Best examples of Quad mixes?

I'll be honest -- I didn't even know Quad LPs existed before I joined the Forum.

Now that the Wish You Were Here quad mix has made its high-rez debut, I was wondering if folks had any recommendations for other exceptional quad mixes to hunt down?

 

Temptations - All Directions (I have a homemade 96/24 DVD-A and I nearly cried when "Papa..." came from ... you guessed it)

 

If you are refering to 5.1 Surround mixes, then they are not true quad but more of just a surround, live concert mix. True quad mixes on DVD would be like the two Rhino Handmade discs, Chicago & Best Of Aretha Franklin. These are DTS 4.0.
Some other 5.1 DVD-A's have been released by DTS, like "Days Of Future Past" and "Seventh Sojourn" by The Moody Blues. These mixes don't even come close to the original true quad mixes that were originally released on reel-2-reel and 8-track tapes. The thing is that they actually could have been reproduced accurately with the DTS system as evidenced by the Rhino discs. Oh, and yes, I do have the true original quad r2r tapes and the DVD's.

As far as quad LP's are concerned, there were three dominant formats: SQ, QS and CD-4. The only truly discrete vinyl format was CD-4, but you had to put up with a little lower fidelity and lots of pops, ticks and surface noise. The other two formats were matrix systems. In my opinion, the QS system was best as it did have very good channel separation. The SQ system was more like the original Dolby Surround and approximates what a 5.1 surround mix would sound like missing the center channel.

 

I agree with the above poster - the Moody Blues quad mixes are awesome. Also, check out Alan Parsons' quad mixes of Dark Side of the Moon and Tubular Bells.

 

No, not 5.1, but actual dedicated 4.0 quad mixes. I know there were a couple of Beatle solo albums from the early to mid Seventies that had quad mixes, but I've never heard them.

So, I was wondering what other Seventies albums were released as true 4.0? And which sound great?

 

http://members.cox.net/surround/quaddisc/quadindx.htm has a very thorough 70s quad discography and also go to www.quadraphonicquad.com for a great forum about this.

 

My fav quad mixes are:

Dark Side of The Moon
Paranoid
Machine Head
Allman Brothers At Filmore East


Honorable mention goes to:

A Space In Time
Tres Hombres

 

Off the top of my head, some of my favorites:

ZZ Top - Tres Hombres
Jethro Tull - Aqualung
Kraftwerk - Autobahn (totally cool!)
Joe Walsh - The Smoker You Drink
Steely Dan - Countdown to Ecstasy
The Doors - The Best of the Doors (totally different than the DVD-A's)

The quality of these varies significantly, with the Q8s having a limited dynamic range. Some of the reels, however, can sound really nice. The stuff is worth seeking out.

Good luck!

 

I love the 4.0 Quad mix of Tubular Bells from the SACD.

The AP 4.0 Quad mix of Dark Side of the Moon, now available in 24/96 properly mastered, is also stunning...now I appreciate the quad more than the 5.1, I did not previously because of the lacking sonics of the DVD-A leak.

 

We're getting into pirate territory here, which is forbidden, because most quad mixes are underground. Here's a piece I did for the LA Times last year:

http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/06/hear-and-now.html


That said, Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is a life-changing experience, as are many others. But they're not out there for you to buy.

 

those two are particular favorites.

And no matter what you think of the music, John Denver's "Poems Prayers & Promises" has one of the best quad mixes ever.

 

The s/t Chase album was one of my favorites. Trumpets circling you!

 

I have the quad vinyl of Captain and Me and even in stereo, this issue sounds great.

 

I still have the quad version of this, in fact, it's the only one I have in quad...

 

I have heard the Charlie Rich song Behind Closed Doors in stereo taken from the quad LP and that is the best the song has ever sounded. It would be phenomenal to hear in the actual SQ quad.

 

Mahavishnu Orchestra's Birds of Fire is the only one I have left. We used to buy quad lp's to take over to the one person we knew with a quad setup, and what a setup he had, and we would usually leave them with him.

 

Don't forget that one can always get the original SQ LPs and the quad 8-track carts and reels off eBay. Those are still out there, and are 100% legal.

I've always been disappointed that the various labels didn't go back and redo all these albums for 5.1 surround. To me, 5.1 surround is a far, far better format than 4.0 quad. The absence of a center channel kills it for me.

Great article, BTW -- you hit all the bases very well.

 

Thanks very much for the compliment. Great credit goes to the editor of the L.A. Times Magazine, who knew what quad was and green-lighted the article. Otherwise that article would still be a Word Doc on my computer.

I love my quad (because it was what the artists put out back in the day) and I love my 5.1 (because it makes the separation so much better when done right).

 

Quad=4 channels, not 5. Most of the 5.1 and 6.1 mixes were not done in a dicrete mix and there is much overlap in the channels. As a quadraphonic collector, I can compare the actual original quad mixes, that I actually have in my collection, with the later 5.1 mixes, which I also have. They are not the same, not even close.

 

Of course there are some long OOP SACD's that came from quad sources:

Isley Bros - 3+3
O'Jays - Ship Ahoy
Weather Report - Mysterious Traveller
E. Power Biggs - Bach: The Four Great Toccatas & Fugues

 

All quad vinyl was either a matrix system(not true quad) or a discrete system like the CD-4 and the UD-4. Whether discrete or not, most albums were available on the Q8 8-track quad tape cartridges or the reel-to-reel quad tape format. Just like back in the early stereo days when record companies would put out fake electronic mixes, in the quad era some companies put out fake quad systems, like SQ, or even bogus quad tapes. One fake quad tape that I have is "The Chi-lites Greatest Hits" on the Brunswick label, total fake quad.

Record companies, like Capitol Records and the London Group, in the U.S. never really got into quad vinyl. Instead, they released their quad mixes on the Q8 8-track tape cartridges and quad reel-to-reel tapes. It seems that the Q8 8-tracks outlasted at least the vinyl format by a few years.

In the U.S., I've only seen and have quad mixes of albums like "Dark Side Of The Moon" and the solo Beatles albums on Q8.

There are many legit quad recordings available at eBay, but there are home copies of quad recordings also, so you have to beware.

 

SQ is not "fake quad", your statement is misleading.
Although early SQ encoders were not good , they improved quickly. The problem was the decoding. The only decent decoder was the Tate II, which came out too late in the game, in 1978.
I made a (software)conversion of Santana's S/T SQ LP (a latter SQ mix) which would blow you away....very discrete and no pumping whatsoever-it will never be the same as a quad reel, but it's way better fidelity than its alternative , the Q8 (Columbia never released any of their titles on R2R, as opposed to Warner Bros.).

For my tastes, I think that SQ has better fidelity than CD-4 (which was castrated at 18 KHz-but it WAS discrete) and better separation than QS , which wasn't castrated...

 

I've only heard Dark Side Of The Moon quad on my cheapy stereo setup (5.1) and it's amazing.

 

Miles' quad "Bitches Brew" is fantastic.