Hello after about 10 years inactive on this forum! Last weekend, after doing some work on the back of my system in order to sort out some issues that had cropped up over the years, I decided to reconnect my QSD -2. I've had this little gem for many years but recall how, with great anticipation connecting it and being generally disappointed with the QS results. Over the years, I got very lazy and did QS though my Audionics Composer in Enhance with the controls adjusted to try to roughly (very) equate to a QS formula. This is something Steve Kennedy showed me back in the 1970s. Again, never really happy with the signal placement, but it was at least as good if not better than what I recall from the QSD-2. Anyways, last weekend, I dutifully checked the input balance and then using the tape monitor out from the Composer sent that to the QSD-2 inputs, and put on Jim Croce. WOW! What a great decoding experience! Needless to say I listened to about half of the rest of my sad neglected QS albums that evening! They are uniformly wonderful! My only comnplaint: why are all the Command albums so compressed? They sound like they were mastered on a cassettte tape!
QS - where have you been all my life?
- Thread starter Marcsten
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Isn't it a great feeling when you hear the separation coming from a quadraphonic record album the very first time? I had a similar experience with CD-4. Purchased the system back in the mid 70's and NEVER had any luck getting CD-4 to decode properly. Eventually I found a Marantz CB-400 decoder in a thrift store for $5. It sat in a closet for probably a decade. Then about 1 1/2 years ago I got the bug to try to get CD-4 up and running again. Finally, I decided to purchase a new cartridge (which I had stubbornly resisted because my Stanton cartridge was supposed to be designed for CD-4) and lo and behold, after spending a few minutes tweaking with a test record, I finally had CD-4 playback just 40 years or so after purchasing the system new. I had the same listening experience with my CD-4 albums that you describe.
I see you're in Seattle. Great to hear from another quad fan in the Great Northwest! Enjoy your QS collection and if you're like me, I'm sure the hunt has begun for adding some additional titles to the collection.
I see you're in Seattle. Great to hear from another quad fan in the Great Northwest! Enjoy your QS collection and if you're like me, I'm sure the hunt has begun for adding some additional titles to the collection.
Dr. -
INteresting your experience was as mine for QS. Although CD-4 is often a finicky business, when I was in your situation, I hooked it up and it worked forst time ever time, save for the usual carrier lock issues occassionally on certain discs.
What I did NOT say in my earlier post is that one of the reasons I was fiddling with my system was because CD-4 had gone stereo all. For some time I ignored it thinking it was just the CD-4 ghosts making me pay for so many years without any real problems. I too traced the trouble to my cartridge, or more correctly, the stylus. Rather than look for an N24H, I bought the Ed Saunders CD-$ cartridge. Installed it. CD-4 works, but the carrier refuses to lock, and that wonderful sound we all know and love makes it unlistenable. I will be renewing my efforts to find an N24H stylus.
Meanwhile, I will be listening to QS!
INteresting your experience was as mine for QS. Although CD-4 is often a finicky business, when I was in your situation, I hooked it up and it worked forst time ever time, save for the usual carrier lock issues occassionally on certain discs.
What I did NOT say in my earlier post is that one of the reasons I was fiddling with my system was because CD-4 had gone stereo all. For some time I ignored it thinking it was just the CD-4 ghosts making me pay for so many years without any real problems. I too traced the trouble to my cartridge, or more correctly, the stylus. Rather than look for an N24H, I bought the Ed Saunders CD-$ cartridge. Installed it. CD-4 works, but the carrier refuses to lock, and that wonderful sound we all know and love makes it unlistenable. I will be renewing my efforts to find an N24H stylus.
Meanwhile, I will be listening to QS!
A replacement stylus for the M24H cartridge can be had from Jico.com. They also have an upgrade version. the SAS, which improves performance of the cartridge beyond the capabilities of the original stylus. It uses a Shibata stylus.
Shure no longer offers the N24H stylus, but you can get one that's even better from JICO.com. They offer their SAS series stylus for that cartridge, and my experience with it is that it performed better than the original Shure stylus that came with my M24H. It's not cheap, but I found it worth the money to get probably the best CD-4 I've heard. Check into it.
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