Quad LP/Tape Poll Simon and Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water[SQ/Q8]

[Bas]

Ive just been listening to the Quad mix of this album. THe version I have appears to be fully discrete. It is simply gorgeous and I love it.

 

[phydo]

Ive just been listening to the Quad mix of this album. THe version I have appears to be fully discrete. It is simply gorgeous and I love it.

Bas:

How good does "EL CONDOR PASA" sound?

Justin

 

[jaybird100]

Ive just been listening to the Quad mix of this album. THe version I have appears to be fully discrete. It is simply gorgeous and I love it.

Bas, which version do you have? If it's the Q8, it is discrete. If you're listening to the SQ record, which decoder are you using?

 

[HelpfulDad]

Was the orginal Quad Reel for this in Dolby B? I have a DVD-A copy of this Quad Reel. Its wonderful to hear it in surround, although my particular copy suffers from flutter on the machine that played it back, but it's tolerable. However, it is extremely bright. It's so bright that it reminds me of Dolby B cassettes. It sounds as if it was made with out Dolby on playback. This is also true of the others I've heard i.e. War Child, Best of Bread. Does anyone have any concrete knowledge about these Quad Reels and were they indeed Dolby B? And if that's true, any ideas how to apply Dolby B to a Digital signal??

 

[EMB]

Columbia released no commercial reel tapes, AFAIK; this and some other albums that have had quad mixes floating around from reel are from private collections, i.e. 'unofficial' sources. I can't speak to whether the tapes were encoded with Dolby B, but the brightness may be in the transfer or inherent to the source (which, since you mention flutter, must be imperfect in any case), not necessarily because DB was on the tape but not used in the move from tape to digital. It's a fair question whether or not DB could be applied to a digital source, but even if it is possible, it might hurt, not help, the overall sonics. I'd rather attenuate the high end through my system rather than be stuck with the muted sound you often get as a result of DB.

ED

 

[THX1136]

Helpful Dad - As far as "applying Dolby to digital" I think it is accurate to say you can't unless you have a way to run the analog audio through a Dolby codec. The results may not be very good as Dolby relies on accurate tracking amongst other things and you mentioned your copy has some flutter. That flutter may cause the Dolby decoder you run through to not track well and, thus, not decode in a consistent fashion. Ed's suggestion is perhaps the best - use whatever Q you have in your playback system to compensate for the overly bright audio. Also, as Ed mentions, you probably have a copy of the reels Jon mentions towards the head of this thread.

Side note: It makes me wonder if the reels Jon talks about were master reels for making the bin loop masters for the Q8 tapes Columbia released. Possible??

 

[cupboy]

Side note: It makes me wonder if the reels Jon talks about were master reels for making the bin loop masters for the Q8 tapes Columbia released. Possible??

That would be my guess. I wonder what company duplicated the Columbia cartridges. Could be more than one I suppose.

 

[Quad Linda]

Columbia duplicated their own tapes. The disc could be a dub from a Q8 or a dub off a Q4 reel from the late Mike Robin's collection. This Q8 is NOT Dolby B encoded.

 

[THX1136]

I have a later Q8 release - Artie's Breakaway album - and it was Dolby encoded, but Bridge is definitely not. Thanks for the reminder Linda!

 

[HelpfulDad]

thank you for all the responses. Perhaps the flutter is that it wasn't from a Reel, rather from an 8 track? Speculation on my part, obviously. Thanks again

 

[HelpfulDad]

you know, the other thing I thought of as I reread THXs post was if it is an RIAA equalization. I read somewhere that some of these Quad Reels that exist were from a fortuitous relationship someone had with someone at Columbia. They weren't commercially released and the story goes that this individual made copies of the Quad Masters. I'm not naming names here because I don't know. As it was with early CD, the definition of "Master" depends on where in the production chain you label it. If it were a master for a cutting lathe, then it could be with RIAA equalization applied which may also account for why these sound the way it does. I'm not sophisticated enough to look at the RIAA curve and say that this sounds like what I hear, but RIAA does boost highs and drop lows on the "Master Tape" to compensation for the inherent non-linearity of sound on vinyl. But who knows? Maybe the guy who made the copies did so from the pressing "Master"?

BTW. The separation and absence of any surface noise on this recording leads me to believe that this is from some discrete tape source and not SQ/QS recording from a record.

BBTW this frequency distribution also seems to be the same on Best of Bread and War Child.

 

[JonUrban]

Hi HelpfulDad,

You can read about the "Mike Robin Reels" here: https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/QQ-CQ4mr.html

As for your disc, I would guess that it's either sourced from a Q8, or possibly an early QpS Release (don't ask) that was sourced by a copy of a copy of a copy of a Mike Robin Reel.

A DVD-A of a first generation Mike Robin Reel is going to sound like a commercial release.

1432

 

[EMB]

Regardless of the source, when it comes to reel tape and sound quality, a label would logically use the actual mixdown master, rather than one compressed and adjusted for vinyl release. Manipulation to make the latter feasible is a necessity of the cutting process for Lp's (a 12-inch single with only one song it probably doesn't need much adjustment at all depending on the music). But I've never read or heard anyone say that reels need any high or low end attenuation, any more than a digital source would, as there should be enough room on the tape to allow all the dynamic range of the original masters (of course even if that were true of Q8's, the format and tape formulations would diminish the quality, cassettes less so if that format had been allowed).

ED

 

[MarioBR]

I received an email from Gus Skinas (Sonoma Systems)

I asked why there is not SACD Simon and Garfunkel
and Graceland album too

He said :

Hello Mario,
The multi track master for Graceland is 16bit 44/1 PCM-3324 Tape
(I know because I edited the multi track audio)
So it would not be a true DSD title but one could make a nice surround mix

I have an analog tape to DSD of Bridge Over Troubled Waters
It is very nice .. Hopefully it will get released .. Gus Skinas

I'm happy to know there "Bridge" in DSD format
must be wonderful

The Quad 4 Channel Masters Tapes to DSD must be wonderful too

 

[Quad Linda]

Hi, Mario BR. Welcome to QQ. Nice post.

Several years ago, I was in Paul Simon's inner office in the Brill Building. He has gold & platinum record awards on the wall behind his desk. Very impressive.

 

[Bonzodog]

Its wonderful to hear it in surround, although my particular copy suffers from flutter on the machine that played it back, but it's tolerable.

I have access to a Cedar Cambridge with ReSpeed through my work.

View attachment respeed.pdf

It works on Broadcast Wave (BWF) files. If you can get me a copy of the files, it would be fun to try it.

It does not work well on lossey formats as the clues it needs to work are often discarded.

I will let it do what it does, and get a copy of the files back to you.

 

[elguapo511]

THE BOXER
The Boxer starts out in the fronts exclusively. The guitars are there in the fronts, nicely split in stereo. The rears have the vocal tracks at a reduced volume by themselves, allowing you to hear the harmonies without any other instrumental backing. Once the bass drum and percussion comes, it's solely in the rears. After the words "I took some comfort there, la la la", there's an instrumental section with a solo. The fronts has the solo in what almost sounds like someone playing a saw(!). The same solo is in the rears, however, it's done by a solo trumpet. Very cool! As the song continues, the guitars in the fronts are clear as a bell! The rears continue with the thumping percussion track. Towards the end, there are some strange "Lie lie lie's" coming from the rears, in a very high angelic voice from Art, and a very very low voice from Paul. The big orchestral build up comes from all 4 channels. The song fades out with some strange sounds I don't remember hearing in the stereo version, almost like a "la da dee"(??) from Art!



just reading this many many years later.
while this song sounds quite perfect..... are you saying that if i can hear guitar coming from my rears.... my decoder might not be working?

 

[JonUrban]

Attached is an MP3 of the rear channels of the master reel (Mike Robin) of the first 50 seconds of the song "The Boxer".

As you can hear, there are no guitars in the rear. Just incredible harmony. Listen to the clarity of the Mike Robin reel.
Astonishing, really.

As said before, once you scramble a discrete mix, you can never get it back to original spec. No matter how great your decoder is.
What most folks fail to consider is that the ENCODER used was that of early '70s technology, and you can't fix that with a modern decode.

Can't do it.

View attachment BoxerBacks.mp3

 

[elguapo511]

wow.

so reels are where its at. seems like the best way to listen. And such a perfect album to do so.

This has lead me to wonder how I can test if my decoder is functioning correctly..... I shall start a thread in hardware.

c u there.

 

[EMB]

If ever there was a masterwork of quad mixing, "The Boxer" is the one. If I should have a deathbed to die on (rather than "Let Me Die in My Footsteps," which is about as possible, too) that's the song I would want to hear while passing away to...

ED