Carole King 'Music' on CD, QS quad?

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the LP is QS encoded afaik.
PLII Music should give a halfway decent approximation, the Surround Masters' Involve mode should decode any QS LP you throw at it, including this "Music" Quad LP.

the main thing I'm trying to get to the bottom of is, if both the Q8 and the decoded QS LP have vocals in all 4 channels, while the CD I have (EK 34949) when QS decoded has no vocals in the Rears only the Fronts, what exactly is the mix & mastering on that CD?

its doubly curious that the CD when QS decoded gives so very effective a surround effect.. hmm.. :unsure:
is it possibly phase cancellation? I have old technics quad receivers that have this 'fake' quad effect which essentially cancels vocals in the rear channels.
 
I just picked up the EK 34949 CD a couple weeks ago, and I picked up the quad vinyl just a few days ago. I've been A-B'ing the two through my Surround Master and it has me scratching my head as well. Here's what I've been able to discern:

1. On some tracks, the instrument placement between the CD and the quad vinyl is very similar, but there are often some subtle level differences between the two; I notice it particularly in the guitars and the congas. On other tracks, there are significant differences in placement. For example, on the piano solo on "Too Much Rain," the vinyl version gets decoded nicely to the left rear speaker. On the CD version, it's decoded to the right front.
2. On both the CD and the vinyl, the instrument placement only sometimes matches the map included in the liner notes. Fearing that it was a problem with my Surround Master, I ran a few tracks through a software decode using the old Kempfand Audition script. The results were a little different from the Surround Master, but no closer to the original map.
3. On the CD version, Carole's vocals are pretty much always up front, with little or nothing in the rears. On the vinyl, it's much more centered (as fredblue noted).
4. There are significant timing differences between the two versions. For example, the outro on "Brother, Brother" goes on about 20 seconds longer on the vinyl version than it does on the CD. This in and of itself is making me doubt that the CD is the quad mix.
5. Not necessarily quad related, but the CD version sounds like the vinyl version with several blankets placed over it. It's theoretically possible that the CD version is in fact the QS version, but the mastering process mucked with the QS encoding.

I don't know if this is at all helpful, but hopefully it is. I wish that I had the Q8 version to compare everything to.
 
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I just picked up the EK 34949 CD a couple weeks ago, and I picked up the quad vinyl just a few days ago. I've been A-B'ing the two through my Surround Master and it has me scratching my head as well. Here's what I've been able to discern:

1. On some tracks, the instrument placement between the CD and the quad vinyl is very similar, but there are often some subtle level differences between the two; I notice it particularly in the guitars and the congas. On other tracks, there are significant differences in placement. For example, on the piano solo on "Too Much Rain," the vinyl version gets decoded nicely to the left rear speaker. On the CD version, it's decoded to the right front.
2. On both the CD and the vinyl, the instrument placement only sometimes matches the map included in the liner notes. Fearing that it was a problem with my Surround Master, I ran a few tracks through a software decode using the old Kempfand Audition script. The results were a little different from the Surround Master, but no closer to the original map.
3. On the CD version, Carole's vocals are pretty much always up front, with little or nothing in the rears. On the vinyl, it's much more centered (as fredblue noted).
4. There are significant timing differences between the two versions. For example, the outro on "Brother, Brother" goes on about 20 seconds longer on the vinyl version than it does on the CD. This in and of itself is making me doubt that the CD is the quad mix.
5. Not necessarily quad related, but the CD version sounds like the vinyl version with several blankets placed over it. It's theoretically possible that the CD version is in fact the QS version, but the mastering process mucked with the QS encoding.

I don't know if this is at all helpful, but hopefully it is. I wish that I had the Q8 version to compare everything to.

very helpful indeed, thank you for taking the time and trouble! 👍
it is such a curious thing.. what's going on with this one.. 🤔
..is the CD in question the QS encode but as you say EQ etc has buggered up the encoding.. could be but then there's things you've noted, such as the timing differences between the CD and the LP which makes me think the CD can't be the QS after all.. if the CD didn't pan out so nicely in the various channels and if I'd never heard the QS LP I'd probably be happy enough with the CD and be ok with it quite possibly being the Quad mix.. but the QS LP sounds great, even if the surround soundfield is a bit out of balance.. one day i'll hopefully get the CD-4 and/or Q8 and have a playaround with one or the other (or both!) if you get the Q8 before I do Jerfo I'd love to hear how it stacks up for you against the QS LP and that CD! good luck getting it! 👍
 
Very quick update:

I just picked up a nice copy of the non-quad vinyl and ran it through the Surround Master. I've only done bits and pieces of a few tracks for now, but to my ears the non-quad vinyl and CD are decoding very similarly to one another. I'll give it a thorough comparison soon and report back to you guys.
 
The Quad mix has the vocals full centre, if the CD decodes with vocals in front only then it is obviously the stereo version. I bought the SACD based on reading a post that it was the QS version, but was disappointed to find out that it wasn't. I love the real QS version, if fact i think it is one of the best sounding encoded records of any format, and usually I'm not a big QS fan.
I notice that there is a Japanese CD4 version, I might have to pick that one up, if I can find it at a reasonable price. "Tapestry" was Carol's big selling LP, but the follow up "Music" is by far my favourite, I didn't really care much for any of her latter releases either! It's interesting that the LP makes no mention of QS only Quadraphonic, but the notes mention that the sound is further enhanced when played through the Sansui monitor decoder. I understand that Sansui charged a fee for mention of QS or the QS logo on encoded releases, that's why labels such as Ode and ABC/Command only say Quadraphonic. A very strange policy on behalf of Sansui!
 
The Quad mix has the vocals full centre, if the CD decodes with vocals in front only then it is obviously the stereo version. I bought the SACD based on reading a post that it was the QS version, but was disappointed to find out that it wasn't. I love the real QS version, if fact i think it is one of the best sounding encoded records of any format, and usually I'm not a big QS fan.
I notice that there is a Japanese CD4 version, I might have to pick that one up, if I can find it at a reasonable price. "Tapestry" was Carol's big selling LP, but the follow up "Music" is by far my favourite, I didn't really care much for any of her latter releases either! It's interesting that the LP makes no mention of QS only Quadraphonic, but the notes mention that the sound is further enhanced when played through the Sansui monitor decoder. I understand that Sansui charged a fee for mention of QS or the QS logo on encoded releases, that's why labels such as Ode and ABC/Command only say Quadraphonic. A very strange policy on behalf of Sansui!

The Japanese version of "Music" is RM, not CD-4. "Tapestry" and "Fantasy" are CD-4's in Japan, not "Music". If I were to guess, I would say that in Japan "Music" in quad was released first, thus the RM encoding. The "Tapestry" quad LP probably came out when the "Fantasy" quad LP was released which was after "Music", thus they are CD-4, which is what King changed over to.

I guess if we looked at steelydave's King thread we'd have the real answers! :)
 
The Japanese version of "Music" is RM, not CD-4. "Tapestry" and "Fantasy" are CD-4's in Japan, not "Music". If I were to guess, I would say that in Japan "Music" in quad was released first, thus the RM encoding. The "Tapestry" quad LP probably came out when the "Fantasy" quad LP was released which was after "Music", thus they are CD-4, which is what King changed over to.
I guess if we looked at steelydave's King thread we'd have the real answers! :)


Jon, looks like you are right. Odd though as Tapestry (stereo version at least) was released before Music. The RM/QS release must of been mixed first, just as Quad was being first introduced, late in 1971. Also QS is actually mentioned on one the inserts, if you look at the scans on the discogs site. Music carries the both A&M and Ode record logos and is catalogue number 4A-2, while Tapestry has Ode label and is number 4D-2, one could assume only 3 releases apart.
 
Jon, looks like you are right. Odd though as Tapestry (stereo version at least) was released before Music. The RM/QS release must of been mixed first, just as Quad was being first introduced, late in 1971. Also QS is actually mentioned on one the inserts, if you look at the scans on the discogs site. Music carries the both A&M and Ode record logos and is catalogue number 4A-2, while Tapestry has Ode label and is number 4D-2, one could assume only 3 releases apart.

I'm with you. Tapestry did come out before Music, but not in quad. "Music" was the first A&M quad album, which the Carpenters heard and sped their own decision to to their stuff. As we all know, A&M went QS -> SQ -> CD-4. In Japan King went RM/QS to CD-4, so who knows?
 
The Japanese version of "Music" is RM, not CD-4. "Tapestry" and "Fantasy" are CD-4's in Japan, not "Music". If I were to guess, I would say that in Japan "Music" in quad was released first, thus the RM encoding. The "Tapestry" quad LP probably came out when the "Fantasy" quad LP was released which was after "Music", thus they are CD-4, which is what King changed over to.

I guess if we looked at steelydave's King thread we'd have the real answers! :)
The inner sleeve from "Music" has a chart, showing layout of the quad positioning of the instruments and vocal. It also mentions playing through a Sansui decoder. Ode did use a QS logo on one of their releases, the all-star version of "Tommy". The front of the cover featured the Quadraphonic sticker, while the back featured one with the QS logo.
 
RM = Regular Matrix which is what QS was born from. Many say it's QS without the Sansui trademark, but I believe that Sansui enhanced it, thus QS
 
RM Regular Matrix was a Japanese Standard that included QS, QM and QX systems. QS Regular Matrix - Wikipedia Peter Scheiber's original Quad encode decode system is sometimes referred to as RM and differentiated from QS. Similar to QS but without the J (90°) phase shifts. Without the J phase shifts, rear encoded signals have to be phase inverted (180°) L to R and R to L, which is also done in the similar EV4 system. This simple system has sonic benefits, but the drawback is that you can't pan signals across the rear and full center encoding is not possible. Dolby surround used the same J phase shift for the same reason.
 
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