Quad in the 70's was a masterful idea for the audiophile

[quicksrt]

The WEA stuff, was and is fairly consistently outstanding quad mixes as we are seeing with the Quadio line. The Columbia / Epic Records quad mixes were equally fine as we've seen plenty of them on AF, DV and a few on Sony Japan.

In other words Quadraphonic was a really wonderful development in the first half of the 70's, yet got such a bad rap due to delivery formats and their respective limitations.

So sad it had to die. But it's really exciting how it came back, and now sounds so great!

 

[Rhinojack]

As a teen it was my utmost wish to have a quad system. I thought the concept modern. The closest I got back then was connecting two speakers to each left and right. Double stereo.

 

[quicksrt]

I remember playing the entire Johnny Winter "Saints and Sinners" Q8 hearing only the fronts, and then listening to the whole album program again with back channels only. Then picturing in my mind what it might sound like together. That's pretty desperate to hear some real quad but not having the equipment.

 

[kfbkfb]

I did something similar with my few Stereo-4 matrix encoded LPs and 1 CC:

I bought an Electro-Voice EVX-4 Stereo-4 decoder (NOS) in ~1976
https://products.electrovoice.com/binary/EVX-4 EDS.pdf
and listened to the decoded front and then back channels through my stereo system speakers and stereo headphones - the ~1dB LB to RB channel separation still provided some stereo effect.

(I finally heard my Stereo-4 albums in decoded Stereo-4 when I got my 2 stereo receivers + 4 low end speakers quad system set up in 1991-03)


Kirk Bayne

 

[fredblue]

I remember playing the entire Johnny Winter "Saints and Sinners" Q8 hearing only the fronts, and then listening to the whole album program again with back channels only. Then picturing in my mind what it might sound like together. That's pretty desperate to hear some real quad but not having the equipment.

"Saints & Sinners" is a bloody fantastic Quad! i wish we could get it on SACD or Blu-ray!

 

[Jim.olga]

I remember playing the entire Johnny Winter "Saints and Sinners" Q8 hearing only the fronts, and then listening to the whole album program again with back channels only. Then picturing in my mind what it might sound like together. That's pretty desperate to hear some real quad but not having the equipment.

I did the same with To Our Children's, Children's, Children's!

 

[barfle]

My first “quad” system had a pair of cheap Pioneer speakers i. front, and a far cheaper pair of speakers a buddy gave me as rears. Just the difference in frequency response gave me an effect that was pretty cool (at the time).

I shortly moved up to a Sony SQD1000 and a cheap (15W or so) amp for the back channels.

The things we do when we’re kids and don’t have any idea of how to budget our funds.

 

[quicksrt]

My first “quad” system had a pair of cheap Pioneer speakers i. front, and a far cheaper pair of speakers a buddy gave me as rears. Just the difference in frequency response gave me an effect that was pretty cool (at the time).

I shortly moved up to a Sony SQD1000 and a cheap (15W or so) amp for the back channels.

The things we do when we’re kids and don’t have any idea of how to budget our funds.

What funds?

I suppose I could have started getting serious about Q8s as the 8-track format was dying out and flea markets had quad cartridges out for $1.00, $2.00 or $3.00 each, and I could have found a quad deck used at that time. Then another amp, and more speakers. No, I was sinking under the weight of living away from home for the first time. And concerts was where I wanted to spend my few extra bucks in addition to the LPs.

But by 1980 or '81 I was completely leaving the tapes behind and spending mainly on nicer vinyl pressings with my limited funds. Even those used Q8s seemed expensive actually.

 

[barfle]

What funds?

I suppose I could have started getting serious about Q8s as the 8-track format was dying out and flea markets had quad cartridges out for $1.00, $2.00 or $3.00 each, and I could have found a quad deck used at that time. Then another amp, and more speakers. No, I was sinking under the weight of living away from home for the first time. And concerts was where I wanted to spend my few extra bucks in addition to the LPs.

But by 1980 or '81 I was completely leaving the tapes behind and spending on on nicer vinyl pressing with my limited funds. Even those used Q8s seems expensive actually.

Well, I (usually) had a job, and rent and car payments ate up a fair amount of what the job brought in. That and looking for women and beer.

I probably owned a grand total of 8 or 9 8-track tapes, and every one of them ended up being a mess. I had an Akai (X1800SD?) that was a combo R-R and 8-track deck. I bought it when I was in the Army (probably a month’s pay if not more) and when it worked, it was marvellous. But it had plenty of problems, and I spent too much money on not getting it fixed, so eventually it went to that great hi-fi system in the sky.

 

[quicksrt]

Well, I (usually) had a job, and rent and car payments ate up a fair amount of what the job brought in. That and looking for women and beer.

I probably owned a grand total of 8 or 9 8-track tapes, and every one of them ended up being a mess. I had an Akai (X1800SD?) that was a combo R-R and 8-track deck. I bought it when I was in the Army (probably a month’s pay if not more) and when it worked, it was marvellous. But it had plenty of problems, and I spent too much money on not getting it fixed, so eventually it went to that great hi-fi system in the sky.

I remember that deck, cart slot on the side - promising the fidelity of a R2R deck.
But that was not a quad deck for 8-tracks right?

But I think I stayed pretty poor until May of 1982 when I figured out how to climb up to the next level financially.

Anyway, I was great at fixing 8-tracks even when they were a total unspooled mess. But the fidelity just was not enough for me. So like many others I collected the quad conversions circulating, but I went mostly for QRs and very few Q8 tapes due to never liking them much after age 16.

 

[kfbkfb]

.

 

[Doug G.]

My very first "quad" setup was just a leftover speaker I made earlier for my home made "system" It had a 5" X 7" Utah driver with a whizzer cone in it and I put it in the middle behind me and wired it between the two + leads on my Heathkit amplifier. Mostly ambiance, of course but that was IT. I was never going to be without something behind me ever again (although this proved not to be always true due to circumstances I'm sure others have encountered).

And, actually, I was hooked on quad before even setting anything up. Just reading about it got me going.

I eventually acquired "real" quad stuff and have a classic quad system with a Blu-Ray player added for those Quadios. CD-4 is still a wonderful thing to me.

Doug

 

[kfbkfb]

I first found out about quad by picking up some Pioneer quad hardware brochures at the CMC Stereo store on Noland Rd in mid-1971, I heard quad (Stereo-4 matrix) for the first time at the Radio Shack on 24 Highway in mid-1972 and discrete quad (CD-4) in the spring of 1975 in Cedar Rapids IA.

I next heard surround sound at Star Wars in 1977, movie theaters were the only places where I heard surround sound until I set up my own home quad system, first with my 2 stereo receivers, 2 Polk Monitor 4s + 2 single speaker Radio Shack speakers in mid-1990, then 4 matched speakers in early 1991.


Kirk Bayne

 

[quicksrt]

Even med. to lower end dept. stores had quadraphonic stereo equipment for sale. Mainly 8-track combo units. K-Mart had an electronics dept. with quad stuff. Panasonic had some cool units with four globe style speakers. And even that was out of my range.

 

[barfle]

I remember that deck, cart slot on the side - promising the fidelity of a R2R deck.
But that was not a quad deck for 8-tracks right?

But I think I stayed pretty poor until May of 1982 when I figured out how to climb up to the next level financially.

Anyway, I was great at fixing 8-tracks even when they were a total unspooled mess. But the fidelity just was not enough for me. So like many others I collected the quad conversions circulating, but I went mostly for QRs and very few Q8 tapes due to never liking them much after age 16.

The deck definitely predated quad by at least a couple of years.

Yes, it had the slot in the side for carts, and it could record them (which made for uncontrollable track changes) on blank carts if you could find them. No erase head on the carts iirc, so you had to have a bulk eraser if you boogered up a transfer.

 

[Quadmon]

I first heard quad when a salesman at the local Lafayette store demoed it for me. First song I heard was Long Train Runnin’ by the Doobies on Q8. Soon had my own system. Iirc it was a Sony tape player, HK 100+ receiver and four HPM 100 speakers. The system has evolved over 50 years to Oppo and Onkyo but I still listen to the tapes.

 

[MidiMagic]

What funds?

I suppose I could have started getting serious about Q8s as the 8-track format was dying out and flea markets had quad cartridges out for $1.00, $2.00 or $3.00 each, and I could have found a quad deck used at that time. Then another amp, and more speakers. No, I was sinking under the weight of living away from home for the first time. And concerts was where I wanted to spend my few extra bucks in addition to the LPs.

But by 1980 or '81 I was completely leaving the tapes behind and spending mainly on nicer vinyl pressings with my limited funds. Even those used Q8s seems expensive actually.

I didn't have funds either. By the time I had funds, quad was gone.

But that did not stop me. The only thing I really spent money on was the speakers (which I am still using). And I bought used amps at auctions.

I built several matrix decoders. The schematic of one of them is below. I also built several encoders to be used with 4-bus mixers.

 

[quicksrt]

The fits and starts to get us to where we are now with modern reissued 70’s quadraphonic mixed albums - just 20 years is all it took.

And they thread up 50 year old masters (for digital transfers) and they often sound like they were mixed yesterday so far as condition of the tapes are concerned.

As someone previously mentioned we now need Universal Music to get serious about the quad they own and have not yet exploited. It looks to me like there was not a lot of quad out on the US Decca and Uni labels originally. So we are to look towards Capitol, Virgin, Mercury / Polygram, Motown, Liberty / United Artists / Blue Note for quad mixed masters from UMG. There must be at least three or four dozen first class pop quad masters out of those labels’ libraries. And I don’t dare even dream of ABC / Dunhill or A&M material.

So what I’m rambling on about here is I think (between all the labels) there are at least five more years of physical media quad gravy here if they get with it. The death of physical media ain’t here yet.

What are your top 10 desired quad mixed albums from Universal owned masters?

 

[fredblue]

The fits and starts to get us to where we are now with modern reissued 70’s quadraphonic mixed albums - just 20 years is all it took.

And they thread up 50 year old masters (for digital transfers) and they often sound like they were mixed yesterday so far as condition of the tapes are concerned.

As someone previously mentioned we now need Universal Music to get serious about the quad they own and have not yet exploited. It looks to me like there was not a lot of quad out on the US Decca and Uni labels originally. So we are to look towards Capitol, Virgin, Mercury / Polygram, Motown, Liberty / United Artists / Blue Note for quad mixed masters from UMG. There must be at least three or four dozen first class pop quad masters out of those labels’ libraries. And I don’t dare even dream of ABC / Dunhill or A&M material.

So what I’m rambling on about here is I think (between all the labels) there are at least five more years of physical media quad gravy here if they get with it. The death of physical media ain’t here yet.

What are your top 10 desired quad mixed albums from Universal owned masters?

i can't do a top 10, there's too many!

some of my most wanted Quads currently held by Universal include the Motown studio albums that saw release in CD-4 Quad form in Japan and a number of A&M titles, although the latter feel particularly doubtful as tapes have supposedly been missing for many years..

Marvin Gaye "What's Going On",
Marvin Gaye "Let's Get It On",
Marvin Gaye & Diana Ross "Marvin & Diana",
Diana Ross "Last Time I Saw Him",
Diana Ross & The Supremes "Greatest Hits",
The Temptations "All Directions",
The Temptations "1990",
The Jackson 5 "Greatest Hits",
Joan Baez "Diamonds & Rust",
Carpenters "Horizon",
Quincy Jones "You've Got It Bad, Girl",
Quincy Jones "Body Heat",
Quincy Jones "Mellow Madness".
Captain & Tennille "Love Will Keep Us Together",
Chuck Mangione "Chase The Clouds Away",
Chuck Mangione "Bellavia"

in addition, i'd love any ABC/Command titles that can be miraculously unearthed, including the Four Tops (3 Quads), Steely Dan (3 Quads), B.B. King (potentially around a half a dozen Quads including unreleased/rumoured titles).. and of course any other A&M, ABC, Motown, Mercury.. the list goes on and on!!

 

[barfle]

Talking about the actual topic of this thread, I don't consider myself an audiophile, although some people would. I love most kinds of music, and even a fair amount of auditory entertainment that wouldn't quite fit most people's definition of the term (think Morton Subotnick, for example). I've known a few people who were a bit crazier about their gear and media than I am, so perhaps I would consider them to be audiophiles.

When quad came out in the '70s, I had a mediocre stereo system, which was as good as I could afford at the time. NONE of the audiophiles I knew jumped on the bandwagon. The universal attitude seemed to be "gimmick" and, to be sure, a lot of it was, just as a lot of the ping-pong early stereo recordings were gimmicks.

I thought it was pretty cool, and have tried to keep some semblance of a surround system going in the intervening years. It's still an ongoing project of mine, and it probably will be until I'm wheeled out of my current home.