What's the Latest MATRIX LP/CD Added to Your Pile? SQ, QS, RM, EV

[Quad Linda]

Bill, any idea who the artists are on the Atlantic Tenor Best?

 

[steelydave]

Bill, any idea who the artists are on the Atlantic Tenor Best?

I did a discography thread about all the Warner-Pioneer Japan releases that includes some info about this series of albums, but the nutshell version is that they're all covers done by a house band comprised of local Japanese musicians. I'm not sure what the songs are on that particular album, but generally speaking they were the Japanese equivalent of the kind of pop fare you'd find on some of the releases of the same era from American easy listening artists like Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, etc.

 

[fredblue]

I did a discography thread about all the Warner-Pioneer Japan releases that includes some info about this series of albums, but the nutshell version is that they're all covers done by a house band comprised of local Japanese musicians. I'm not sure what the songs are on that particular album, but generally speaking they were the Japanese equivalent of the kind of pop fare you'd find on some of the releases of the same era from American easy listening artists like Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, etc.

curious that it was SQ-encoded, i thought i'd read that WEA were going down the QS road until Brad Miller insisted on CD-4 or he'd withdraw?

 

[rawmacias]

Got this one in yesterday. Also purchased the HI-FI News mag to go with it.

 

[rawmacias]

waiting for this to ship from italy, has anyone here listened to this version?
View attachment 40182

I saw this and just ordered!

 

[sjcorne]

These two came in today - the Eleventh House LP was new/sealed. Great album and quad mix! Would make a great D-V release, though I'm not sure who controls the Vanguard quad masters nowadays.

 

[Quad Linda]

These two came in today - the Eleventh House LP was new/sealed. Great album and quad mix! Would make a great D-V release, though I'm not sure who controls the Vanguard quad masters nowadays.

View attachment 40631

I believe it is still Welk group.

2 great Quads.

11th House. Great

 

[sjcorne]

I believe it is still Welk group.

Quick search on the Welk group shows that Concord acquired the Vanguard catalog from them back in 2015, so I guess that puts it under Universal’s control

 

[Quad Linda]

Quick search on the Welk group shows that Concord acquired the Vanguard catalog from them back in 2015, so I guess that puts it under Universal’s control

Thanks for correct info

 

[furui_suterioo]

Can anyone read russian? this record is in "quadra abc" matrix, it sounds better through rm than sq, very clear and crisp sound.
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/index.php?threads/russian-quadra-abc-matrix-system.18928/

 

[furui_suterioo]

i would post on this thread more often but my camera is shit, been using ebay pictures

 

[fredblue]

Quick search on the Welk group shows that Concord acquired the Vanguard catalog from them back in 2015, so I guess that puts it under Universal’s control

i think Concord may be independent and distributed by Universal rather than owned by them?

 

[steelydave]

curious that it was SQ-encoded, i thought i'd read that WEA were going down the QS road until Brad Miller insisted on CD-4 or he'd withdraw?

I think all that Japanese stuff was done in '71/'72 before WEA had any kind of official policy or commitment to CD-4, which wasn't announced until the summer of '73 with the first QuadraDiscs showing up in September of that year. The Warner Japan quad output seems to be a mixture of RM/QS and SQ, and then in mid-'73 they switched to CD-4 for a hot minute (I think they did a half-dozen domestic Japanese artists and a half-dozen Western artists) and then ceased doing quad entirely.

i think Concord may be independent and distributed by Universal rather than owned by them?

Yeah, i think that's correct, they're one of the last big "independent" (if you can consider a company worth hundreds of millions "independent") record labels. They own the catalogues of several labels of interest to people like us, including Fantasy/Prestige/Milestone, Stax and Vanguard (who some nice quads as we all know) and Telarc, who did plenty of 5.1.

They do seem to do some licensing, but their track record is kind of a mixed bag in terms of getting your hopes up - they've licensed lots of the Prestige jazz albums to Analogue Productions over the last 10 years or so, but they seem to do them at a snail's pace, and they've never licensed any of their surround masters as far as I know, so who knows if they even know where they are, especially the quad ones.

 

[fredblue]

I think all that Japanese stuff was done in '71/'72 before WEA had any kind of official policy or commitment to CD-4, which wasn't announced until the summer of '73 with the first QuadraDiscs showing up in September of that year. The Warner Japan quad output seems to be a mixture of RM/QS and SQ, and then in mid-'73 they switched to CD-4 for a hot minute (I think they did a half-dozen domestic Japanese artists and a half-dozen Western artists) and then ceased doing quad entirely.



Yeah, i think that's correct, they're one of the last big "independent" (if you can consider a company worth hundreds of millions "independent") record labels. They own the catalogues of several labels of interest to people like us, including Fantasy/Prestige/Milestone, Stax and Vanguard (who some nice quads as we all know) and Telarc, who did plenty of 5.1.

They do seem to do some licensing, but their track record is kind of a mixed bag in terms of getting your hopes up - they've licensed lots of the Prestige jazz albums to Analogue Productions over the last 10 years or so, but they seem to do them at a snail's pace, and they've never licensed any of their surround masters as far as I know, so who knows if they even know where they are, especially the quad ones.

thanks for clarifying, Dave!

hope Concord can find those Isaac Hayes Quad masters and get them out somehow (preferably via DV!!)

even though we kinda knew it was almost mayfly short already, reading your precis of WEA Japan's Quad activities brings it home that Quad's lifespan generally was really "too short" for most labels, why on earth did they all throw in the towel so soon!? i just can't understand why companies like Warner and RCA put all that money and effort into doing CD-4 only to pretty much abandon it 2 and a bit years after launch! they never gave it a fair crack of the whip.. and as was repeated with the DVD-A/SACD format wars era, the musical selections saw few big names of Led Zeppelin's ilk on CD-4 but all the Seals & Crofts you could ever want (and more!) ah well.. that's history, back to the matrix!

 

[bigbillquad]

Bill, any idea who the artists are on the Atlantic Tenor Best?

Hi. Quad Linda

I fully agree with steelydave the local Japanese musicians where as good as the American counterparts ...like Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, etc.

 

[Quad Linda]

Yes, I agree with that. Every musician has his/her own style. Most I like, some I don't.

Although it's not surround, here's a Japanese LA Transit - DeNovo CD on Denon that pays tribute to Sergio Mendes. I recommend it. I was shocked when I saw the asking price. Still, it proves your point: https://www.amazon.com/L-Transit-Novo/dp/B00005MSJN

 

[surround.sound.enthusiast]

I think all that Japanese stuff was done in '71/'72 before WEA had any kind of official policy or commitment to CD-4, which wasn't announced until the summer of '73 with the first QuadraDiscs showing up in September of that year. The Warner Japan quad output seems to be a mixture of RM/QS and SQ, and then in mid-'73 they switched to CD-4 for a hot minute (I think they did a half-dozen domestic Japanese artists and a half-dozen Western artists) and then ceased doing quad entirely.

You are the most versed of any of us about Japanese quad releases steelydave, but I happened to come across this interesting article from Billboard from 3/15/1975. They touch on quad disc format changes in Japan, and the year-over-year table is convenient.

 

[steelydave]

Thanks for posting that article - I'd seen it in my travels and had meant to start a thread about it because (as you say) the year-by-year table is very informative. It supports the notion that I was broadly correct about the Warner-Pioneer release schedule: the table above says they did 3 RM/QS in 1971, then switched to SQ and did 27 in 1972, then back to RM/QS in 1973 for 7, before they committed to CD-4 and did 8 in '73 and 3 in '74.

The interesting thought that that table has provoked for me is wondering about the emergence of UD-4 in 1974, and wondering if it kind of took the wind out of CD-4's sails the same way DualDisc showing up in 2003/2004 did to DVD-Audio, ie. ostensibly being an "improvement" but just dooming the whole enterprise by muddying waters that were already pretty cloudy to start with.

 

[surround.sound.enthusiast]

Yeah, just like Project 3, Japanese manufacturers darn near all tried out all of the various quad LP formats.

Interesting, your comment about UD-4 impacting CD-4. Here's another article from 5/18/1974 that brings up that issue with the overall quad LP market.



I found the UD-4 articles started appearing from April 1974 onward. I'm up to about May of 1975 right now, when "spare time" at work "permits". . .

 

[surround.sound.enthusiast]

Here's one I was very happy to find today, and have been hoping to find for some time: Shaft on SQ lp.



I nearly passed it over because the cover is in such miserable condition. And it's as bad as it looks: the top of both gatefolds are completely split and ragged, it's got warpage and from dampness, and it has significant sun
or light fading. The only thing that made me pause was that I caught sight of something on the cover, which turned out to be a severely faded SQ sticker. But, the records themselves look pretty good and should play fine
with only minor surface noise, which is the important thing. It's really a pity to see rare albums that have been abused so badly. I'll probably cut the SQ sticker out for novelty, but replace the cover otherwise with a regular
stereo cover.