Oh, no! Not another cables thread!!!!

Hello fellow forum members. As some of you know I recently got a newly restored Sansui QRX-9001 4-Channel receiver (ca. 1976, original manufacture date). And yesterday, I had it driven home to me exactly how important interconnects can be. I didn't want to derail any of the other threads, so I started this one. If the Gorts want to merge it with another thread, I don't mind.

First, a little history for those who may not know. Back in the early '70s the audio and record industries attempted to introduce multi-channel sound to the masses for home use. They called it Quadraphonic or Quadriphonic. There were 3 major competing systems developed for records(with a few more that never went very far); two matrix or 4-2-4 encoding processes called SQ (developed by Columbia Records) and QS (developed by Sansui.) QS was also known as RM for "Regular Matrix." Both systems produced interesting, but somewhat disappointing results unless you had a top-of-the-line decoder. The third system was the CD-4 (for Compatible Discrete 4-Channel) or Quadradisc record. CD-4 had some very stringent standards: The records were cut with a 30kHz carrier signal (actually two of them, one each for right and left) which required the use of a special cartridge and a demodulator (just like FM). The cartridge had to have a special stylus to track the carrier signal, and the first type was the Shibata stylus (others were Quadrahedron, Stereohedron, Multi-Radial, and Hyperbolic to name a few.) CD-4 compliant cartridges were loaded at 100,000 Ohms, and required tonearm wiring and cables to be compliant with that and have a capacitance of less than 100pF. Also, cartridge alignment is critical as well. You can see why the general public never went for quad sound in a big way.

So, now to the cable issue. In my setup, I'm using a Technics SL-1200MK2 turntable (KAB modded with Cardas wiring, and I talked to them about its suitability for CD-4), an Audio Technica AT-14Sa cartridge with Shibata stylus, and for interconnects I was using Audioquest Sidewinder cables. I was listening to Carly Simon No Secrets, and I kept hearing occasional distortion, so I'm thinking it's my cartridge alignment, so I re-checked that, and it didn't seem amiss. Then I thought, "I have an interconnect that was included with my NOS JVC demodulator that were made specifically for CD-4, I wonder if that's the issue." I changed them out, and sure enough, distortion gone. The Audioquest cables were ever so slightly attenuating the 30kHz carrier signal. I still have just a tiny bit of distortion on the inner groove, so I'll be completely redoing my cartridge alignment.

For those who think that cables don't make a difference, I'd like to say that they can and do. While I don't advocate spending more on cables than you do on equipment, it does pay to make sure that what you have works with your gear. After all, it is part of a system.

Feel free to discuss your specific instances of how changing interconnects improved (or made worse) the sound of your systems. Let's not get into the usual debate, but rather lets have some fun here.

 

It's possible the cables would attenuate the 30kHz CD4 subcarrier, but if it did, it'd be easy to measure this and figure it out.

 

Absolutely. Unfortunately, I don't have any way of taking the measurements, so I have to rely on trial and error. CD-4 can be very persnickety, and it all has to work together. It's great when you get it right. It still amazes me that it was possible to get 4-channels of discrete sound from a stereo groove, and that so much of the gear that was made 40 years ago still works.

 

Did No Secrets ever come out as a quad/5.1 mix on DVD-A or SACD? It makes me crazy that the record labels never made all those 1970s mixes available that way. I know of a whole bunch of quad mixes that were announced but never actually came out, plus a bunch of discrete mixes that only wound up on Quad8 carts, but never made it to CD4 records.

 

As a matter of fact it did, and there are a couple of used copies on Amazon for about $93, and they show 5 new for $140....Our local BB store never carried it, so I missed the DVD-A of it. AFAIK, it's just a 5.1 mix, and not the original quad mix. There were quite a few promised releases, but the format folded before many of them got pressed. I know that there is somewhat of a comeback, but I don't think we'll say any of those. Funny thing about the discrete Q8 mixes that never made it to CD-4: if you check I think you'll find that those are nearly all from record companies who were in the SQ or QS record format camps, so you'd never find a CD-4 disc of Dark Side of the Moon since Harvest Records had adopted Columbia's SQ system. The Moody Blues did quad tape (both open reel and Q8) but their record company never adopted a quad format for vinyl, and I understand that the quad mix of In Search of the Lost Chord has been lost. Another interesting thing I read about was that The Who's album Quadrophenia was originally supposed to be in quad, but their company was also issuing records in SQ, and Pete Townsend didn't like the resulting SQ mix, so he pulled the quad mix from release. I don't know if that still exists, and if it does, if we'll ever see it.

 

"In search of the Lost Quad Mix!"

As long as the multitracks exist, it would always be theoretically possible to go back and do a thorough 5.1 remix from scratch. The question is who's gonna pay for it, will the group approve it, and will the record companies release it? Sadly, they should've done most of these in the last 10 years, but a lot of those opportunities slipped through everybody's fingers.

We now return you to yet another cables thread...

 

Yes, it is so easy to get off-topic. But then this thread seems to not be going anywhere fast...but I'm cool with that. Que sera sera...

What I found interesting, was that a modern, well made interconnect was attenuating the 30kHz signal enough to cause the sound to break up. CD-4 distortion is not pretty and it's very obvious. I was really surprised that the old cable that was made for CD-4 made such a huge difference.