INVOLVE SQ - IS COMING

My SM just arrived. Gotta go to lunch now, but when i get back the dicking around begins!! (or as much as possible and still get work done -- I'm working from my apartment today).

RSilverman said:

My SM just arrived. Gotta go to lunch now, but when i get back the dicking around begins!! (or as much as possible and still get work done -- I'm working from my apartment today).

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Tell us what you think! (And answer my PM, lol)

My SM/SQ has been sitting at LAX airport for three days…actually four days because it won’t be delivered until tommorrow…I am dying!....my SQ records and cd’s are waiting…I have been playing them through my TATE 101A….I know that audio memory is bad…but I am very frustrated …why does the unit have to sit for three days?
Dwight

It's a shame the Surround Master doesn't have a 4 channel pass through mode when it is in standby. Many AV amps only have one multi channel input, which I have my blu ray player connected to. One of the challenges of getting any quad kit legacy or otherwise is how to connect it to my system.

Hi Owen

Good point, I suppose we were not thinking clearly at the time (or trying to save money). I will list that idea on a future version - only problem is we still have say 300 units in stock.

Regards

Chucky

Owen Smith said:

It's a shame the Surround Master doesn't have a 4 channel pass through mode when it is in standby. Many AV amps only have one multi channel input, which I have my blu ray player connected to. One of the challenges of getting any quad kit legacy or otherwise is how to connect it to my system.

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What's a good SQ album to try? I don't have a demo disc for SQ - just a couple samplers. I do have the first "Chase" album. It seems that one keeps coming out. I have a bunch of others -- too many to list here. I'm patching the surround master through the discrete inputs of my SQD-2020 so I can:

a) adjust the levels individually
b) easily use the SQD still when I want too
c) Keep my SQD on display cause I made a nice case for it!

I've played a Jim Croce QS, a Burt Bacharach SQ, and now I have a columbia sampler on. I'm not seeing the needles wiggle that differently. I'm 99.9% certain it's hooked up right. The Croce gave me the best separation so far. There was almost no vocal on the back speakers. It was all coming from the front (mostly). Maybe the couple SQs I've tried just aren't that discretely mastered.

Owen Smith said:

It's a shame the Surround Master doesn't have a 4 channel pass through mode when it is in standby. Many AV amps only have one multi channel input, which I have my blu ray player connected to. One of the challenges of getting any quad kit legacy or otherwise is how to connect it to my system.

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There's a possibly low cost workaround, I use a cheap game switch to select between 3 MC sources. Made for component video plus stereo audio, but the three component videos can be used for audio if it a plain un-powered switch (or a better powered switch with relays ala' Zektor if you can find one, can switch six signals for 5.1) so five channels switched between three sources. They used to be $25 at local stores and might still be available online. They don't switch the sub though, just five channels.

RSilverman said:

What's a good SQ album to try? I don't have a demo disc for SQ - just a couple samplers. I do have the first "Chase" album. It seems that one keeps coming out. I have a bunch of others -- too many to list here. I'm patching the surround master through the discrete inputs of my SQD-2020 so I can:

a) adjust the levels individually
b) easily use the SQD still when I want too
c) Keep my SQD on display cause I made a nice case for it!

I've played a Jim Croce QS, a Burt Bacharach SQ, and now I have a columbia sampler on. I'm not seeing the needles wiggle that differently. I'm 99.9% certain it's hooked up right. The Croce gave me the best separation so far. There was almost no vocal on the back speakers. It was all coming from the front (mostly). Maybe the couple SQs I've tried just aren't that discretely mastered.

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Did you listen to the QS Croce through the Involve setting or the SQ setting? Don't forget you have to power the unit down for the mode change to take hold, just flicking the mode switch won't change anything.
If you've got Rock On by David Essex in SQ - it's a headspin of a track but it has a lot of interesting stuff going on.
Even the "When the saints go marching in" on the CBS sq sampler disc is an interesting listen.

Overture said:

Did you listen to the QS Croce through the Involve setting or the SQ setting? Don't forget you have to power the unit down for the mode change to take hold, just flicking the mode switch won't change anything.
If you've got Rock On by David Essex in SQ - it's a headspin of a track but it has a lot of interesting stuff going on.
Even the "When the saints go marching in" on the CBS sq sampler disc is an interesting listen.

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Croce QS was played through the Involve switch. I powered off beforehand. That gave me the best separation of the three quads I tried today. I need to put this thing through it's paces. The SQs I threw at it may have been subpar in their mix. I'm also not paying that much attention as I'm nominally trying to work. I probably shouldn't post half-baked responses until I've given it a proper listen, but I'm an impatient man. Aren't we all?

Well yes, QS material through the Involve decode will give you the best separation for sure, it's superior in that respect.
It's not really fair to compare the two, I found myself warming to SQ recordings only after listening to them exclusively for a while without listing to QS material or the Involve setting.

Having said that, I was impressed by some of the stuff RustiAndI played.
That David Essex recording I mentioned before, which I wouldn't call a studio recording exactly, but my god it's interesting.
Also Santana - Abraxas is quite good. Oye Como Va is one of the reference tracks I was listening to.
Plus there's a Sony SQ sampler if you can get your hands on it that gave impressive results.

~David

And yes, I'm an impatient man too. I'm impatiently waiting for everyone to listen to their SQ unit so they can decide whether they like it or hate it, come in here and tell me why, and then I can get some sleep.

~David

Perhaps it's fair to mention that RustiAndI has the chair welded firmly in the centre of the listening den, it's a pretty ideal setup.

Overture said:

Perhaps it's fair to mention that RustiAndI has the chair welded firmly in the centre of the listening den, it's a pretty ideal setup.

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My setup here is subpar for a couple reasons. My rear speakers for my 7.1 receiver, which I never use, are located where my main surrounds should be. My main surrounds - if the listener is in the middle of the room - hit you directly from the sides and not from behind. I've seen some diagrams where this is an acceptable setup, but it doesn't really give you a great sound field. I might put those back/back speakers in the closet and put my main surrounds there. That will help. I hardly ever watch 7.1 content.

And when I'm at my desk working, the left surround is right near my face so I have to adjust everything. It's far from ideal.

That said, I tried the track you mentioned on Abraxas and I could see the needles on my 2020 jumping in different directions. There was definite separation, too.

I'm playing a stereo Sergio Mendes Brasil '66 album album now through the Involve mode. What a nice soundscape. The sound is warm and very pleasing. I've been switching between the SM and the SQD-2020 and there's more high end coming from the SM (though because of this, it is sometimes triggering the built-in CD4 demodulator on my receiver, which causes distortion. I can work around this by using my Marantz cd4 preamp and bypass my receiver's phono stage, but I like my receiver's phono stage better! Now try explaining this to someone who only knows how to plug headphones into their iPods!).

Regardless of whether the SM is perfect or not, I appreciate you guys making this incredibly esoteric piece of equipment for an incredibly small audience. It's really hard to complain (too much, at least).

Ah well, if it wasn't for complaints we wouldn't even have made the SQ edition
Hope the photo in the box didn't put you off your lunch.

As for your setup - yeah, that sounds less than ideal. But I guess we work with what we have. Interesting that the CD4 demodulator is auto-triggered by the signal. Does that work by detecting 30Khz carrier information?

Overture said:

As for your setup - yeah, that sounds less than ideal. But I guess we work with what we have. Interesting that the CD4 demodulator is auto-triggered by the signal. Does that work by detecting 30Khz carrier information?

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yeah. it thinks signals above 30khz are for the cd4 rears. It's doing it now on the "S" sibilance on a male voice. I'm using an H/K 800+. it's the second of thees units I've owned. The first was a lemon. It was impossible to play any SQ / QS though the phono stage using the SQD-2020 decoder. The demodulator triggered constantly. I bought a refurbbed 800+ recently and it doesn't do it nearly as much. In fact, it never did it with the SQD-2020.

To address this, I bought four semi-working JVC demodulators and finally settled on the Marantz, which lets me bypass the phono stage and go into an aux jack -- the built-in demodulator only triggers on the phono input (except when playing mono sources from any input with the selector dial on mono -- a strange quirk that almost never comes up).

I should probably just route everything through the Marantz. It's not a bad pre-amp and I can bypass it with direct-outs that go right into my receive's phono stage for non quad albums--- though the sound loses just a tad doing this. It's somehow not as "clean" sounding. It's fairly minimal, though. It's either that, or switch cables around when I go from quad to stereo/mono.

I'd hook up my other turntable -- one for quad only and one for stereo - but I just don't have the space in my apartment. I need to move.

RSilverman said:

yeah. it thinks signals above 30khz are for the cd4 rears. It's doing it now on the "S" sibilance on a male voice. I'm using an H/K 800+. it's the second of thees units I've owned. The first was a lemon. It was impossible to play any SQ / QS though the phono stage using the SQD-2020 decoder. The demodulator triggered constantly. I bought a refurbbed 800+ recently and it doesn't do it nearly as much. In fact, it never did it with the SQD-2020.

To address this, I bought four semi-working JVC demodulators and finally settled on the Marantz, which lets me bypass the phono stage and go into an aux jack -- the built-in demodulator only triggers on the phono input (except when playing mono sources from any input with the selector dial on mono -- a strange quirk that almost never comes up).

I should probably just route everything through the Marantz. It's not a bad pre-amp and I can bypass it with direct-outs that go right into my receive's phono stage for non quad albums--- though the sound loses just a tad doing this. It's somehow not as "clean" sounding. It's fairly minimal, though. It's either that, or switch cables around when I go from quad to stereo/mono.

I'd hook up my other turntable -- one for quad only and one for stereo - but I just don't have the space in my apartment. I need to move.

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You know it's a little more than a hobby when you're considering moving to fix the equipment hookup.
The extra top end is a result of the tri-banding, it's much faster at the top end and probably responsible for that. We don't gate the top-end of the frequency spectrum - have you considered putting in a simple bypass-able lowpass filter somewhere around 25Khz or something on the input, just to remove that triggering issue?

RSilverman said:

My setup here is subpar for a couple reasons. My rear speakers for my 7.1 receiver, which I never use, are located where my main surrounds should be. My main surrounds - if the listener is in the middle of the room - hit you directly from the sides and not from behind. I've seen some diagrams where this is an acceptable setup, but it doesn't really give you a great sound field. I might put those back/back speakers in the closet and put my main surrounds there. That will help. I hardly ever watch 7.1 content.

And when I'm at my desk working, the left surround is right near my face so I have to adjust everything. It's far from ideal.

That said, I tried the track you mentioned on Abraxas and I could see the needles on my 2020 jumping in different directions. There was definite separation, too.

I'm playing a stereo Sergio Mendes Brasil '66 album album now through the Involve mode. What a nice soundscape. The sound is warm and very pleasing. I've been switching between the SM and the SQD-2020 and there's more high end coming from the SM (though because of this, it is sometimes triggering the built-in CD4 demodulator on my receiver, which causes distortion. I can work around this by using my Marantz cd4 preamp and bypass my receiver's phono stage, but I like my receiver's phono stage better! Now try explaining this to someone who only knows how to plug headphones into their iPods!).

Regardless of whether the SM is perfect or not, I appreciate you guys making this incredibly esoteric piece of equipment for an incredibly small audience. It's really hard to complain (too much, at least).

Click to expand...

Do you have many SQ and QS records?

Overture said:

have you considered putting in a simple bypass-able lowpass filter somewhere around 25Khz or something on the input, just to remove that triggering issue?

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I have no idea what this is! There's hi-cut and low-cut buttons on my receiver, but it sounds like crap when they're activated.

More importantly, my Sinatra Live at the Meadowlands CD sounds awesome with the Involve turned on. My neighbors may not like it, though. Old man Sinatra is a bit of an acquired taste.

oh... I need to move, anyway. There's about 200 records I have no room to shelve. I have about 1500 in my collection and have to stop buying them. No space. My apt. is small, though at 450 square feet. I want to move, anyway.

Did you see that article about the hoarder with 250,000 records?

Q8 said:

Do you have many SQ and QS records?

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Probably about 150! And about 50 CD4s -- or thereabouts. I need to do an inventory of my collection, but i don't have any free time these days.

RSilverman said:

I have no idea what this is! There's hi-cut and low-cut buttons on my receiver, but it sounds like crap when they're activated.

Did you see that article about the hoarder with 250,000 records?

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Ah, just a little two-opamp circuit, or even an equaliser to cut out anything above 25Khz. I'm sure there would be some passionate opinions in this forum on the types of circuit and the the op-amp quality and so on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_pass_filter

I can't speak for the High-cut, that sounds to me like a de-brighten mode. Which would probably not sound great.

The article....no, I haven't seen it, got a link?