August 5, 1972
CO-EISTENCE
SUMS UP THE
QUADRASONIC EQUIPMENT
SITUATION NOW
By Earl Paige
THE APPROACHING FALL SELLING SEASON will be the first in which large quantities of 4-channel equipment are available. Aggressive retailers, many now veterans in promoting quadrasonic during its developing stages, will begin to move more impressive amounts of goods. In fact, some marketing experts in the industry are already talking about 4-channel in terms of mass merchandising, though this is probably another year away. Equipment, after all, is still relatively high-priced and there is the continuing question of enough available software.
For many in the industry, however, the larger question remains the outcome of the so-called battle of the systems--matrix versus discrete. Just the same, many people are coming to believe that the two systems will co•exist for some time to come. More and more manufacturers are announcing equipment suitable "for all quadrasonic applications.” Most often, there is mention of the capability to reproduce matrix disks and discrete tapes but Japan Victor, to name just one company, has announced a line of players equipped for both disk systems.
Actually, there are three quadrasonic disk systems, or rather, two matrix systems and the discrete system developed by RCA, JVC, and Panasonic. CBS, which has been joined by Electro-Voice, has one matrix disk system and Sansui has the other. Both matrix systems are mutually compatible.
On the tape side, there is virtually none of the matrix versus discrete confusion because the tape format has always been discrete. Even CBS, which is strongly pushing its SQ matrix disk con.cept, elected to go discrete in 8-track tape, a fact discrete advocates like to point out. Even though there are some record companies that are making matrix tape available, by far the picture in prerecorded tape is discrete.
Thus, all the focus on the disk confrontation has caused some people to ignore the fact that 4-channel has put 8-track cartridges in a most favorable position, according to Oscar P. Kusisto, vice president, general manager, Motorola Automotive Products.
In fact, because many see 4-channel as a step-up item in consumer electronics, the relatively low price of automotive quadrasonic makes it an ideal avenue for retailers to move the consumer into 4-channel for the home, say Kusisto and others.
A number of industry observers have remarked about the new status of 8-track. At the last institute of High Fidelity consumer show, the 8-track cartridge was referred to repeatedly. Panelist Bill Cawlfield noted that heretofore 8-track had never been an audiophile item.
“It was totally accidental that 8 track had enough capacity for
4-channel," Cawlfield said, “and of all places, you see 8-track 4-channel coming in through automobiles where players will be priced under $100." (Kusisto takes issue with the point about 8-track being accidentally capable, arguing that the introduction by RCA and Motorola of quadrasonic 8-track at the 1970 International Music Industry Conference was with "much forethought.")
During the past several months, several industry experts have alluded to high energy 8-track cartridges and even Dolbyized 8-track software. Ampex Stereo Tapes chief William Slover acknowledges that duplication with high energy tape and Dolbyization are under consideration by AST. TDK Electronics showed high energy 8-track blanks at the recent Consumer Electronics Show and TDK marketing director George Saddler has repeatedly said that 8-track is now a "hi fi medium.”
Indeed, 8-track, once completely ignored by the audiophile media, blossomed forth this spring in 4-channel guides such as that from High Fidelity, which showed 8-track quadrasonic models from over two dozen manufacturers.
Still another reason why 8-track 4-channel is so suddenly respectable relates to the one factor almost everyone agrees is cen tral to the success of quadrasonic, i.e., software.
As Kusisto, Cawlfield and numerous others have pointed out, retailers respect 2 channel 8-track and are therefore more willing to stock another inventory of 4-channel in this configuration. The same would not be true of cassette; if 4-channel cassette were feasible. Nor would open reel 4-channel prerecorded inventories be welcome, considering the long existing flat plateau of open reel prerecorded sales.
Finally, it can be said of discrete 4-channel 8-track that the configuration enjoys a long history as quadrasonic goes. There are other formats. Ovation Records president Dick Schory notes his label has matrix 8-track and cassette available. But when asked if this didn't add to the confusion, he says the two matrix configuration are not being touted. Ovation does have discrete 8-track and discrete open reel. So the lead of discrete 8-track is firmly established, so much so that this was the prime reason CBS went with discrete tape, says Stanley J. Kavan, CBS' chief quadrasonic spokesman, who was on the CES 4-channel seminar.
"We wanted to make a market, not divide one," Kavan told the audience. "We felt going along with Q8 (discrete cartridges) would keep the market stable."
"As RCA's John Pudwell was also on the panel, Kavan apparently didn't want his antagonist to smile too smugly, because he quickly added: "Although there were some who would have preferred CBS go with a matrix tape cartridge.
And so the debate was joined.
In the few intervening weeks since CES, many in the industry have looked back at the show as a sort of watershed event in terms of focusing more clearly on 4-channel and what to stock for fall.
Indications from the panel and from CES generally are heartening. Panelist Richard Schaak, Schaak Electronics, Minneapolis, went along with industry estimates that put 4-channel as comprising 10 percent of the industry volume this fall. Kusisto has since said this figure is probably accurate on an "annualized” basis for year-end '72.
Notes Schaak: “I just hope we'll be able to get enough equipment." He predicts 4-channel sales will jump 25 to 30 percent by year end.
Equally optimistic is Harold A. Weinberg, Lafayette Radio Electronics, New York, a firm that pioneered in 4-channel. He offers the rationale of many who see matrix as the step-up to discrete and said Lafayette elected to go strongly with matrix because "it leads to more levels of pricing. We did not want to eliminate a large number of customers even if discrete is better." Both agree that the average sale of a 4-channel outfit now is around $500, considerably above the average price of a 2-channel system, which they said runs between $200-$300. The $500 figure, while indicating retailers can expect higher dollar volume, does put 4-channel as a mass market item further from consideration at the moment.
Nevertheless, 4-channel decorders and other so-called “stereo enhancement" products do allow for low end merchandisers to participate in quadrasonic. Some decoders and ambiance deriving units do not even require two additional amplifiers. There does, indeed, seem to be plenty of hardware for the retailer who views 4-channel as in an interim phase and there is also a growing amount of quadrasonic units around $200 list.
But most people agree that hardware really isn't the question. While some equipment manufacturers are waiting, most have one or a few models at least in prototype stages if not introduced and many have several models in lines.
The question is software.
The CES audience was promised
100 SQ disk titles by year end, but more than that, the product will be by top rated artists, Kavan said.
Clearly, the emphasis in software is on quality.
Pudwell, in fact, said RCA released too much Q8 product in 1969. "Not all of the (68 titles were released) product should have been released," he said. Thus, RCA will come out with between 15 and 20 4-channel disks.
Sheer number of available titles is misleading, Kavan says. "One Andy Williams, John Lennon or Enoch Light is worth 10 Stanley Kavan's." But numbers will increase. Kavan believes
4-channel will be a mass market item, probably by late '73, and he forecasts 300 titles by then.
RCA also has long-range projections. At the recent IMIC, Rocco Laginestra, RCA Records president, said, “By this time next year (May), we plan all RCA records in discrete 4-chan-nel."
Yet another long range projection was Kavan's comment that "we can look forward to one inventory." As for now, SQ disks cost more and will continue to be list priced at $1 more, thus constituting a dual inventory.
In one respect, single inventory is the argument being raised by proponents of the Sansui matrix format.
Schory says his firm committed to Sansui because there is only one inventory/one price. He also opted for complete compatibility, he notes. "I want our records to sound good in monaural, great in 2 channel and fantastic in 4-channel."
But Schory, a pioneer in RCA's early years in stereo, is quick to point out that he sees no confusion between the CBS-EV SQ and Sansui format. "The Sansui system is basically similar to early EV and that is where most of the hardware is at. There is no compatibil ity problem."
As for the discrete disk moving also to a more popular price level, Pudwell says the question of a phonograph cartridge capable of handling the carrier frequency of the discrete disk is being resolved. He says a $12.95 price cartridge had been examined and found "very satisfactory."
Lou Dorren of Ouadracast mentions a cartridge for the RCA
"Quadradisc" that is "$5.95 OEM Japan."
Thus, while more and more manufacturers sign as SQ matrix licensees and therefore expand the number of models available for that system, the discrete concept gains followers too and promises to be far less expensive then first imagined.
What is discrete disk?
Pudwell says that essentially it is a system that allows for four discrete or separate channels to be placed inside that two-wall groove of a disk. The system uses a very wide bandwidth and multiplex concept. Involved are frequencies up to and beyond 45 kHz.
There is a complete signal in the frequency range below 20 kHz, right front and back and left front and back. Thus, the disk plays normally in monaural players and on stereo players.
The frequency range above 25 kHz is handled via a modulated carrier sig-nal, and as Pudwell explains this upper range carries the difference between the back and front on both sides. Thus, quadrasonic is derived through use of a cartridge that can handle the wide frequency range and a demodulator.
Champions of the discrete format, such as Brad Miller, Mobile Fidelity Productions, Inc., contend that it provides more creative freedom than matrix.
"This issue (matrix vs discrete)
must rest ultimately at the creative level, and not with the hardware," Miller says. "The discrete format allows the producer/artist the creative freedom to place any instrument, sound, or effect, anywhere, and I mean anywhere, within the 360 degree listening area, and when reproduced through a discrete tape deck or via the DC-4 disk system, remains exactly as the producer/artist in tended.
"On the other hand, the various matrix concepts place serious restriction as to where instruments, sounds and effects may be placed. For example, I place the bass of the Mystic Moods Orchestra in dead center rear.
This instrument completely disappears in monaural, and is seriously degraded in stereo when matrixed."
Critics of discrete, whether having heard poorly produced recordings or not, generally complain of exagger.ated channel separation. Sid Silver of Sansui told the recent IHF audience that a discrete version of "2001: A Space Odyssey” seemed to him to be
"pulled apart, harsh, confusing, phony." He said, "The same sound track in 2-channel through a matrixing system that can synthesize is fantastic."
What is matrix disk?
Benjamin B. Bauer, vice president, acoustics and magnetics, CBS Laboratories, explains the system this way:
"The SQ record system retains the two basic stereo modulations. The left channel modulation becomes the left front quadraphonic channel and the right channel modulation becomes the right front quadraphonic channel.
In addition, the SQ system provides two new modes of modulation for the remaining two channels.
"To record an SQ master, all four channels of a quadrasonic master tape are passed through the SQ encoder. The encoder preserves undiluted the signals of the two front channels causing them to be recorded precisely like those of regular stereo record; it also produces two additional circular modulations.
"As the record rotates: and the groove advances, a clockwise helix is produced for the left back channel and a counter clockwise helix is produced for the right back channel.
These two helixes carry the back channel information in the SQ record."
Matrix had gained ground primarily because it has been available longer in disk form and to a lesser extent because it has been used by FM stations.
However, Dorren and other have said repeatedly that discrete FM broadcasting is viable.
Kusisto adds it will come sooner than expected because FM discrete technology will lead to multiple television audio channels, and thus will logically win Federal Communications Commission favor.
Meanwhile, far-sighted marketers of equipment and retailers are gearing for 4-channel in whatever mode.
There is even more serious discussion of 4-channel cassette units being developed, indicating, if nothing else, that 4-channel is here to stay.
More and more manufacturers are tending to emphasis "universal" 4-channel capability. Thus, one finds the new line announced in Japan by JVC, a discrete proponent, described as being equipped with a CBS/Sony regular matrix decoder. On the other hand, new model from EV, a matrix proponent, is described in advertisements as having "full provision for 4-channel tape or future 'discrete' disk inputs…It's all there."
