Well I received my second Surround Master, the one with the newer SQ algorithm last week, and today I had an hour or so to check it out on the PC with a few SQ albums. First off, let me state a few things here:
1) I have paid full price for every Surround Master unit and upgrade. No one from Involve has provided me or QQ a thing other than what they've done for everyone - provide a modern way to decode SQ and QS.
2) Those of you who knew me or corresponded with me back in the '70s know I was a CD-4 guy and I pretty much thought SQ was a waste. I am from the school that once you mix up stuff, you can't get the initial ingredients back the way they started. I don't care if it's SQ, QS, RM, EV, DY, or ProLogic. You can't do it, and you certainly could not do it in the '70s.
Now, here's what I found.
The first graphic you'll see below is the Quadraphile SQ Side, Track 1. The upper wav file was decoded with the First SQ version of the Surround Master, which I paid to ship back and have the SQ chip installed in. The lower wav file was decoded with the newer Surround Master that arrived this week, with the second version of the SQ chip.
This is basically a channel identification track, but it's not just LEFT-RIGHT-BACK LEFT-BACK FRONT, they also do FULL CENTER, LEFT CENTER, RIGHT CENTER, CENTER FRONT, and CENTER BACK.
The purpose of this comparison is not to define what part of the wav file is which channel, but more to see the difference between the two versions of the SQ Surround Master.
NOTE: I left these a full size so you could really look at them (but the stupid vB shrunk them, sorry)
As you can see, the newer Surround Master seems to have better definition in the front channels and a bit more amplitude in the wav forms. These were recorded in today one after the other, using the exact same turntable, cartridge, MOTU, recording settings, with the only difference being the Surround Master Model.
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Now the torture test. I didn't have a lot of time to futz around, so I went right for the kill. There is a track on the Paul Simon album called "Night Game". It is a very quiet, somber ballad, and I remembered that on the Q8 the back channels had very little information in them. The Back Left is silent most of the song until a harmonica/fiddle appears for a solo, then leaves and that channel goes back to silence. The back right channel has an eerie high harmony vocal towards the end, and guitar throughout. Paul's voice is not heard in the back left or the back right during the song.
Well, I have a feeling that what you see below is more of a reflection on the crappy SQ encoding of the day, but to be real, the decode is horrible. There is Paul Simons' vocal in all 4 channels. The guitar as well. The harmonica/fiddle solo is not isolated in the back left, although it's loudest there, but it bleeds to the fronts and the back right. If you solo the back left channel, you do get the harmonica solo with the bass guitar and little else, so there is a possibility that there were two different mixes of this song, one for Q8, and one for SQ. I don't know.
At any rate, the results are there for you to see. I will try some other stuff as time goes by. Your results may vary.
1) I have paid full price for every Surround Master unit and upgrade. No one from Involve has provided me or QQ a thing other than what they've done for everyone - provide a modern way to decode SQ and QS.
2) Those of you who knew me or corresponded with me back in the '70s know I was a CD-4 guy and I pretty much thought SQ was a waste. I am from the school that once you mix up stuff, you can't get the initial ingredients back the way they started. I don't care if it's SQ, QS, RM, EV, DY, or ProLogic. You can't do it, and you certainly could not do it in the '70s.
Now, here's what I found.
The first graphic you'll see below is the Quadraphile SQ Side, Track 1. The upper wav file was decoded with the First SQ version of the Surround Master, which I paid to ship back and have the SQ chip installed in. The lower wav file was decoded with the newer Surround Master that arrived this week, with the second version of the SQ chip.
This is basically a channel identification track, but it's not just LEFT-RIGHT-BACK LEFT-BACK FRONT, they also do FULL CENTER, LEFT CENTER, RIGHT CENTER, CENTER FRONT, and CENTER BACK.
The purpose of this comparison is not to define what part of the wav file is which channel, but more to see the difference between the two versions of the SQ Surround Master.
NOTE: I left these a full size so you could really look at them (but the stupid vB shrunk them, sorry)
As you can see, the newer Surround Master seems to have better definition in the front channels and a bit more amplitude in the wav forms. These were recorded in today one after the other, using the exact same turntable, cartridge, MOTU, recording settings, with the only difference being the Surround Master Model.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now the torture test. I didn't have a lot of time to futz around, so I went right for the kill. There is a track on the Paul Simon album called "Night Game". It is a very quiet, somber ballad, and I remembered that on the Q8 the back channels had very little information in them. The Back Left is silent most of the song until a harmonica/fiddle appears for a solo, then leaves and that channel goes back to silence. The back right channel has an eerie high harmony vocal towards the end, and guitar throughout. Paul's voice is not heard in the back left or the back right during the song.
Well, I have a feeling that what you see below is more of a reflection on the crappy SQ encoding of the day, but to be real, the decode is horrible. There is Paul Simons' vocal in all 4 channels. The guitar as well. The harmonica/fiddle solo is not isolated in the back left, although it's loudest there, but it bleeds to the fronts and the back right. If you solo the back left channel, you do get the harmonica solo with the bass guitar and little else, so there is a possibility that there were two different mixes of this song, one for Q8, and one for SQ. I don't know.
At any rate, the results are there for you to see. I will try some other stuff as time goes by. Your results may vary.
