Weird Taiwanese CD4 record

[ArmyOfQuad]

Here's a mystery that showed up on my facebook feed. The following picture came up from the present listening facebook group

The text of the post is "Found this at the Amoeba clearance bin today. It’s on the Jiafeng Records LTD label out of Taiwan. From the look and sound I’d guess this is 60s or 70s. It’s instrumental stuff with a really haunting sounding keyboard and some surfy guitars. It’s really good, and I have no idea what it is."

I looked up the Jiafeng label - discogs only has listings for 4 albums on the label. None of which are this album. 2 of them are listed as quad - the images include no reference to CD4, but the labels include this logo:

https://www.discogs.com/release/17036529-Unknown-Artist-公雞蛋https://www.discogs.com/release/11253658-家風兒童合唱團-世界童謠大全集-第3集-20首國小音樂課本精選曲-生日快樂
Those 2 albums appear to be kids records.

Not sure what to make of any of this - anyone ever heard of any of this?

 

[winopener]

Since CD4 were hard beast to cut and other than Japan and USA none had another CD4 cutting lab, it can be two things:

1) A classic "put any quad sticker and/or logo on the cover", for which the far east record plants were really expert, and continued well into the digital age putting Dolby Digital DTS and so on everywhere.

2) A re-plated copy of a Japanese original. Run-out grooves infos are precious for checking what it can really be in that case.

Being a 20 hits collection, i'm more oriented to the first option.

The other two disc lifted from Discogs can be a repress of matrixed albums done in the seventies, i doubt somebody there bothered with a matrix quad in 1981, and for children records...

 

[soesbeout]

In 72 Kaohsiung Taiwan was a liberty port we went to and discovered they had absolutly no regard for copyright laws,you could by any album ever recorded for around 50 cent to a dollar,this included books also.Guys were buying Chilton repair manuals and such for dirt cheap so maybe your album is one the copies.

 

[kfbkfb]

If possible, ask the album owner to play the LP at slow speed (or hold their finger to the edge of the disc while it plays to slow it down and listen to see if it has the CD-4 carriers).


Kirk Bayne

 

[Quadwreck]

In 72 Kaohsiung Taiwan was a liberty port we went to and discovered they had absolutly no regard for copyright laws,you could by any album ever recorded for around 50 cent to a dollar.

Mostly colored vinyl, too. Flimsy paper covers with a plastic bag.

 

[Old Quad Guy]

As I’ve written before, in the “Quad” section at “Rather Ripped Records” in Berkeley, California, in the late 70s I came across John Lennon’s “Mind Games” with a sticker on the cover that said it was Quadraphonic. But the cardboard jacket was thin, and the plastic wrapping was loose. Fortunately, everyone who worked there was highly knowledgeable and I asked if it was Quad. He immediately thought no, because it came from Taiwan, and we opened the plastic wrapping to look at the record. You could see the record was of very low Quality, like it could break easy and was thin. I was disappointed it wasn’t Quad, but you can tell what it is by looking at the record. The record comes up on eBay once in awhile.

 

[jaybird100]

When I was stationed on Okinawa, in the late 60's, records from Taiwan were easily obtainable. They were selling for about 35 cents each, and pressed on "vinyl" that was good for, maybe, two or three plays. I've seen many Taiwanese records showing up on eBay, including quads, and I doubt the quality of the pressings has improved. Most of the quads are marked as "SQ-4", with a handful as CD-4. If these records are actually CD-4, I doubt they'll sound good.

 

[soesbeout]

When I was stationed on Okinawa, in the late 60's, records from Taiwan were easily obtainable. They were selling for about 35 cents each, and pressed on "vinyl" that was good for, maybe, two or three plays. I've seen many Taiwanese records showing up on eBay, including quads, and I doubt the quality of the pressings has improved. Most of the quads are marked as "SQ-4", with a handful as CD-4. If these records are actually CD-4, I doubt they'll sound good.

As you said the quality was poor we recorded them to tape on the first play after that they became frisbees.

 

[jaybird100]

As you said the quality was poor we recorded them to tape on the first play after that they became frisbees.

Exactly! That's about all they were good for.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

When something raises my curiosity like this, usually I set an ebay saved search, move on, and forget it. And then every now and then I review the saved searches and see what's there.

Today my saved search for Jiafeng turned this up

It's probably nothing, but we'll find out when it arrives.

 

[par4ken]

It seems that almost everything from Taiwan gets flagged as an unofficial release in Discogs. I was going to ask why but posts here partially answer that question. I have some CD-4 records many are by Paul Mauriat that are Taiwanese versions of the Japanese release. I noticed no quality issues with them. I do confess that I haven't played them that much, most are now on SACD from Dutton-Vocalion anyway.

While I can understand that lax copyright laws might allow sale of recordings at bargain prices, I'm skeptical of claims that such recordings are good for only a few plays. I might consider adding some of these obscurities to my collection if the price was right.