quadrophonic sound

[piaggio]

The Who Album Quadrophenia was originally also released in "quadraphonic sound".
it was a "double stereo" format, very short-lived, where the sound got out from 4 sources (I presume it was on tape form).
has anyone of the TDPRI fellows ever experienced it, and can explain how it sounded like, and how it worked ?
was it a step further, sound wise ?
it was really like sitting in between the band, as advertised ?

Just a curiosity, thanks for any answer !

[Jimmyspaz]

Reckon that if it had worked as well as they hoped it wouldn't have vanished so quickly.

[rcole_sooner]

Black Sabbath— Paranoid (Quadrophonic)


It seems I remember more, like Alice Cooper or Led Zeppelin, but none turned up in Quad, in my google search.

[Ricky D.]

It actually worked very well.

There never was much program material out there. Industry never standardized a format.

And it was an expensive upgrade. It was four discrete channels, so you needed to add two channels worth of preamp and speakers and specialized playback & decoding gear to upgrade a conventional 2 channel stereo. We're talking doubling the cost of the equipment vs a 2 channel set up.

Lots of details at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadraphonic_sound

[hekawi]

i remember hearing this as a demo at a hi-fi shop back in '73



the drum solo in "Frankenstein" was astounding! it encircled you.

[TC6969]

I ran out and bought one when they first came out in the 70's.

They actually worked pretty good.

You could hear things that weren't on the standard stereo album.

My favorite was a Santana album, and I had several more that I cant recall at the moment.

The search for Quad media was like going through the blues section at a mall record store and the whole idea just never caught on.

The equipment and the whole idea was pretty cool, but it was like having a gun that you couldn't get cartridges for.

[Skully]

I have found a plethora of original quad stuff online, as well as material software processed quad albums done by hobbyists that sound remarkably good. Others use the stems from Rock Band video game tracks to make their own multi-channel mixes, but these are generally not as good.

[piaggio]

thanks for the feedback.
wish I was present to one of those tests, Hekawi...I guess it's a little bit late by now !

[horsespatoot]

When It first came out I bought a 60 watt Sansui Quad Receiver/Amp and 4 Harmon Kardon HK-20's Speakers. If they had named it "Surround Sound" instead of Quad it may have taken hold. I never ran into anyone else who bought one.
Pretty cool sound for the times. But finding quad albums was difficult and expensive.

[Paul in Colorado]

I had a Marantz Quad reciever, but I never had four speakers and ran it in stereo. One channel kept going out so I traded it for the Onkyo reciever that I still have today. This was early '80's. Quad had come and gone by then. I never got to hear it in all its glory. Lately I've been listening to concert DVD's in 5.1 that I'd only heard before in stereo. I wish I could do something like that live. Didn't Pink Floyd have a Quad PA system at one point?

[TNO]

When I was a kid a neighbor gave me a quad eight track of Van Morrison's 'Hard Nose The Highway'. Didn't work that great through my stereo deck :)

[joaopazguitar]

there was a mix of Pink Floyd's DSOTM done by Alan Parsons.... it can be found online, and it will play in our modern 5.1 DVD sound systems.
Actually, most of us have those systems at home :)

Now how would we be able to convert to digital 5.1 (or whatever) our old LPs I have no idea... I have few of those around - I remember one album from "Los Machucambos" a latin band of the late early 60s(?)

Also I suppose that there a lot of stuff from the Space Age Pop period that would have been released for quad systems.


Anyway, the DSOTM mix will be a great example if you can grab one ;)

[J Hog]

Didn't Pink Floyd have a Quad PA system at one point?
Yes. The guy that designed the mixing board for it lives in Cincinnati. Ian Budd used to work for Allen and Heath. He now owns a shop that sells Pro Audio here in town.

[deadicated]

Primus's current tour is in quadraphonic sound. Go check it out. Also in 3D by the way. It was/is an early version of surround sound.