RCA Victor 'Quad 8' PQ8 Series (including Grunt, Kirshner and RCA Red Seal)

[steelydave]

So steelydave.....whisper into the ears of Mr. Dutton that The Best of Nina Simone might be a great contender for a D~V SACD upgrade. Would certainly satisfy his existing fan base as well.

I'm sure he's aware of it, I think it goes without saying that D-V have an excellent grasp of what is available in quad. I don't know what the status of Simone's estate is today, but following her death her estate and her former attorney were mired for years in lawsuits and counter-lawsuits (it appears some of which have been resolved) and that kind of thing makes licensing impossible since no one can agree who owns the material in question.

I think D-V's been really good so far in the amount of jazz, R&B and blues-based quad material they've released thusfar (much to the chagrin of some rock fans) so I doubt they'd pass up Nina Simone if the opportunity presented itself.

 

[quicksrt]

I sold one on ebay late last year, definitely does exist.
View attachment 40119View attachment 40120

How did it sound, was it a good mix, if you had a chance to listen to it?

 

[noffour]

I recorded it so I still have the music in 4ch. The mix is discrete and active. Voice is almost always in the front. Drums usually in the back.
Other instruments are distributed in all speakers.

 

[quicksrt]

I recorded it so I still have the music in 4ch. The mix is discrete and active. Voice is almost always in the front. Drums usually in the back.
Other instruments are distributed in all speakers.

Sounds pretty fabulous - and perfect candidate for reissue being Nina has become very much “in vogue” in most recent years.

Paging M. Dutton, we have BMG/RCA on line one for you!

 

[noffour]

Thank you both. I'll keep looking, really want to put my hands on this one.

One on ebay now, in the UK.
Also a second one in the US.

 

[admsh]

One on ebay now, in the UK.
Also a second one in the US.

Thank you so much!!! I am the proud owner of this tape now. Next up is setting up my system here to digitise. Just the push I needed to make it happen, by the time the tape arrives so will my new interface with analogue inputs!

 

[DuncanS]

My baby don't care for shows
My baby don't care for clothes
My baby just cares for a DV Quad SACD

Nina Simone would be a great one, never knew a Quad version existed!

 

[steelydave]

I've updated the tables a bit in the first post of this thread - I gave the tapes from Grunt and Kirshner their own sections, and added a section at the bottom for the 'PCQ8' series of compilation demo tapes that were issued during the same period that the PQ8 tapes were released. These may be of interest to hardcore collectors as several of them contain tracks from albums that were never released in quad, including ones by Arthur Fiedler, Hugo Montenegro, Henry Mancini, Marilyn Maye, Eydie Gorme, Claus Ogerman, Marty Gold, and Danny Davis & The Nashville Brass.

 

[Q-Eight]

Something that strikes me as odd is how few unreleased titles there are from RCA, or at the very least, we don't know the specifics of them. South Pacific Soundtrack, Brian Auger and a pair of titles from Dolly and one from Elvis are all I have listed. I know there was an advertisement in Billboard in 1975 that mentioned an unspecified album from John Denver and David Bowie as "coming soon", but no specifics and of course, neither appeared.

Beyond that though, there really isn't a ton of unreleased titles from RCA. Now, does that mean they put out nearly 99% of their advertised output or were they that controlled as to not advertise in advance of the release of a title?

Just one of my stray thoughts at quarter to one in the morning.

 

[steelydave]

Found this cool full-page advertisement that originally appeared in an early 1971 issue of Playboy (you know that magazine you read just for the articles). I love the illustration that features the listener being surrounded by psychedelic fart clouds of sound - totally what I'm going to be visualising the next time I listen to a quad album!

 

[Circular Vibes]

I will have to remember "surrounded by psychedelic fart clouds of sound " next time I listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd's That Smell in surround, fake or otherwise!

 

[Circular Vibes]

I was so intrigued by the picture that I downloaded it to maybe print later to hang over my turntable. As I enlarged it I realised the poor guy must have just discovered the butt kickers in the chair during a rumble fest of bass and promptly needed a new pair of shorts! I'm thinking maybe the Sorcerer's Apprentice from The Fantastic Philadelphians volume 1 or maybe Night on Bare Mountain!

 

[~dave~~wave~]

Here's the sad thing, that list of releases is so square!
Cringe-inducing.

Nothing on there I would have been interested in in 1971 or today, save for the Youngbloods & The Moog Strikes Bach.
Possibly the Hair Soundtrack in the photo.

On second thought, my 50-year-older self does enjoy the Julian Bream classical guitar D-V quad.

 

[winopener]

Guess Who Share The Land wasn't good for you at the time?

 

[winopener]

I will have to remember "surrounded by psychedelic fart clouds of sound " next time I listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd's That Smell in surround, fake or otherwise!

Heck, i can be an Old Fart, bt at least i'm an Old Psychedelic Fart lost in Cloud Of Sound!

 

[Q-Eight]

Here's the sad thing, that list of releases is so square!
Cringe-inducing.

Nothing on there I would have been interested in in 1971 or today, save for the Youngbloods & The Moog Strikes Bach.
Possibly the Hair Soundtrack in the photo.

On second thought, my 50-year-older self does enjoy the Julian Bream classical guitar D-V quad.

One can only deduce that since the tapes cost more, and the playback equipment was also quite expensive, that they were trying to cater to the affluent long hair group of people. This could also be seen as another reason Quad wasn't a huge success: the record companies could never really figure out who their audience was. They also may have wasted a lot of time/money/effort/resources on titles that turned out to be sales mules. It sure does seem that the bulk of known unreleased titles were popular titles. A case of too little, too late?

 

[~dave~~wave~]

Guess Who Share The Land wasn't good for you at the time?

Touché, I didn't spot it in the photo.

Very happy to have the D-V two-fers 50 years later.

 

[quadrasounded]

I for one would really enjoy to see some those Grunt titles released

 

[DiscotecaDiScimmia]

It seems the switch from the "quad 8" logo to the script "Q8" happened in mid-1971, so all the titles released before then should exist with the "quad 8" labeling. Darned if I can find any evidence of some of those titles now, though. Can anyone confirm the existence of The Sound of Music with the old design instead of Q8?

 

[winopener]

Think that the ones pictured in the ad page came out all togheter, it wasn't just a cosmetic makeup since the Q8 labels glued on the carton box were different from their stereo counterpart; SoM is right page, last right col, second from top.