Classic AR's and vintage quad (Marantz, Sansui, Pioneer, Kenwood, Technics, etc)

[onplane]

If you happen to own one of those classic units from the "quad wars" (Marantz, Sansui, Pioneer, Kenwood, Technics, etc.) and a set of classic AR's (2's, 3's, 3a's, 5's, etc) message me. In your message, include the AR model and the quad model.

We have just completed an experiment that seems to have very satisfying results.

This experiment requires no modifications of any kind to either the AR's or the quads. Further, it involves no risk to either the AR's or the quads.

Regards,

Jerry

[bitbandit]

If you happen to own one of those classic units from the "quad wars" (Marantz, Sansui, Pioneer, Kenwood, Technics, etc.) and a set of classic AR's (2's, 3's, 3a's, 5's, etc) message me. In your message, include the AR model and the quad model.

We have just completed an experiment that seems to have very satisfying results.

This experiment requires no modifications of any kind to either the AR's or the quads. Further, it involves no risk to either the AR's or the quads.

Regards,

Jerry

Sorry if I am being a bit thick, but what are the quad wars?

Dave

[genek]

Sorry if I am being a bit thick, but what are the quad wars?

It was the period during the '70's when several manufacturers with competing and mostly incompatible systems for 4-channel audio battled it out for the hearts and minds of the audio consumer. The consumers sat back and waited for one system to emerge as the standard, and when none did they decided not to buy any of them.

[onplane]

Sorry if I am being a bit thick, but what are the quad wars?

Dave

Dave, here is a pic of a Sansui unit (I personally like the Sansui units with their dual power supplies).

Regards,

Jerry

[roundhome]

Dave, here is a pic of a Sansui unit (I personally like the Sansui units with their dual power supplies).

Regards,

Jerry

Hello i have a quadbob 9001 used on four AR 11 Sounds Great but not enough power have just about every thing out that is quad 600+ tapes 500 + lps waiting for the new cd4 unit to get done will be come out of the 9001 pre out to a pair of sansui electronic crossovers into 12 amps then to my four restored and tri amped AR 90s

what are you up to. I will be testing 8 LST's this summer in quad

Jim

Roundhousequad

[bitbandit]

Dave, here is a pic of a Sansui unit (I personally like the Sansui units with their dual power supplies).

Regards,

Jerry

Ah, thanks Gene/Jerry. I'm afraid the battle for quad passed me by. I was never really taken with it to be honest. It was sometimes impressive but I always preferred the stereo image (and I didn't have space for 4 speakers). Mind you a quad system with 4 decent AR speakers would be something good to be in the centre of.

I still have an old Technics SU-V4X (not quad) and I have yet to find an amp that sounds better on any of my AR collection. I don't have 4 of any model but I could always drag out the spare SU-V4X and put the 58LS's on the rear with AR-3A's on the front. Mind you, I'd never get that past the missus. Speakers dear? More than usual? Hmmmm? No, don't think so, Didn't we always have 4 dear?

Dave

[genek]

Ah, thanks Gene/Jerry. I'm afraid the battle for quad passed me by. I was never really taken with it to be honest. It was sometimes impressive but I always preferred the stereo image (and I didn't have space for 4 speakers). Mind you a quad system with 4 decent AR speakers would be something good to be in the centre of.

The problem with quad was its utter lack of relation to anything you might hear in real life music. We don't listen to orchestras from the middle of the pit, or to rock bands by standing in the middle of a bunch of stage monitors (except for those bands that go to the trouble of creating surround sound at concerts). So the only thing that comes from the rear in real life is generally ambience, and all you need for that is one extra speaker, a roll of wire and a stereo amp that doesn't mind having that wire and speaker connected across its + terminals. So fullblown quad was a solution in search of a problem, which was eventually found when Ray Dolby bought SQ from CBS (I hear he paid a whopping $250k for it and CBS execs laughed about unloading their white elephant at the time), rewrote the logic, moved one of the rear channels to center front and renamed it "Dolby Surround."

[bitbandit]

The problem with quad was its utter lack of relation to anything you might hear in real life music. We don't listen to orchestras from the middle of the pit, or to rock bands by standing in the middle of a bunch of stage monitors (except for those bands that go to the trouble of creating surround sound at concerts). So the only thing that comes from the rear in real life is generally ambience, and all you need for that is one extra speaker, a roll of wire and a stereo amp that doesn't mind having that wire and speaker connected across its + terminals. So fullblown quad was a solution in search of a problem, which was eventually found when Ray Dolby bought SQ from CBS (I hear he paid a whopping $250k for it and CBS execs laughed about unloading their white elephant at the time), rewrote the logic, moved one of the rear channels to center front and renamed it "Dolby Surround."

I had forgotten all about that old trick with the speaker across the signal terminals. Happy days! Great story too.

Dave

[onplane]

The problem with quad was its utter lack of relation to anything you might hear in real life music. We don't listen to orchestras from the middle of the pit, or to rock bands by standing in the middle of a bunch of stage monitors (except for those bands that go to the trouble of creating surround sound at concerts).

Gene, I agree with you on the music issue.

A few months back I was watching a movie on my HT system where we were in a submarine. Now, the sub was diving below it's design limit the the sub's hull was "creaking". Boy, it was just great hearing that creaking sound from all over. You really felt like you were inside the sub.

For music, Gene, I prefer two channel ... no doubt about it!

Regards,

Jerry

[genek]

A few months back I was watching a movie on my HT system where we were in a submarine. Now, the sub was diving below it's design limit the the sub's hull was "creaking". Boy, it was just great hearing that creaking sound from all over. You really felt like you were inside the sub.

Somebody told me once - and I have never had a means to test it - that if you fed the analog signal from a Dolby Surround encoded movie into a quad amp and turned on the SQ, you would hear the rear ambience channel from one of the rear speakers and the center front channel from the other rear speaker. I have my doubts about this because I know that Dolby reconfigured the SQ logic to create Dolby surround and I have a hard time believing that he didn't allow for the possiblity of someone feeding one of his surround movies into an old quad system. But then again, quad was considered a dead white elephant at the time, so who knows? Anybody got their video feeding into an old quad amp who can see what happens when SQ is applied to Dolby Surround encoding?

BTW, that rear creaking SFX usually works with the Hafler scheme, too.

[soundminded]

Sorry if I am being a bit thick, but what are the quad wars?

Dave

Oh I feel so very old. Shortly after they discovered fire and just a little after people like me and Abraham Lincoln walked twelve miles each way to school every day...in the snow...barefooted, quadraphonic sound was born. How many people know how this all started. It was innocent enough. One day around 1964 or so, Stereo Review Magazine published an article in which they described connecting a speaker between the L and R hot leads of an amplifier and placing it in the back of the room. They said to adjust the volume with an L pad so that it was just loud enough to make a contribution without being obvious. They said much of the "ambient" sounds of a performance were in this L minus R signal and would increase the "realism" of recordings. Well it wasn't long before David Hafler suggested putting two speakers in series in this arrangement with each + speaker terminal connected to the respective + amplifier output terminals and the - speaker terminals connected to each other and thus "DynaQuad" was born. This was sold commercially to those who couldn't handle this complex notion in a nifty little box called a "Quadaptor" for $25 and was later incorporated into the SCA-80 integrated amplifier as the SCA-80Q amplifier. But then the big boys jumped in. CBS which owned Columbia Records devised their own system with the help of CBS Laboratories which was later known as the CBS Technology center. In this system called the SQ Quadraphonic system, phonograph records were encoded in such a way that the ambient left rear and right rear signals were encoded on a conventional stereo record using a phase shifting technology. The records were fully compatible with conventional stereo playback equipment but when a suitable SQ decoder was connected and separate rear amplifiers and speakers connected, you had "the real thing." Not to be outdone, RCA which owned RCA records came up with an entirely different idea. They recorded their rear channels as frequency shifted signals above 20 khz. Their CD-4 system records were also compatable with conventional stereo equipment but when played back with a CD-4 cartridge, CD-4 decoder, and an extra two channels of amplifiers and speakers, you got "the real real thing." One problem was that most phonograph cartridges would wipe out everything above 20 khz in a few playings so the CD-4 cartrodge had a very special stylus that is similiar I think to a Shibata type in that it is a highly faceted shape closer to a conical or even spherical shape than an eliptical stylus. Of course alignment of the parts internally was critical and mass had to be very low, compliance very high. I still have my Empire 4000D/III one of the few cartridges up to the task. Bang and Olufson made one also. There were few if any others that I recall. I'm pretty sure that Shure, Stanton/Pickering, and ADC didn't make any. Well when the profits looked promising, a few others got into the act. Sansui came out with their own version of the CBS system they called the QS matrix system. There was also another matrix system called the RM system (JVC?), each essentially the same except with different phase shift parameters. Then there was 4 channel tape. It wasn't hard to convert to this format because most consumer open reel tape recorders already used a 4 track also called a 1/4 track format (so do audio cassettes.) As a 4 channel recorder/player, all that was required were heads with 4 pole pieces and another pair of recording amps and playback preamps. There were quite a few manufacturers who offered models incuding Akai, Teac, and Crown. But the whole thing was a flop because quite frankly, it never lived up to its billing and people just didn't like it. By 1980 it was dead. It was I think the precursor to today's home theater systems.

[genek]

I'm pretty sure that Shure, Stanton/Pickering, and ADC didn't make any.

ADC Super XLM MkII, Shibata stylus, response to 50KHz

[soundminded]

ADC Super XLM MkII, Shibata stylus, response to 50KHz

Thank you, I stand corrected. ADC made some of the finest cartridges on the market IMO. Like Empire, they combined very high compliance with low dynamic mass and extended frequency response. This made them champions in the featherweight tracking ability. ZLM was another fine product of theirs. Tracking at 1/2 gram or less and having a stylus which does not concentrate its point of contact over a small area the way eliptical styli and micro ridge styli do extends record life by limiting stress below the elastic limit of vinyl even for high frequencies at high modulation. Empire claimed in tests of the 999VE (elipitical stylus) at 1/4 gram, a 20 khz signal was down only 1 db after 1000 plays. Having had this cartridge (my maid destroyed the stylus and I don't know where to get another) I can attest to the fact that it played many records very well at far under one gram. I haven't followed trends in phono cartridge design and performance since the 70s but at that time it struck me that moving coil cartridges were inferior for many reasons including high mass, low compliance, high required tracking force, and often a high frequency peak of up to 5 db in the 15 khz range. Moving magnet cartridges like some Pickerings and Audio Technicas also had this hf peak. This tended to offset the high frequency falloff of many speaker systems without a treble boost from a preamp. For some unexplained reason, audiophiles insisted on bass and treble controls remaining at their indicated flat position and today they don't even want them on their preamps even if they are bypassed and certainly an equalizer is out of the question. How strange since RIAA equalization alters frequency response with a bass boost and treble cut which is around 40 decibels or 10,000 to 1. NAB is around the same for analog tape recordings. If you have a Dolby encoded vinyl disc that had no fr manipulation by the engineer during mastering, the signal will see at least 14 equalization circuits before it reaches your power amp, 8 in the Dolby A processor alone.

[genek]

For some unexplained reason, audiophiles insisted on bass and treble controls remaining at their indicated flat position and today they don't even want them on their preamps even if they are bypassed and certainly an equalizer is out of the question. How strange since RIAA equalization alters frequency response with a bass boost and treble cut which is around 40 decibels or 10,000 to 1. NAB is around the same for analog tape recordings. If you have a Dolby encoded vinyl disc that had no fr manipulation by the engineer during mastering, the signal will see at least 14 equalization circuits before it reaches your power amp, 8 in the Dolby A processor alone.

Yes, it's the thing that has kept me from dipping my toes into "high end" audio all these years. I won't buy an equalizer or an amp that has one built in because five bands is about two more than I can manage without getting my sound totally screwed up, but with an album collection that dates back to the 50's, I'd never be able to live with one that doesn't even have bass and treble controls.

[kimberley]

Here in Europe, I think quadrophony was less popular - smaller rooms, less disposible income perhaps - and, at least in the UK, a Hi-Fi company called 'Quad' already, to confuse the issue. And the 'Who' album, 'Quadrophenia!

I think that, from what I remember of those far-off days, that there was a certain popularity for quadrophony amongst Pink Floyd fans, as the concerts were 'in the round' with serious rear-channel volume at the venues; but much of the charm of a Pink Floyd concert could also be recreated pharmacologically, I am led to believe.

Bang & Olufsen produced 4-channel amplifiers (http://www.beocentral.com/products/bm6000-1) and a 4-channel tangential-tracking turntable (http://www.beocentral.com/products/bg6000-1). I am familiar with the Beogram 4000 which was the original, 2-channel version & it is very good indeed (very good, as in 'I still use one'). B & O also made 'ambiophonic adapters' which size, price (modest by B & O standards) & performance suggest must be Hafler-type ambience-creators. Used with my Beomaster 5000 or 8000, I find the 'ambiophonics' quite effective on some material,notably on live FM concert broadcasts. On other programmes & some material it is less successful, sometimes barely effective at all. Whilst interesting, I have never found the effect so impressive that I felt it worth the effort of positioning 4 'speakers & running all the extra cabling, only to find an even smaller 'sweet spot' than for stereo. (Though, on the other hand, I would be listening alone as my wife would have left, so the small listening area might not matter.)

Stirling Moss (the racing driver) was of the opnion that the best place to enjoy 4-channel sound was in a luxury car because the seats were fixed. He had a point.

[Rlowe]

It was the period during the '70's when several manufacturers with competing and mostly incompatible systems for 4-channel audio battled it out for the hearts and minds of the audio consumer. The consumers sat back and waited for one system to emerge as the standard, and when none did they decided not to buy any of them.

This Wendy Carlos site might rekindle a few memories for some on surround sound.

http://www.wendycarlos.com/surround/surround.html