Hey, remember "Quadrophonic" in the 70's?

[rasputin1963]

Those of us of a certain age will surely remember that fad of Quadrophonic sound, which enjoyed a vogue from about 1969--1975.

 

Somehow, four distinct channels were encoded upon a standard 12" vinyl LP, and you had to have the hardware, IIRC, to play back the Quadrophonic signal.

 

Only a handful of recordings, IIRC, were released in Quadrophonic. Namely, things like S&G's BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER, The Moody Blues' DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED, Mike Oldfield's TUBULAR BELLS, ELP's BRAIN SALAD SURGERY, Pink Floyd's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, The Who's TOMMY, Bob Dylan's BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, the Greatest Hits of BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS.

 

What you might call the "preferred albums of audiophiles", with a distinct nod towards those audiophiles who happened to smoke those funny 1960's cigarettes. I mean, let's face it: do you remember Quadrophonic versions of Loretta Lynn, Mantovani or The Archies?

 

I have no idea who the engineers were who remastered the original recordings for Quadrophonic... nor do I know who made the aesthetic decisions for how the four channels were to be divvied up... I don't know what percentage of these albums, if any, were initially recorded to have a Quadrophonic release as well as a Stereo one... I'm also guessing that some "pseudo-Quadrophonic" devices (delays, choruses, inverted phases, etc.) were invoked to create this magnificent new sound... Any info here?

 

I'm just wondering: Why didn't Quadrophonic "take off" in the 1970's? Why is the world-- that is to say, the "lay" public-- so much more predisposed towards deploying 5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound in their homes today than they were in 1974?

 

 

ras

[blue2blue]

Because of all the usual reasons: competing formats, arguably bogus technology ("matrix encoding" of 4 channels into two), inconvenient formats ("discrete" [4 actual channels] quad cassettes only played one direction and had to be rewound before replaying)... not to mention pretty crappy sound (at least to my ears).

 

Also, after a while, a lot of savvy consumer figured it was a scam to churn the recording/stereo market and force a new purchase of old content and new hardware.

 

Every decade or so, the industry zeitgeist gets it into its head (usually during an industry slump) that what is needed is a "new improved" format to force a huge market upheaval and a second chance for lagging, uncompetitive companies.

[veracohr]

Being not of that generation, I've never heard quadraphonic records, but I sure would love to hear Tubular Bells in quad or surround.

[PintoMusic]

 

Originally posted by blue2blue Because of all the usual reasons: competing formats, arguably bogus technology ("matrix encoding" of 4 channels into two), inconvenient formats ("discrete" [4 actual channels] quad cassettes only played one direction and had to be rewound before replaying)... not to mention pretty crappy sound (at least to my ears).

 

 

I was too young to be aware of Quadrophonic records when they were 'cutting-edge' but, from the above testimony, it sounds like it was about as successful as Cadillac's attempt at multiple-displacement engines in the 1970's.

 

Both were awesome concepts but, at the time, the technology didn't exist to make either work in reality.

 

Anybody remember those "wide stereo" switches you could find on receivers and ghetto-blasters in the 1980's? When did that whole thing start?

[rasputin1963]

Originally posted by veracohr Being not of that generation, I've never heard quadraphonic records, but I sure would love to hear Tubular Bells in quad or surround.

 

 

It was kewl. If you'd sweet-talk the hippie SA at the record store, he might put on the Quadrophonic record of your choice for a few minutes, as it was often the case that the record stores were the only people who had the requisite hardware! No way would my folks have shelled out the $$$ for something so faddish.

 

Originally posted by PintoMusic Anybody remember those "wide stereo" switches you could find on receivers and ghetto-blasters in the 1980's? When did that whole thing start?

 

Also, vis-a-vis the "Wide Stereo" switch: that came in around 1974 or 1975, IIRC. I suppose it was done with an algorithm of inverted phases and chorusing, no?

 

I still have a bedside FM clock radio from about 1981 which still works like a charm, and, truth be told, its "Wide Stereo" button really does make most FM radio broadcasts sound richer and better (OK, hurl stones here!).

[Bruce Swedien]

I remember "Quadraphonic"...

 

For some reason I am very glad it has gone...

 

Bruce

[blue2blue]

 

Originally posted by PintoMusic I was too young to be aware of Quadrophonic records when they were 'cutting-edge' but, from the above testimony, it sounds like it was about as successful as Cadillac's attempt at multiple-displacement engines in the 1970's. Both were awesome concepts but, at the time, the technology didn't exist to make either work in reality. Anybody remember those "wide stereo" switches you could find on receivers and ghetto-blasters in the 1980's? When did that whole thing start?

 

 

Actually, my mom and late stepfather had a "4-6-8" Caddy and it ran really pretty well -- surprising for a GM car of its era. I think there were problems at the beginning that got ironed out later. There were actually some "afficianadi" groups in the 90s, I think.

[PintoMusic]

Originally posted by rasputin1963 Also, vis-a-vis the "Wide Stereo" switch: that came in around 1974 or 1975, IIRC. I suppose it was done with an algorithm of inverted phases and chorusing, no? I still have a bedside FM clock radio from about 1981 which still works like a charm, and, truth be told, its "Wide Stereo" button really does make most FM radio broadcasts sound richer and better (OK, hurl stones here!).

 

I had a 10-band EQ that had some sort of "stereo-expander" switch on it. When I was 18 and doing 4-track tape recordings at home, I used to run the mix through that EQ with the expander on to enhance the mix. Of course, I didn't know what I was doing so the results weren't so hot.

 

Originally posted by blue2blue Actually, my mom and late stepfather had a "4-6-8" Caddy and it ran really pretty well -- surprising for a GM car of its era. I think there were problems at the beginning that got ironed out later.

 

From what I've read (again, I would've been too young at the actual time), a lot of the "ironing out" involved simply disabling the solenoids so that it only ran as a V8. I suppose that, even if they did get it to work eventually, the damage had already been done in the minds of consumers.

 

Was the same said for Quadraphonic audio?

[fred zappelin]

You can still find old quadraphonic players on ebay

 

The Caddy 4-6-8 was a nice concept but micro processers were not good enough back then to make the idea reliable.

An eight cylinder engine needd to have an alternate firing order so that no one cylinder would "load up" or "foul".

From Wikipedia:

 

"For 1981 Cadillac introduced what became the most notorious engine in the company's history, the V8-6-4 (L62). The 368 had not provided a significant improvement in the company's CAFE numbers, so Cadillac and Eaton Corporation devised a cylinder deactivation system that would shut off fuel to two or four cylinders in light-load conditions like highway cruising, then reactivate them when the throttle was opened. A dashboard "MPG Sentinel" gauge could show the number of cylinders in operation, or instantaneous fuel consumption (in miles per gallon). The L62 produced 140 hp (104 kW) @ 3800 rpm and 265 ft

[Lee Knight]

Edgar WInter Group. They Only Come Out At Night. Frankenstein.

 

My cousin's parents bought the full quad receiver, speakers, and turntable. It was set up in their pool room (they still have all the coin).

 

I loved that album. I hated it in quad. I must've been only 12 and even then I thought, "What's that doing over there ? Come on. That sounds worse like that. Why bother?""

 

Newer formats are only being considered now because of Home Theater. I'm still not sold.

[doug osborne]

Blue pretty much summed it up (except for quality...Quad LPs and tapes could sound wonderful).

 

It may have failed artistically due to a significant technological limitation - it didn't address the huge and important missing ingredient in stereophonic sound, the inherent deficiencies of phantom center channel. Stereo sound was always designed and demonstrated with an LCRS configuration, as far back as the '30s. Quad could have adopted this, as Pink Floyd did for live sound, and as Dolby did for film sound (Dolby Stereo, as a matter of fact, was significantly based on one of the Quad schemes to put a four-channel audio track where a two-channel track would fit). Instead, it stuck with phantom center, and added Ls and Rs when indisputably our ear-brain mechanism can not easily hear the center-rear phantom and the R-Rs and L-Ls phantoms that these quad systems delivered; this paradigm led directly to an endless supply of tricky ping-pong mixes instead of a truly improved stereophonic experience.

 

Many of these original Quad mixes have shown up on DTS-CD, SA-CD and DVD-A discs, such as Days of Future Past and a bootleg of Alan Parson's Quad mix of Dark Side of the Moon. Some engineers continue to mix for 5.1 surround as if it were Quad - self-limiting, but it can work.

 

Actually, there weren't just a handful of Quad recordings released, there were hundreds. Quadraphonic Quad has the motherload of information on the past and future of recordings (and links to lists of titles released.

 

As with today's surround music, nothing needs to be recorded in Quad or 5.1 - the same elements that are used for a 2-channel stereo mix can be used to make a surround mix. Unwrapping a 2-channel stereo mix to Quad or 5.1 was done then and now, and this dumb process was probably just as important in Quad's demise as it is now to the lack of success for SA-CD and DVD-A.

 

When Quad came out, many people still had one speaker and hadn't even upgraded to 2-channel Stereo, but it was the height of the golden age of Hi-Fi and yes, the marketers thought the time was ripe for an equipment upgrade. A little bit better backwards compatibility, and a few more compelling mixes, and who knows how far it could have gone. Now, with possibly over 100 million surround capable systems worldwide and DVD players in most homes, only the creative hurdles need to be jumped - it's obvious that many, many, many more people have equipped their homes for surround music now than ever before.

[Iamtheblues]

 

Originally posted by rasputin1963 Only a handful of recordings, The Who's TOMMY ,

 

 

Are you sure about this one? I don't even think "Quadrophenia" was released in quad.

 

I could be mishtooken though.....

[doug osborne]

Quad Discography (I can't vouch for its accuracy, but it seems extensive) doesn't list any official Who Quad LPs, but it lists a lot of records!

[Kendrix]

My dad went nuts with Quad when it hit ( I was in my teens).

I seem to remember Santana Abraxis in Quad. Very nice.

To me it suffered from inconsistent and immature production techniques. A few titles, implemented well, sounded fantastic. However, on many titles it hardly mattered - or worse.

[rasputin1963]

 

Originally posted by Iamtheblues Are you sure about this one? I don't even think "Quadrophenia" was released in quad. I could be mishtooken though.....

 

 

I could be, too.

 

 

In my first post, I was writing purely from my teenage memory. Could've sworn I remember seeing that silver pinball on the cover!!

[Ani]

My first husband and I owned a quadraphonic 8-track system that I thought was out of this world as a young teen adult. We had recordings by The Guess Who, Grand Funk Railroad, Santana, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and a handful of others. The ex's parents owned an electronics store that dealt in sophisticated name brand electronics. The Quad was an item they had acquired that didn't yield the expected sales due to the outlandish price of the units and higher priced media that it required. They gave the floor model to my ex prior to our marriage.

 

The very first time I heard of the 5.1 surround I immediately remembered back to the Quad and thought.... IT'S ABOUT TIME someone rediscovered and improved on the technology.

 

Some of the set backs of the Quadraphonic systems were:

 

1.) Affordability

2.) Accessibility to Quad recordings without joining a record club was little to none. The technology was not taking off in the Mid Midwest and retailers were not stocking many of the recordings, if any at all, because they didn't want to purchase the hardware to showcase the technology and then get stuck with the product. The technology never made it to the MASS PRODUCTION stage where things become more affordable. The technology was more advanced in the major music cities than the rest of the country.

3.) The tape heads began eating the tapes and finding an electronics repair shop willing to service the unit in Kansas City was like trying to find a needle that didn't exist in a haystack... there were NONE. With his parents being in Iowa, the unit had to be sent to them so that they could send it back to Sony directly for service..... LONG WAIT....

4.) The quality of the 8 track tapes were not nearly as reliable as what cassette tapes were. They seemed to break a lot more easily and finding new ones to replace them was next to impossible; you weren't going to find them in a local record store.

5.) The music industry did not have nationwide support to back the products. The media was more expensive to produce with the extra efforts required to achieve anticipated results, and as such, the price of production had to be passed on to the consumer. The average vendors simply refused to carry something that they felt consumers would not buy... Quad systems and media were items for the elitist and only available through specialty shops and extreme measures of ordering out when ordering out was NOT IN.

 

However, all the negatives aside, the system blew me away every time we powered it up. The sound separation circled around the room and had very distinct sonic personalities in different speakers; there was depth. I can still reflect on hearing The Guess Who's "No Time" ... the effect put you right in the middle of a smoke filled room.... The song ROCKED on Quad.

 

I thought the whole concept was absolutely AWESOME and I was very happy to see 5.1 surround take off to where it could be manufactured in mass production where it would become affordable in the average consumer home.

[Ani]

In addition to all that I said above....

 

 

A little bit better backwards compatibility, and a few more compelling mixes, and who knows how far it could have gone.

 

 

WORD:thu:

 

You couldn't play anything BUT quad on quad... that was a drag.

[Karma1]

I was in college back when Quad came out. A friend of a friend got the system and invited us over to check it out. The first thing we heard was Santana Abraxis, which was totally incredible. I still remember hearing the begining of the album with it's wind chimes and ethereal sounds (I think the song was called Singing Winds, Crying Beasts - or something like that). That effect on Quad was really something - total mind candy.

[Bruce Swedien]

Those of us of a certain age will surely remember that fad of Quadrophonic sound, which enjoyed a vogue from about 1969--1975. Somehow, four distinct channels were encoded upon a standard 12" vinyl LP, and you had to have the hardware, IIRC, to play back the Quadrophonic signal. Only a handful of recordings, IIRC, were released in Quadrophonic. Namely, things like S&G's BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER , The Moody Blues' DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED , Mike Oldfield's TUBULAR BELLS , ELP's BRAIN SALAD SURGERY , Pink Floyd's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON , The Who's TOMMY , Bob Dylan's BLOOD ON THE TRACKS , the Greatest Hits of BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS . What you might call the "preferred albums of audiophiles", with a distinct nod towards those audiophiles who happened to smoke those funny 1960's cigarettes. I mean, let's face it: do you remember Quadrophonic versions of Loretta Lynn, Mantovani or The Archies? I have no idea who the engineers were who remastered the original recordings for Quadrophonic... nor do I know who made the aesthetic decisions for how the four channels were to be divvied up... I don't know what percentage of these albums, if any, were initially recorded to have a Quadrophonic release as well as a Stereo one... I'm also guessing that some "pseudo-Quadrophonic" devices (delays, choruses, inverted phases, etc.) were invoked to create this magnificent new sound... Any info here? I'm just wondering: Why didn't Quadrophonic "take off" in the 1970's? Why is the world-- that is to say, the "lay" public-- so much more predisposed towards deploying 5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound in their homes today than they were in 1974? ras

 

ras......

 

"Why is the world-- that is to say, the "lay" public-- so much more predisposed towards deploying 5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound in their homes today than they were in 1974?"

 

Do you really think that is true? I don't see any 5.1 or let alone 7.1 Surround around here!

 

Bruce

 

[rasputin1963]

Yes, Bruce, well I agree... I've rigged up my computer once or twice to watch some commercial movie releases on 5.1

 

My Dad, for one, sprang early for a very expensive Klipsch horn 5.1 setup for his living room, for movie viewing.

 

And I suppose it's... okay. You know, horses clomping behind you on the left, birds twittering behind you on the right, while the girl talks to the boy onscreen before you. Whoop-de-do.

 

Other movies-- the war genre especially-- have throbbing helicopter whackety-whacks which appear to traverse your living room. [i mean, I kinda got over that sub-bass effect watching EARTHQUAKE! in Sensurround at the cinemas when I was 10 in 1973].

 

I suppose the goal is to make you feel you are "part of the action", part of the movie, and the aural cues are supposed to help you suspend your disbelief in the inherent artificiality of the moviegoing experience. Maybe for children and teens, it might succeed here, but being a bit of a film buff meself, I'm am far too aware of the movie as an essentially artificial experience. ["Artificial" in the more original sense of being "an art or illusion"]. I need no coaxing towards "getting into" a movie.

 

Whenever I think about pure music being mixed and played-back for 5.1 or 7.1 Surround, I have to start thinking about who is really turned on by this... And I start to get the feeling that it may well be primarily non-musicians. When you are a musician, you know well how it feels to have music coming out of you and surrounding you; for non-musicians, the Surround illusion might just be the next best thing. [i'm not being catty or mean here, just trying to make some empirical observations...]

 

ras

[doug osborne]

ras...... "Why is the world-- that is to say, the "lay" public-- so much more predisposed towards deploying 5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound in their homes today than they were in 1974?" Do you really think that is true? I don't see any 5.1 or let alone 7.1 Surround around here! Bruce

 

 

I'm not ras...but I really think that is true!

 

Everything, artistically, that people think is better about stereo over mono makes surround better than 2-channel stereo. Consumers largely love surround music, whether they hear it on their existing home theater system or a high-end demo system.

 

In 1969 there were zero surround capable systems in homes, but in 2007, there are over 100 million! Talk about a market waiting to be exploited!

 

Distribution methods and production tools exist, even if DVD-A and SA-CD haven't exactly replaced garden-variety CDs. If Quad had adhered to existing LCRS technology in the '60s, instead of imposing an inferior LRLsRs format, it may have thrived. I would have loved to hear your unique take on stereo presented on an LCRS format through the '70s and '80s (and today, of course).

[axe2 2001]

I remember pops buying a brand new 1972 Lesabre, midnight blue with a white landau roof, power leather seats, power windows, that had 8 track quad! It came with a demo 8 track, the dude was like "now listen to the front right speaker" They used bells to demo the system and there were a bunch of current songs on that tape too. I can't remember the songs, I was 8 years old but road trips in the buick with quad i'll always remember!