What's the Latest DISCRETE Quad LP Added to Your Pile? CD-4, UD-4

[J. PUPSTER]

GOLDEN
NINI ROSSO
MEMORIES OF YOUTH

GLOBE (JVC/VICTOR) CD4W-7039
1973

* This is a fairly rare CD-4 from Italian Trumpet player Nini Rosso; recorded in Rome and brought to Quad life by Tadao Tokoro in Japan.
I consider this Easy Listening music and some of it is very pleasing and of course, being in a good Quad mix, brings the music to another level. Nini had quite a few of his recordings born into Quad in Japan during this early to mid 70's era.

Being that this release is written in all Japanese, it was difficult for me to translate most of the song titles. Not sure about a lot of them. Below is the song list in Japanese and also what I came up with in English. If anyone reads Japanese, and can offer a more accurate reading, I'd appreciate it! I didn't see this CD-4 version on discogs.

A1- 真白き富士の嶺
- Pure white Mt. Fuji (? or - White Wisteria tree)

A2- 知床旅情
- SHIRETOKO TRAVELOGUE

A3- 遠くへ行きたい
- I WANT TO GO FAR AWAY

A4- 琵琶湖周航の歌
- BIWAKO SHUCOS SONG

A5- ゴンドラの唄
- GONDOLA SONG

A6- 北帰行
- RETURN NORTH

B1- 北上夜曲
- KITAKAMI NOCTURNE

B2- 若者たち
- YOUNG PEOPLE

B3- 山のロザリア
- MOUNTAIN ROSALIA

B4- 忘れな草をあなたに
- FORGET ME NOT TO YOU

B5- あざみの歌
- THISTLE SONG

B6- 雪の降る街を
- A SNOWY CITY
------------------------------------------------

As an example of what you get from this music is Quad, here's a little .wav pic sample for the beginning of the song "MOUNTAIN ROSALIA" that features different bells ringing out, back and forth, mainly in the rears; then various orchestral instruments kick in at fronts and rears and some nice female choral singing and finally Nini's trumpet in the middle (mostly front center.)

I also found a stereo version of this on YouTube-

 

[Tim7099]

Jefferson Starship, Dragonfly, Grunt BFD1-0717, 1974. A well used (VG) example a few clicks and pops but CD-4 information appears all present and correct, no distortion whatsoever that I can hear.

 

[Tim7099]

Chet Atkins - Super Pickers, RCA APD1-0329
Dazzling Trumpet, JVC CD4B-5026E.
Both in decent condition, all good with no distortion that I can hear.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Malagueña
CLEBANOFF STRINGS
JVC CD4W-7080E

This album is much better musically than I first thought it might be. I had recently finished a Nini Rosso CD-4 (GLOBE CD4W-7039) conversion and really liked the production and mix on that one; and saw that it was produced by 'Tadao Tokoro' so I did a search in my stack of CD-4's yet to be converted and found this one with him as producer. I don't know who did the Quad mixing, but the engineer is noted as 'Hideo Takada' and this Quad mix is another gorgeous affair as far as I'm concerned.

The 'The Clebanoff Strings' were an American full orchestra started and conducted by 'Herman Clebanoff'; mainly active from the late '50's to the early '70's.
This style of orchestral music from The Clebanoff Strings is much more serious sounding than the often slightly schmaltzy sounding Japanese big bands of the day covering Rock and Pop material.

Another title in CD-4 that I see with their name attached is Victor CD4W-7102- My Shawl; which I'll be sure to add to my shopping list.

If you like this sort of music and can listen to CD-4's, I can confidently recommend it; as you'll feel like you're standing right in the middle of this large orchestra.

Favorite songs on this album are - CUMANA and LA PALOMA.

 

[Tim7099]

Children of Lima - Woody Herman and the Thundering Herd with the Houston Symphony Orchestra
Fantasy FPM-4003

Needed a deep clean, having caked the stylus with gunge causing severe distortion. A spin on the Moth RCM had it ship shape in a couple of minutes and all good with only the odd hint of any mild break up in the right rear towards the end of side two. This isn't the first time that a clean on the RCM has recovered a seemingly bad record.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Got this famous Allman Bros. live set in not long ago in CD-4 (the seller listed it as Mint, which is rare to see actually; but I see and hear it as more of a VG to VG- IMO. )

Capricorn Records – CX4 0131

Anyway, I took a look on the Poll thread and there isn't much specific info there about the mix, just some vague impressions really. I Demoded. & converted the first side to digital yesterday, and I'm checking it out. I want to finish with all four sides before I give my impressions of the mix in the Poll thread. It may prove to be very interesting I believe.

I'm fairly certain I also have the 2001 DTS-CD stashed and ripped someplace, and also the 2014 Blu-ray set, for further comparison.

Just a quick listen (and wav visuals on Audacity) to the 5.1 2014 Blu-ray for a couple of songs, it sounded to me as very front focused with a hot center and mainly reverb of the fronts to the rears.

Anyone else here have a good listen to this double CD-4 and care to comment, I'd be really interested in hearing your opinion?

Thanks!

 

[Doug G.]

I just want to remind buyers of used CD-4 records that, regardless of the amount of crackle and pop on a newly purchased disc, don't give up on it. Almost all of these "defects" can be removed. Most are caused by sellers not knowing how to properly clean a record and leaving deposits. They don't realize how important it is to thoroughly rinse a disc after cleaning it.

Just the other day, I received a copy of the Dr. Teleny disc and the surface noise was among the worst I have ever heard. It actually sounded more like permanent damage from scratches instead of dirt and whatnot in the grooves. Looking at the surfaces in strong light revealed no scratches at all.

So, I took my Discwasher brush and fluid and gave each side the prescribed procedure. The noise was considerably improved with the clicks/pops being much subdued. So, this clued me that the noise had to have been caused by debris in the grooves and not from damage because the level would not have changed with cleaning if it had been damage.

Then I did a much more thorough cleaning/rinsing in the sink and the record is now completely free of clicks and pops. It really is quite an incredible transformation. Also, this is not the first time I have experienced this with used records but it IS an example of one of the worst I have bought.

Doug

 

[J. PUPSTER]

PERCUSION MUSIC (Quadradisc / CD-4)

WORKS BY Varèse, Colgrass, Cowell, Saperstein, Oak
The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble
Raymond DesRoches DIRECTOR

Nonesuch – HQ-1291

This is a really lovely Quadraphonic recording if you like unusual percussion ensembles. I can definitely hear how Frank Zappa was heavily influenced by this style of music for composition. Also, with the playing of his percussion band members and especially for Ruth Underwood playing the instruments xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, and other percussion instruments.

The scans I made of the front and rear covers for this release have some interesting notes on them about the composers; and especially on the back cover I love how they listed the instruments played on each piece. The quadraphonic mix is enveloping with plenty of front to rear separation (even though the wav shots may not seem to appear so, there is also some ambient bleed through as you might have in a live performance.)

As far as Rhino doing a Blu-ray of this title, I'm highly doubtful they would find this one with enough of a mass appeal for release. That's unfortunate though, as it's really an interesting and fun listen. It's especially unfortunate also because CD-4 can be somewhat hard to get right, as well as the problem with vinyl noise (that I was also unable to fully mitigate digitally with Spectral De-noise and other noise reduction options.) Additionally, so few folks these days want to put up with the hassle of working with vinyl and a realistically dead format. If you see the wav pics below, you'll see that a lot of the music is extremely low volume and subtle, and any vinyl noise is disruptive for any enjoyment of critical listening.

It's also important to note, that even though the cover shows that this is a Quadradisc title, the LP labels only show stereo.

 

[kfbkfb]

The stereo LP was the subject of a writeup in IIRC Audio magazine about the then new Neumann SX-74 Cutter Head [wide frequency response, down to 7Hz], I was surprised to see this album as a QuadraDisc also [I have both versions].

(I'll edit this post if I can find the writeup in worldradiohistory.com)
edit:
https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/70s/Audio-1974-06.pdf#page=16


Kirk Bayne

 

[J. PUPSTER]

sooooo dramatic!

 

[bigbillquad]

Hi. All

I have not kept up with my new acquisitions of Quad LPs so here are some.... more coming
BBQ...

( Victor CD-4. CD4W-7072 -Un Violon Dans La Nuit Francini )-
( Victor CD-4. CD4B-5077 -Rhapsody in CD-4 )-
( Atlantic CD-4. QL-10005A -Pedro & Capricious Eiko Shuri )-
( Victor CD-4. CD4K-7027-Victor Boys Folk Song Club )-
( Victor CD-4. CD4k-7033 -Children Singing A variety of classic nursery rhymes )-

 

[bigbillquad]

MORE FROM THE TOP.

 

[barfle]

Gotta admit, I have no idea what’s on some of those records. I’m working on getting CD-4 working in my system, and I hope you have a setup that actually works.

Cool graphics, though.

 

[bigbillquad]

Hi. All

More CD-4 LPs might be more later??
BBQ...

( RCA CD-4. ARD1-0840 -Leontyne Placido Price Domingo :Factory Sealed )-
( TRIO CD-4. 3X-2 -Screen Love Themes by Naozumi )-

 

[jupp369]

Gotta admit, I have no idea what’s on some of those records. I’m working on getting CD-4 working in my system, and I hope you have a setup that actually works.

Cool graphics, though.

.. don't forget that they have changed the vertical angle just in the mids of CD-4 time.
Use some beer mats or something thin instead of the rubber mat and step up and up. And search for the "Schön Schablone", make your own with a plastic sheet and see how the horizontal angle is changing. The normal overhang is also for the '45, but not for normal LP play. For recording with carrier or straight to 4ch I always use 3 different angles to get the best results.
Had also a lot of problems with the old AudioTechnica VM35F, now I use a cheap Nagaoka JT-322? (Nagaoka since 1930), works well ..
Now all my problems are vanished - except the record is really damaged or their tape was bad (see with Audacity the 30kHz (think you can only do a needle drop))
GOOD LUCK !

 

[J. PUPSTER]

.. don't forget that they have changed the vertical angle just in the mids of CD-4 time.
Use some beer mats or something thin instead of the rubber mat and step up and up. And search for the "Schön Schablone", make your own with a plastic sheet and see how the horizontal angle is changing. The normal overhang is also for the '45, but not for normal LP play. For recording with carrier or straight to 4ch I always use 3 different angles to get the best results.
Had also a lot of problems with the old AudioTechnica VM35F, now I use a cheap Nagaoka JT-322? (Nagaoka since 1930), works well ..
Now all my problems are vanished - except the record is really damaged or their tape was bad (see with Audacity the 30kHz (think you can only do a needle drop))
GOOD LUCK !

I have no idea what you just said, but you had me at "beer"

 

[fredblue]

I have no idea what you just said, but you had me at "beer"

afaik Mister P., they're referring to SRA/VTA.

in the early 70's, certain standards changed and turntable and cartridge/stylus manufacturers adapted their products.

as a result, an earlier CD-4 era cart (e.g. the AT15S) may comply with a 15-degree VTA whereas a later model (AT20SLa) would require a slightly different adjustment around 20 degrees.

in practice it equates to arm height and relative platter height and a bit of fiddle-farting about with your setup. in my experience it can make a difference, especially as discs got thinner (and arguably lousier ) as Quad went on. comparing earlier CD-4 LPs, especially Japanese pressings, to the last gasps by the likes of Arista in '76, it's quite noticeable how different the discs are in terms of disc composition, cutting attributes, etc.