There are several members whose opinions I trust because their musical tastes agree with mine, so I'm willing to take a chance on a purchase. That's how I "discovered" bands like Big Big Train, RPWL, Porcupine Tree, Flaming Lips....
RHINO QUADIO batch #6 - Speculation Extravaganza!
- Thread starter J. PUPSTER
- Start date
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2K Club - QQ Super Nova
I’ve bought the first 4 sets and though some were a stretch in theory, I’ve enjoyed them all.
*Edit: and the 5th set is on the way*
*Edit: and the 5th set is on the way*
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Just because it's quad (or Atmos, 5.1, etc.,) it doesn't mean you're going to like it. I'm grateful there are as many "surround audio" purveyors as there are, but that can't at all oblige me to buy Seals & Croft, Donny Hathaway, Doobie Bros, Graham Central Station reissues. BUT good for any other quad fan who likes those artists.
I think part of the many reasons original quad didn't catch on was the shortage of top-shelf artists & releases that people could experience firsthand & really dig the spurs in to make them want quad in their own home. Most of these were second-tier artists, and essentially "contractual obligation" releases, and that's just not gonna catch fire to make quad the "next big thing" we all hoped it would be. Add to that the "format war" of multiple decoding vinyl releases AND the extra cost & hassle of setting up & calibrating a quad system, and I think you're already into niche "propeller head" geek territory (not as if there's anything WRONG with that)!
I have been beguiled to repeat buy MANY archive faves over the decades, first as CD re-releases came out, plus maybe a few Mobile Fidelity reissues. At my advanced stage of, um, maturity, I CAN still shell out to buy new SACD or deluxe reissues, but I just plain have to be REALLY selective, given their COST and, I confess, the cold, unflinching likelihood that I probably can't squeeze $50+ more enjoyment out of re-experiencing these thoroughly familiar recordings anew. Still, I'm on board IF it's a title/artist that was somehow "central to my existence" back in the day. Again, my bottom line is I'm GRATEFUL we get as much as we do for these pristine audio resurrections. I'd DEFINITELY grab Traffic's "John Barleycorn" in a surround remix given the chance!
I think part of the many reasons original quad didn't catch on was the shortage of top-shelf artists & releases that people could experience firsthand & really dig the spurs in to make them want quad in their own home. Most of these were second-tier artists, and essentially "contractual obligation" releases, and that's just not gonna catch fire to make quad the "next big thing" we all hoped it would be. Add to that the "format war" of multiple decoding vinyl releases AND the extra cost & hassle of setting up & calibrating a quad system, and I think you're already into niche "propeller head" geek territory (not as if there's anything WRONG with that)!
I have been beguiled to repeat buy MANY archive faves over the decades, first as CD re-releases came out, plus maybe a few Mobile Fidelity reissues. At my advanced stage of, um, maturity, I CAN still shell out to buy new SACD or deluxe reissues, but I just plain have to be REALLY selective, given their COST and, I confess, the cold, unflinching likelihood that I probably can't squeeze $50+ more enjoyment out of re-experiencing these thoroughly familiar recordings anew. Still, I'm on board IF it's a title/artist that was somehow "central to my existence" back in the day. Again, my bottom line is I'm GRATEFUL we get as much as we do for these pristine audio resurrections. I'd DEFINITELY grab Traffic's "John Barleycorn" in a surround remix given the chance!
Glad to hear! Some on this forum just buy, buy buy and then complain about the album & how they don't like it.
Crazy!
What I didn't mention is that I often get snared into buying an unfamiliar album because of the radio hit. So I end up playing the full album only once and the radio hit over and over. Take for example Yes' Fragile album which I've bought in several incarnations. Other than Roundabout and Long Distance Runaround, I can't even tell you what else is on the album.
I had never heard of Porcupine Tree when I bought Lightbulb Sun. I bought it because there were few surround titles being released at the time. That was my introduction to Steven Wilson, so that shot-in-the-dark gets a 10.0 on the Richter scale.
CymruQuad
Member
A quick search as found within Wiki:
"The United Artists catalog is controlled by Capitol Records, now part of Universal Music Group (who also owns the non-soundtrack catalog of MGM Records, once owned by UA's current parent Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer).[15][16] Capitol Records also has the rights to soundtrack albums UA Records released under license from MGM Music.[17] The catalog of most British acts who were signed to the British branch of UA Records is today controlled by the Parlophone unit of Warner Music Group,[18] with North American distribution by Rhino Entertainment."
Artists known quad releases detailed at Discogs include:
- Amon Düül II
- Paul Anka https://www.discogs.com/artist/312014-Paul-Anka?format=Quadraphonic
- Shirley Bassey https://www.discogs.com/artist/5492-Shirley-Bassey?format=Quadraphonic
- Electric Light Orchestra https://www.discogs.com/artist/112154-Electric-Light-Orchestra?format=Quadraphonic
- Bobby Goldsboro https://www.discogs.com/artist/104732-Bobby-Goldsboro?format=Quadraphonic
- Hawkwind Atmos released
- Gordon Lightfoot https://www.discogs.com/artist/306305-Gordon-Lightfoot?format=Quadraphonic
- Ennio Morricone https://www.discogs.com/artist/15900-Ennio-Morricone?format=Quadraphonic
- Popol Vuh https://www.discogs.com/artist/81882-Popol-Vuh?format=Quadraphonic
- Johnny Rivers https://www.discogs.com/artist/183949-Johnny-Rivers?format=Quadraphonic
- Traffic unreleased John Barleycorn Must Die
- Ike & Tina Turner https://www.discogs.com/artist/81138-Ike-Tina-Turner?format=Quadraphonic
- War https://www.discogs.com/artist/9707-War?format=Quadraphonic
- Dottie West https://www.discogs.com/artist/577288-Dottie-West?format=Quadraphonic All three quads rereleased
- Bobby Womack https://www.discogs.com/artist/10463-Bobby-Womack?format=Quadraphonic
- Frank Zappa https://www.discogs.com/artist/92623-Frank-Zappa?format=Quadraphonic Both rereleased
There are some here who feel that any effort to rerelease an analog quad in digital format deserves support. Some are “completists” and collect just to collect. I believe most of us like to experience new (to us) music. I’ve bought plenty of albums (see avatar) that had material on them that I hadn’t heard.
I know I’ve gone into record stores and shows and picked up stuff that just seemed interesting, and I’ve judged many a book by its cover. Sometimes I’ve been pleasantly surprised, sometimes I wasted the money.
Everyone has their own reasons.
Yep! No one has to apologize for liking whatever they like. I wince a little because I DO want to support quad/surround, BUT that can't oblige me to buy a Mystic Moods Orchestra reissue just because someone chose to market it anew.
There are a handful of bands and artists that never floated my boat when they were making hits and still don’t. I won’t list them because I don’t want to create yet another firestorm. But if I thought they were crap on AM radio, I still won’t enjoy them in 9.4.6. If someone else wants them, I may privately wonder what they hear that I don’t (or vice-versa), but it ain’t my monkey and it ain’t my circus.
Victor, you have asked a very good question and have a very good observation.
I will speak for myself. As a member of QQ since 2014, QQ has opened me to a world of music that I could have never imagined. I am listening on a regular basis to artists that I would have never known about. Here in the San Francisco area we do not have good radio stations, we don't have MTV anymore, as it used to be, so if not for QQ, my musical tastes would be very narrow and not open minded.
Of course and everyone will agree, we purchase something that many say is great, and I find I don't like what others like. Just like I can have a favorite band but don't like one of their albums, etc. I am a 50/50 listener of stereo and surround. It depends on my mood, sometimes surround is to engaging for me and I prefer stereo, but when I can calm down, surround is where it is at.
Your observation of others always seeming to complain, I agree with you. My theory is that when others complain on QQ, not all the time of course, that they like to come across as "I am a very good audiophile of the highest standard and I can hear everything that is wrong all the time". I, of course would never call anyone out on that as that would not be nice, and for God's sake, it is just the internet, and we get what we get. All that said, I have made some wonderful friends on QQ and would highly recommend QQ to anyone who has an interest in music.
Where did I see recently, some grizzled classic rock luminary observed wisely that streaming has changed the listening experience, in the vinyl era, we were involuntarily obliged to hear those "deep tracks" mixed in between the radio hits. Maybe those didn't appeal at first, but with repeated listenings, they blossomed unexpectedly & became lifetime favorites. That just doesn't happen in the streaming biosphere, where even if an unfamiliar track gets sampled, it likely gets shut down if it doesn't deliver an immediate sugar high to fickle listeners. I suspect that service curated genre streams ("Jazz/Pop/New Age/Electronica") can still yield some head-snapping "who is THIS?!?!" moments of discovery, BUT I also wonder how many (like me) won't even stream at all because it's just another tech headache where the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
One last (yeah, right, lol) thing. I’ve bought many DV classical quads without knowing the music. I’ve NEVER been disappointed. I guess that the pieces on those discs have endured the test of time.
Interesting analysis, but I don't really agree with the premise that quad failed because most of the albums mixed were "second-tier" artists. While the case may be (and certainly is) that as many top-selling artists had quad albums released as didn't, labels were absolutely in the business of making music that sold, so they weren't commissioning quad mixes (which cost something in the neighborhood of $50k in today's money) as some kind of box-ticking exercise - no one was contractually obligated to issue a quad LP.
You certainly see some albums mixed for, and released in quad that were duds, but that's just the random nature of trying to sell any kind of art - if there was a simple (or even complicated) formula for commercial success in selling music, movies, or books you can bet that every company would employ it as they have no interest in sinking money into enterprises that don't merit it. The music industry back then was moving at a lightning pace, with pretty much every artist releasing an album a year (with some notable exceptions) and the albums that you do see released (again, with some exceptions where the few artists who had the power to exercise artistic control did so) represent what the labels saw as lottery tickets with the best chance for hitting the jackpot.
There's also historical revisionism at play, as the popularity of certain styles and genres waxes and wanes over the decades. I think for example, soft rock of the style that Bread and Seals and Crofts has fallen down because of its overly earnest style and lack of 'cool' cache, and rock fans seem to discount the importance of the acts that charted highly on the R&B charts (or "Top Soul LPs" as the Billboard chart was called back then) at the same time that rock acts were at the top of the Billboard Albums Chart, whereas bands like Black Sabbath, who were selling similar numbers of LPs as any of those bands back in the day have seen their profile rise in recent years because of the critical reappraisal of their historical significance and influence on younger generations.
Just a sample of some of the chart positions of recent rock and R&B Quadio releases:
Bread Baby I'm-a Want You - Billboard #3
Graham Central Station Self-Titled - R&B #20 (Can You Handle It #9 R&B single)
Bette Midler Divine Miss M - Billboard #9
Seals & Crofts - Diamond Girl - Billboard #4
Roberta Flack - Killing Me Softly - Billboard #3, R&B #2
Joni Mitchell - Court & Spark - Billboard #2, Hissing of Summer Lawns Billboard #4
War - The World is a Ghetto - Billboard #1, R&B #1
Average White Band - AWB - Billboard #1, R&B #1
The Spinners - Spinners - Billboard #14, R&B #1
Gordon LIghtfoot - Sundown - Billboard #1
America - Holiday - Billboard #3
Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies - Billboard #1
...and the list goes on, three of the four Doobie Bros. quad albums were top-5, and five of the nine Chicago albums were #1, and the others were all in the top 10, just to name a few more.
I think part of the many reasons original quad didn't catch on was: Speaking for myself, money was the only answer. I was in high school during Quads push. I think one of my friends older brother had an actual Quad set up.
It wasn't till I got out of high school, that I could even think of getting your basic receiver, turntable and two speakers. In my 40's I got Laser Disc and 5.1 very small speakers. In my 50's added amps to the equation. It wasn't until my 60's that I could afford what I have now.
I go to today's prices and a 4 speaker set up albeit even at its cheapest price could not be affordable to a younger than I generation.
I think thus the reason to push spatial audio, we who are set up with fine surround rigs are still not really the intended audience, which I believe is the younger headphone audience, we are just lucky to be benefactors of this new push for surround.
If there was a National Survey asking have you ever listened to surround sound music, the answer would be No.
It wasn't till I got out of high school, that I could even think of getting your basic receiver, turntable and two speakers. In my 40's I got Laser Disc and 5.1 very small speakers. In my 50's added amps to the equation. It wasn't until my 60's that I could afford what I have now.
I go to today's prices and a 4 speaker set up albeit even at its cheapest price could not be affordable to a younger than I generation.
I think thus the reason to push spatial audio, we who are set up with fine surround rigs are still not really the intended audience, which I believe is the younger headphone audience, we are just lucky to be benefactors of this new push for surround.
If there was a National Survey asking have you ever listened to surround sound music, the answer would be No.
There absolutely WERE main attraction acts getting quad releases back in quad's 1970's "Next Big Thing" frenzy, but a lot was well, questionable. Ray Price? Danny Davis & the Nashville Brass? Charlie Rich? Not my thing, to be sure BUT I just don't see any of those as pebbles that trigger the avalanche of quad-o-mania. OTOH, I admire how CBS went "all in" on quad, with hundreds of new releases coming like a firehose. A pity their SQ format for LP's was "fake" quad, aka "round mono." I was thrilled to see multichannel return via the backdoor via 5.1 analog on new receivers circa late '80's or so, and it's only been since last month that I was even aware of these doughty Rhino reissues.
I also wonder about the quality of those Neanderthal quad mixes. Recall how early days of stereo were done as a ham-handed afterthought, after the mono mix was finalized for AM radio play. I'm just spitballin' here, but I suspect many of these original quad mixes were just clumsy and sloppy.
Failure was also a lack of product. I remember getting my QRX-999 in Naples and dragging it onto the ship and into my shop. Many of my friends were interested in Quad as they had little experience with it. I had just received one of the "Sound Concepts" quad booklets listing all of the quad stuff that was for sale.
The guys looked through it and said "Is this it? Are these the only things you can get in quad?"
They were looking for Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, and other stuff like that. They were interested in the Zappa's and Eagles and Aeromsith's, but there just wasn'e enough to motivate them. Plus, this was at the tail end of the quad years, and most of the current stuff wasn't available.
Price was the main reason, but availability of what was out there and what wasn't out there was important as well
The guys looked through it and said "Is this it? Are these the only things you can get in quad?"
They were looking for Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, and other stuff like that. They were interested in the Zappa's and Eagles and Aeromsith's, but there just wasn'e enough to motivate them. Plus, this was at the tail end of the quad years, and most of the current stuff wasn't available.
Price was the main reason, but availability of what was out there and what wasn't out there was important as well
YES some worthy observations, I too wasn't able to buy a decent quad rig until well into adulthood, but even so, starry-eyed AV capitalists were even then eager to offer tiered setups/bundles of quad gear for "entry level" quad-curious buyers. My first teenage rig was Panasonic/Technics, far from opulent, BUT the receiver held up for nearly 20 years, and I still have the speakers/cassette deck (retired, like me). I actually still use the Panasonic turntable, a disc changer, and I'm thrilled with its durability AND its continuing performance! 50 years old & never serviced!
We ARE lucky to be enjoying this surround mini-revival, I think we may see some continued growth as home theater fans realize how this sountrack audio wizardry can also be transmuted to supercharge home audio as well as blu-ray or streaming content.
Yes there was lots of easy listening released, but again you have to consider the era - not unlike today, the majority of people with the disposable income to buy a full multichannel-capable stereo system weren't 25 years old, they were 50, and so labels were putting out music in quad for them as much as they were for the younger crowd. Again this is a genre of music that hasn't aged well popularity-wise, but at the time (especially in the very early '70s) it was still a very commercially successful format. Easy listening was also possibly the best-recorded music of all the stuff released in quad, so it was a natural for the format, having been engineered in some of the biggest Hollywood and NY studios by the most experienced veteran engineers.
I think I can speak with some authority on this when I say that this stereotype, especially as we've been able to see (or find out about) the engineering credits on the master tapes, is for the most part entirely untrue. The vast majority of mixes done for RCA and Warner/Elektra/Atlantic artists were done in the same studios by the same engineers at the same time as the stereo mixes, and for the CBS family mixes that weren't done by the original stereo engineers (of which I'd say almost half were, and maybe more in the latter years of quad) they employed two dedicated engineers in Don Young and Larry Keyes that did some of the best mixes the format ever saw. Look them up on the Surround Engineers link at the top of the forum, and then have a look at the Surround Polls and you'll see that many of their mixes are in the top 100 ranked by users here. Are there sloppy or inferior mixes in some of those early releases? Sure, but I'd argue that they're vastly outnumbered by quad mixes that match, or even exceed their stereo counterparts.
In my home town there were multiple competing easy listening radio stations into at least the 1970s. It was both on AM and FM.
Fun stuff like Enoch Light aside, I've been surprised by how many vintage quad mixes are "adult" for lack of a better word. They serve the music beautifully and usually aren't gimmicky unless gimmicks fit the material.
I didn't get stereo until I was able to get deals on gear and records at the PX in the Army.
I had that setup (receiver, turntable, two speakers, R2R/8track deck) for at least three years after I got out of the Army, then I started working at Altec-Lansing where they were actually building consumer electronics two blocks from Disneyland. Quad came out about then, and since I was working with hi-fi geeks, I improved my system during that time (employee discounts helped - not paying retail is always a plus). Quad showed up, and my first "quad" setup simply had terrible speakers in back, and just the tonal difference made some sort of surround effect.
Today, I'm retired and able to dedicate a fair amount of time and money to a dedicated room for A/V. I don't expect anyone in my family is going to want any of my stuff when I'm no longer able to use it. I have two nieces who think the room is "cool" but would have zero interest in even figuring out what all the stuff does, much less actually playing an LP. Their music collection is on thumb drives, their system is a phone with earbuds, and that seems to satisfy them. I doubt if they would even notice a surround file.
(edit)But why did quad fail? I never actually progressed beyond SQ as far as implementing a decoder into my system. The plethora of different formats confused me, and I was an audio geek at the time. While I'm enough of a free-market capitalist to say that the market could have picked a winner, the format war is what killed the whole idea until DVDs with surround-track movies came about. That revived the idea of surround sound, and we're still living in that world.
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