Lou Dorren on his CD-4 45rpm record, and FM Quadraplex

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loudorren

Well-known Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2007
Messages
178
Location
Millbrae California
HI Jon,

I recorded, Mixed and Mastered the first CD-4 Discrete 45 Titled "Bean Whistle Rag". It was released on SoundBird Records and I still Have some.

Lou Dorren
 
Wow! A cd-4 45. I have never heard of one let alone seen it. Was this a promotional issue or were there stock copies? There was some discussion here as to whether there ever was a cd-4 capable jukebox. Was Soundbird thinking of this?

Jeff
 
Hi Jeff,

This was a commercial release. It sold about 3000 copies. The release was timed for the F.C.C. approval of FM quad broadcasting in 1986 (8 years too late I am afraid)!

Lou Dorren
 
Hi Jeff,

This was a commercial release. It sold about 3000 copies. The release was timed for the F.C.C. approval of FM quad broadcasting in 1986 (8 years too late I am afraid)!

Lou Dorren

Lou,
As a Quad collector since the beginning, as a partner in Brad Millers last venture(we released all the DTS discs in the late 90s), as a fan of yours who advocated the ways of quad and soundfields for music for all your professional life, let me be the one to say it is an honor and privledge to have you in our forum. :banana:
After working with Brad and listening to all the tales, i realized upon his death, which was extemely swift, i had never written down all the stuff we all should be hearing, the stories behind the way it happened. It is akin to when a family member dies, and takes all the knowledge of the family's past with them. If you have the time, please give us the stories!!!! Even links to where papers and other items relating to those early years would help.
We would be all ears to whatever is said by such a interesting and early figure in quad development. The stand is yours whenever you wish to participate!!!!!!!
Oh and thanks for the help in the past, to create quad as a venue for REAL fans of soundfield music!!
 
Hi Tad,

Nice to meet you. Yes I have been in on the ground floor of Quadraphonics, both in the broadcasting and recording ends of the technology. The unfortunate circumstance of the government involvement, basically killed what could have been a vibrant element of audio. Instead it has left us with a vast array of backward steps to high Fidelity "Multi-channel" audio. There is an interesting history to all of this and from time to time I will try to shed some light on it. In the present however, don't give up on true technology, for something is in the wind.

Lou Dorren
 
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Wow! Welcome Lou. We old time quad fans are YOUR fans. I think I actually had a copy of that Soundbird 45 "Bean Whistle Rag", although I am not sure I still do.

Please, if you have anything you feel like sharing with us, we are "the core"!

Again, welcome to QQ.
 
Hi Jon,

Thank you for the salutation, it is much appreciated. I have been reading the entries on this site for a few months with great interest and an occasional chuckle. Like in the audio industry itself, there are individuals here who really understand real undamaged multichannel playback, and those who just follow the hype because it is so overwhelming.

Being an electronics as well as a sound recording engineer for over 40 years, I work hard at the no compromise position that whatever hardware system is developed, it should have no effect on the music content put through it. For a long time the audio industry made leaps and bounds in improving the fidelity of electronically recorded and reproduced audio. Quality was the word.

Right after the Quadraphonic fiasco, I believe that many in the industry were so fed up that they looked for any way to generate quick, large revenue. The word changed to two words, quantity and cheap. Unfortunately, this also has led to great technical inferiority with great fan fare from all of the snake oil sales people.

There are some of us that still believe that this predilection can be corrected. That is why we continue to develop new real audio technologies and fight the good fight.

Stepping down off the soap box,

Lou Dorren
 
In the present however, don't give up on true technology, for something is in the wind.
Lou Dorren

Welcome Lou,

While I do not have the expertise of those in the industry, I am a devotee to the technology. I am a member of the group that will continue to spend hard earned money on the end product.

Based on a portion of your statement above, I will tuck away some of that cash for the breeze that may soon blow our way.;)

Thank you and all of those in this forum who have worked so hard to deliver a product that I can sit back and enjoy.:smokin
 
Welcome Lou,

While I do not have the expertise of those in the industry, I am a devotee to the technology. I am a member of the group that will continue to spend hard earned money on the end product.

Based on a portion of your statement above, I will tuck away some of that cash for the breeze that may soon blow our way.;)

Thank you and all of those in this forum who have worked so hard to deliver a product that I can sit back and enjoy.:smokin
Jon. perhaps you could move this to a new thread. But just to help the young and or forgetful. Lou was in the fight to create 4 channel radio. This i pulled from Mark Anderson's discography:

During the quadraphonic era, their were hopes that radio broadcasts
someday would be all multi-channel.
To broadcast quadraphonics was difficult and never actually came to a
solution. One attempt to broadcast in quad was by using one radio
station to broadcast the front channels while another broadcast the
rear. In order to receive these "Discrete" broadcasts, a second stereo
FM receiver was needed. This proved to be problematic since
owning two stereo receivers was not a reality for most.
The other method was to matrix the 4 channels to 2 and then decode
the 2 channels back to 4 on your home receiver.
There were suggestions to broadcast the extra channels by multiplexing
them on a second subcarrier at 76 kHz. These designs were made by Zenith
Corporation, General Electric, RCA and Dorren Quadracast Systems.
There was never an agreement between the FCC and the EBU how to
broadcast quadraphonic sound, but here in the U.S. The
National Quadraphonic Radio Committee (NQRC) recommended
the Quadracast system from Lou Dorren and was adopted by the FCC in
1983. Brad Miller was the only representative of the industry who wanted
a discrete system, and CBS even proposed a USQ system that was
compatible with Matrix SQ, yet had a discrete sub-carrier for optimal
performance. They even developed a fully discrete Matrix system, but it
never was really developed, although it was patented.
The BBC was designing their H-matrix at the same time and they regarded
it at that time as quadraphonics.


So Lou has a background in this era, from the beginning, which will be more rare as the cast of characters from that era passes away. Anything we could gleen from someone so involved from the beginning is a treat. Perhaps he can even explain that RCA output that i remember on the back of receivers from that era, which had no real use. I do not have any old receivers around anymore i can get at, my beautiful old Marantz is boxed. But, as i remember, most receivers had that out for quadraplex which was never used. Anyone else remember these. I know some of you will be able to flip the receiver around and see it.
Lou has many patents on this system of 4 channel broadcast and i am sure the fight to get this approved has many stories behind it. I am sure he knew Brad and the others involved in the fight to keep quad around after the fight between RCA, Sony, JVC and the rest.
 
I remember that receivers of that day (even the stereo ones) had a single jack on the back for "FM Quad". We quad fans were always hoping that the approval of an FM Quad standard would revitalize the surround sound music market. We waited, and waited while the FCC dragged their feet.

We were still waiting when DTS CDs came along. By then, most of us had given up!

We are all in debt to folks like Lou and Brad Miller.
 
To broadcast quadraphonics was difficult and never actually came to a
solution. One attempt to broadcast in quad was by using one radio
station to broadcast the front channels while another broadcast the
rear. In order to receive these "Discrete" broadcasts, a second stereo
FM receiver was needed. This proved to be problematic since
owning two stereo receivers was not a reality for most.

Hello Lou,

Thank you very much for joining the Quad board. Any insights would be most appreciated. Since we're from the San Francisco Bay Area you might have knowledge of the 2 station Quad broadcasts that we're held here in the 1970's. If I recall correctly these broadcasts we're special weekend shows that aired in the mid 1970's. I remember taking the equivalent of 2 stereo boom boxes and listening to the shows. There was also a Sacramento station that supposedly broadcast Quadraphonic 24 / 7, KWOD (Quad) FM 106.5. I always wondered back then how that station broadcast Quad and how to receive the Quadraphonic music. I always assumed at the time that the more expensive amps would receive the Quadraphonic broadcast.
Thanks.
Jim White

Here is a poster from one of the first Bay Area Quad Broadcasts:
 

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My Akai AS-980 has the RCA FM 4ch out jack and the multiplex adjustments control on the rear of the unit.

From the Owners Manual:

Akai back edit.jpg

I addition, the Service Manual makes no reference on the adjustment procedure.

Spence
 
Hello to Everyone,

I wanted to correct a slight error in Mark Anderson's discography piece. There are actually two additional subcarriers in the Quadraplex system, not one extra as stated. For those who are interested the baseband layout is as follows:

10 Hz to 15KHz Main Channel (Sum of all 4 channels)(LF+LB+RF+RB)Signal
used For Mono FM users compatibility.

19 KHz Pilot synchronizing signal

23 to 53 KHz (cosine Quadrant Subcarrier) (LF+LB) - (RF+RB) Left Minus
Right Difference signal. This signal's modulation in algebraic
sum and difference with the Main channel was used for the
2 channel stereo user compatibility.

23 to 53 KHz (sine Quadrant Subcarrier) (LF+RF) - (LB+RB) Difference
signal. This is the Front minus Back difference signal. This
signal's modulation in algebraic sum and difference with the
Main channel and all the other subcarriers is used for the
Quadraphonic user.

61 to 91 KHz (cosine Quadrant Subcarrier) (LF+RB) - (LB+RF) Difference
signal. This is the Diagonal difference signal. This signal's
modulation in algebraic sum and difference with the main
channel and all the other subcarriers is used for the
Quadraphonic user.

95 KHz SCA Subcarrier phase locked to 19KHz pilot For reading
services for the blind, Musak, etc.

This is the signal that would have come out of that RCA jack on your Receivers.

Lou Dorren
 
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Was there ever a commercially available device that could be connected to the MPX RCA jack?

Then what? Would the outboard decoder box then need to feed 4 channels back into the receiver?

Enquiring minds want to know! :D
 
Hello Q-eight,

The answer is "all most". We had developed a single chip to do the entire FM receiver demodulation job. At the same time we developed the CD-4 chip for disc demodulators. Two of these chips would make a complete CD-4 decoder. This part went into production and was sold to many OEMs. Its part number was the QSI5022.

Being the co-chairperson of the NQRC (National Quadraphonic Radio Committee), I knew the we had won the field trials and my system was going to be the national standard. Preparing for F.C.C. approval, 100 preproduction units were built along with evaluation boards for OEM's to use our chips. We had a production line setup to build Quadraplex generators for the radio stations. Every thing was in place and then nothing for 4 years. Those years were the death nail in the Quadraphonic coffin.

The demodulator had a single unbalanced baseband feed. It had 4 audio outputs to feed a 4 input aux connection on the receiver.

Lou Dorren
 
Hi Lou,

Thank you for all of the fascinating history and insights you are sharing with us! It all falls into the category of what "might have been". A world gone quadraphonic almost came to be....

In your last post you mentioned the CD-4 chips that you developed and the field test runs. How did they compare in performance to the cd-4 demodulators of that time? I am only familiar with the one built into my Sansui 9001.

And what happened to those 100 preproduction units and the OEM boards? Were they ever for sale? They might represent the CD-4 demodulater ne plus ultra!

Jeff
 
FM surround broadcasting isn't dead.

I've been talking with the folks at Ibiquity... and surround sound is going to be a big part of the future of HD radio.

The next generation of HD-Radio chips will ALL include surround sound decoding abilities. At that point it becomes up to the radio manufacturer to implement it or not.

Ibiquity is going to lean on manufacturers to include the surround sound system.

I have more details on this I'll share at a later date when I'm not so busy.

Welcome Lou!
 
Just thinking of what could have been.....

I wonder if it would have been more commercially feasible to manufacture an outboard demodulator box that worked with CD-4 and Quad FM. Kind of a 2-for-1 deal.

It would be neat to find out if there are any of the surviving 100 pre-production units! I realize they'd be absolutely useless today but to finally have something tangible to connect to the MPX OUT jack! :)
 
FM surround broadcasting isn't dead.

I've been talking with the folks at Ibiquity... and surround sound is going to be a big part of the future of HD radio.

The next generation of HD-Radio chips will ALL include surround sound decoding abilities. At that point it becomes up to the radio manufacturer to implement it or not.

Ibiquity is going to lean on manufacturers to include the surround sound system.

I have more details on this I'll share at a later date when I'm not so busy.

Welcome Lou!

Does HD Radio use the same band as FM or some of the new ones? Are the surround sound decoding abilities one particular format or has that not been decided yet. And are the surround sound decoding abilities truly discrete or matrix.

I trained and received my Class C broadcasting license in the late 1970's, back in the day when you had to take a test and pass it at the FCC office in San Francisco.
 
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