD-4 system is new and non-standard, Japanese retailers assume that a free "demonstration" disk will come with every UD-4 stereo set from Nippon Columbia and Hitachi, although the manufacturers haven't said so.
Nippon Columbia will release at least 10 UD-4 albums by year-end, says Shigeru Watanabe, general manager, planning, record division.
Six are scheduled for release on the (Nippon) Columbia label and four on Denon, starting next month with
"Les Trois Concertos Brande-bourgeois/J. S. Bach" as locally recorded by l'Orchestre de Chambre Joan-Francois Paillard. The 10th UD-4 album is "Yesterday Once More/Mieko Hirota" according to the record jackets displayed by the Japanese manufacturer. Each will retail for 2,500 yen or about $8.30, Watanabe says, the same price as a CD-4 quadradisk with music of international origin.
In Japan, King Records is about to join the CD-4 group. Scheduled for release here Sept. 25 are eight stereo-compatible discrete 4-channel albums manufactured by King from master recordings owned by A&M, Barclay, CTI and Project 3.
The titles are: "Now and Then/The Carpenters," "Tapestry/Carole
King." "The Six of Wives of Henry the VIlIth /Rick Wakeman," “Bad Girl/ Quincy Jones," "Raymond Lefevre in Concert," "Deodato/Rhapsody In Blue.” "Joan Baez' Greatest Hits" and "The Spectacular Brass Menagerie" (Enoch Light).
Also, five more CD-4 albums are scheduled for release here Oct. 25 and six more Nov. 25 by Nippon Phonogram on the Philips label, while the first two CD-4 albums manufactured by Victor Musical Industries from Eterna master recordings owned by Deutsche Schallplatten (VEB) are scheduled for release Oct. 25, too. Also, Teichiku, another member of the Matsushita group, is preparing to mount a CD-4 sales campaign from Oct. 21 through Christmas Day for its over 50 discrete quadradisk releases.
In another development, TDK-Fairchild is preparing to market its CD-4 linear IC in Japan at an average price of 700 yen ($2.30) and, the joint developer says, samples have already been delivered to JVC, Matsushita and Pioneer. The 16-pin IC will be manufactured in the U.S. by the American partner at the rate of 100,000 units a month, starting next January, TDK-Fairchild says. Unit price will range from 400 yen ($1.30) to 1,000 yen ($3.30) depending on order volume, the joint venture adds.
Four more SQ albums are scheduled for release next month in Japan, and six more in November by CBS/Sony.
In terms of combined gross sales, Matsushita/JVC has annually outmatched Hitachi/Nippon Columbia by a ratio of about five to four. Hitachi openly committed itself to the UD-4 system for the first time in Japan Sept. 2. Nippon Columbia, now under Hitachi's wing, is expected to start advertising the UD-4 system in the U.S. and Europe next month.
Hitachi, which is manufacturing the
QS "Vario-Matrix" IC for Sansui, says the UD-4 system was developed by Nippon Columbia in cooperation with Hitachi's Central Research Laboratory.
Japan Sees UD-4;
CD-4 Disks Grow
By HIDEO EGUCHI
TOKYO-
Music lovers, hi fi enthusiasts and buyers from overseas will be able to compare the UD-4 system with CD-4, SQ and RM for the first time at the 23rd All Japan Audio Fair, Nov. 6-10, if everything goes according to plan.
"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of 4-channel," quips Takami Shobochi, president of Nippon Columbia, joint developer and major proponent of the UD-4 system- basically a combination of matrix and discrete systems.
"It may lead to some confusion among consumers, but I'd like them to choose the best," Shobochi says.
For the record manufacturer, the UD-4 system means that a program need only be produced in a single format to cover all existing modes of playback. For the radio broadcaster, it offers FM carrier signals of a limited band width.
Consequently, the UD-4 system will play an important role in the future of high quality 4-channel sound reproduction and constitutes a major advance in regard to the feasibility of 4-channel stereo broadcasting, its proponents say.
The "universal discrete 4-chan-nel" system was jointly announced here Sept. 2 for the first time in Japan by Nippon Columbia and Hi-tachi, whose engineers developed the system together with Dr. Duane H. Cooper of the University of Illinois. It was demonstrated earlier this year to members of the Audio Engineering Society, also at the Berlin Radio/TV Exhibition and London Radio Show. It was shown last May 14 to Billboard's Tokyo news bureau by Dr. Toshihiko Takagi, general manager of Nippon Columbia's research laboratories at Kawasaki. Most recently it was shown at the Sept. 9-12 AES in New York.
No comment on the UD-4 system has been made by the Japanese industry to date, inasmuch as Nippon Columbia has not openly made comparison tests with CD-4, SQ and RM so far. Also, the Japan Phonograph Record Assn. and the Electronic Industries Assn. of Japan have adopted CD-4, SQ and RM as the only three standard systems ever since April of 1972 and the two manufacturers’ associations are not in the mood to approve a fourth. The Japan Audio Society is taking a neutral stand.
Although Hitachi and Nippon Columbia are out to win universal
Japan Bow For UD-4;
CD-4 Push
adoption of their UD-4 system among the world's leading record manufacturers, audio equipment makers and FM radio broadcasters, it requires a noncompatible demodulator, expected to retail for 50,000 yen or over $160 in Japan, besides an RM (Nippon Columbia
QX) decoder.
The UDA-1000 demodulator, about 15-inches wide, 12 deep and 5½ high, will be marketed overseas under Nippon Columbia's Denon brand, says Takayasu Yoshida, deputy general manager, international trade division. Johnson's of Hendon, Ltd., will be U.K. distributor, but no U.S. marketing plans are firmed.
By comparison, current list prices in Japan of CD-4 demodulators from the Victor Co. of Japan (JVC/ Nivico) are 33,000 yen ($110) and 52,000 yen ($173). Sony's new variable blend SQ full logic decoder is tagged at 69,800 yen ($232), while list prices of other Sony models are 21,800 yen ($72) and 49,800 yen ($166).
Retail prices of Nippon Columbia home stereo sets with built in UD-4 demodulator and QX (RM) decoder will range from 180,000 yen ($600) , to 300,000 yen ($1,000), says Yoshiaki Hosogai, manager, product planning and market research. The high-end model, which also has a built-in CD-4 demodulator and SQ decoder, was shown to the Japanese industry Sept. 2 and is scheduled for marketing by year-end in Japan only.
In the meantime, Hitachi is manufacturing the UD-4 ICs and is believed to be working on an export model record player with built-in UD-4 demodulator. Hitachi/ Maxell, manufacturer/exporter of UD (ultra dynamic) blank loaded cassettes, may come out with a UD-4 demonstration tape. Nippon Columbia manufactures prerecorded music cassettes besides blank loaded tape.
Since the UD-4 system is new and non-standard, Japanese retailers assume that a free "demonstration" disk will come with every UD-4 stereo set from Nippon Columbia and Hitachi, although the manufacturers haven't said so.
Nippon Columbia will release at least 10 UD-4 albums by year-end, says Shigeru Watanabe, general manager, planning, record division.
Six are scheduled for release on the (Nippon) Columbia label and four on Denon, starting next month with
"Les Trois Concertos Brande-bourgeois/J. S. Bach" as locally recorded by l'Orchestre de Chambre Joan-Francois Paillard. The 10th UD-4 album is "Yesterday Once More/Mieko Hirota" according to the record jackets displayed by the Japanese manufacturer. Each will retail for 2,500 yen or about $8.30, Watanabe says, the same price as a CD-4 quadradisk with music of international origin.
In Japan, King Records is about to join the CD-4 group. Scheduled for release here Sept. 25 are eight stereo-compatible discrete 4-channel albums manufactured by King from master recordings owned by A&M, Barclay, CTI and Project 3.
The titles are: "Now and Then/The Carpenters," "Tapestry/Carole
King." "The Six of Wives of Henry the VIlIth /Rick Wakeman," “Bad Girl/ Quincy Jones," "Raymond Lefevre in Concert," "Deodato/Rhapsody In Blue.” "Joan Baez' Greatest Hits" and "The Spectacular Brass Menagerie" (Enoch Light).
Also, five more CD-4 albums are scheduled for release here Oct. 25 and six more Nov. 25 by Nippon Phonogram on the Philips label, while the first two CD-4 albums manufactured by Victor Musical Industries from Eterna master recordings owned by Deutsche Schallplatten (VEB) are scheduled for release Oct. 25, too. Also, Teichiku, another member of the Matsushita group, is preparing to mount a CD-4 sales campaign from Oct. 21 through Christmas Day for its over 50 discrete quadradisk releases.
In another development, TDK-Fairchild is preparing to market its CD-4 linear IC in Japan at an average price of 700 yen ($2.30) and, the joint developer says, samples have already been delivered to JVC, Matsushita and Pioneer. The 16-pin IC will be manufactured in the U.S. by the American partner at the rate of 100,000 units a month, starting next January, TDK-Fairchild says. Unit price will range from 400 yen ($1.30) to 1,000 yen ($3.30) depending on order volume, the joint venture adds.
Four more SQ albums are scheduled for release next month in Japan, and six more in November by CBS/Sony.
In terms of combined gross sales, Matsushita/JVC has annually outmatched Hitachi/Nippon Columbia by a ratio of about five to four. Hitachi openly committed itself to the UD-4 system for the first time in Japan Sept. 2. Nippon Columbia, now under Hitachi's wing, is expected to start advertising the UD-4 system in the U.S. and Europe next month.
Hitachi, which is manufacturing the
QS "Vario-Matrix" IC for Sansui, says the UD-4 system was developed by Nippon Columbia in cooperation with Hitachi's Central Research Laboratory.
