Herb Alpert's label, A&M, holds the distinction of being one of the few major labels to release quadraphonic albums in all three of the major LP formats, Sansui's QS Matrix system, CBS's SQ matrix, and JVC's CD-4 discrete quadradisc format. By scanning their release list below, it can plainly be seen that after trying them all, they settled on CD-4 as their preferred medium. In the long run, they only released 17 quadraphonic LPs, with an additional 18 titles that were exclusively released on Quad 8 Track . A&M did not release any Quadraphonic Reels.
(Note that although A&M released product using all 3 LP formats, they did not release the same title in multiple formats, although there is an indication that they eventually planned to re-release some SQ titles in the CD-4 format.)

If you look through the many popular price guides available for record collectors, you will find many A&M quad LP titles listed that do not show up on the list below. For some reason, these titles which were released on Q8 cartridge only found their way into the Schwann catalogs that were put out in the '70s as LPs! That is why you might see Cat Stevens "Tea for the Tillerman" or the Carpenters "Close to You" listed as a quad LP, but these do not exist. At the bottom of this page is a list of the A&M titles that came out on Q8 only. This list is included to prevent confusion with information you may see in a price guide. These titles do not exist on quad LP!  There were two titles that were announced but not released in quad at all. They are listed in the LP chart, as they were slated to be CD-4 LPs.

A&M's first quad LP was Joan Baez's "Come in from the Shadows". This release was done with the Sansui QS system, and the LP was housed in a custom sleeve made of lined, sturdy paperboard and was graced by four of the A&M quad logos and a paragraph about quad. (That once used logo and QS blurb can be seen at the top of this page)  The label for this release is very strange looking, as it is a gold square in the middle of a black label. You can see the label below. The back of the album jacket has the above blurb about the Sansui QS system. One of A&M's subsidiary labels, Lou Adler's ODE records, had released Carole King's "Music" album in QS, and this probably influenced A&Ms decision on what format to use at first. This is the only release with this label and the Sansui system.

For some reason, after "Come From the Shadows", A&M changed from QS to SQ. This could have been a move by CBS to get their system onto more labels, but that is merely a guess. For their next series of Quad LPs, A&M changed their jacket design to one with a blue border surrounding the album cover graphic, proclaiming "Quadraphonic" on all four corners of the border. (See the middle two albums pictured above)  A companion label to this blue border was designed, and affixed to these albums. Interestingly enough, nowhere on the label or on the blue bordered graphics or album jacket was the type of quadraphonic encoding mentioned. These SQ albums were only identified by a small gold sticker affixed to the cover (See below). That was it. They were obviously keeping their options open! If in the future they decided to re-release these albums in CD-4, they would not have to print new labels or jackets!