5.1 to quad transcoding

[Ola]

Hi,

I am a newbie to quad sound, so maybe there is an obvious answer to this:
I recently came across a Marantz 4240; couldn't resist it because of its looks. It sounds great in stereo, but I have no quad recordings (or players, for that matter). Feels like a waste not to use that extra dimension it's capable of delivering.
It would be great to use the device as a home theater amp. To use it for playing four of the 5.1 or 7.1 surround channels, and maybe split the remaining channels between the four I've got available.

* Would it be possible to transcode from e.g. 5.1 to any of the old quad formats? In hardware? In software, e.g. if I use a computer for movie playback?
* Does anyone have any experience from this?

Thanks in advance for any reply.

 

[ndiamone]

Just split the center channel from 5.1 equally across the two front channels
and the subwoofer channel across all 4 channels equally.

For 7.1 merge the extra side speakers equally across left-front and left rear for the left side
and right front and right rear for the right side.

But you might as well keep it for its looks if that's what you like and go on eBay
and buy you like a QSC multi channel theatre amp, since most of the problems with
those old receivers besides needing to be re-capped and restored is their notoriously
low wattage which is insufficient for today's modern speaker systems.

 

[Old Quad Guy]

Hi,

I am a newbie to quad sound, so maybe there is an obvious answer to this:
I recently came across a Marantz 4240; couldn't resist it because of its looks. It sounds great in stereo, but I have no quad recordings (or players, for that matter). Feels like a waste not to use that extra dimension it's capable of delivering.
It would be great to use the device as a home theater amp. To use it for playing four of the 5.1 or 7.1 surround channels, and maybe split the remaining channels between the four I've got available.

* Would it be possible to transcode from e.g. 5.1 to any of the old quad formats? In hardware? In software, e.g. if I use a computer for movie playback?
* Does anyone have any experience from this?

Thanks in advance for any reply.

What many of us do with our Quadraphonic AMPs in order to play 5.1 sound is add a stereo system for the center speaker / subwoofer. For 7.1 sound (might be best to get a new Amp) OR one could use 2 Quad Amps or one Quad Amp and 2 stereo amps. If your speakers are full range, personally I wouldn’t bother with the subwoofer for listening to music.

I highly recommend buying a DVD player that plays DVD-A / SACDs with the built in Dolby Digital / DTS decoders and 5.1 RCA outputs for playing back Quadraphonic DTS CD / DVD-A and 5.1 DVD-A / SACD. You can find one for well under $100.

Another way to deal with 5.1 and a Quadraphonic Amp – the poor man’s way – without costing anything extra is plug in the RCA center channel output from your DVD-A / SACD player to your T.V’s speakers. The Left, Right, Left Rear, Right Rear RCA jacks plug into the Quad AMP's inputs. For my needs in this one room it works out fairly well.

 

[QuadMusic]

* Would it be possible to transcode from e.g. 5.1 to any of the old quad formats?

For music playback if you have a PC connected to your quad. receiver (I do but I'm maybe in a minority) you can downn-mix 5.1 to 4.0 in any media player that supports DirectShow filters (WMP, MPC, KMPlayer etc.) using FFDShow or AC3Filter.

Both of these have customisable "mixing matrices" so you can optionally specify how much of the C and LFE channels goes where.


PC

 

[Ola]

Thank you everyone for your kind replies! I will start with trying out those soft "mixing matrices".
/Ola

 

[Bob Squires Jr]

I highly recommend buying a DVD player that plays DVD-A / SACDs with the built in Dolby Digital / DTS decoders and 5.1 RCA outputs for playing back Quadraphonic DTS CD / DVD-A and 5.1 DVD-A / SACD. You can find one for well under $100.

The Sony NS90V is a good, cheap DVD-SACD-CD Player.
I have 2 of them for just general purpose listening of SACDs in my living room.
You can get them for anywhere between $135.00 and like... $90.00.

-Bob

 

[BananaSlug]

I'm not terribly knowledgeable about this topic, but I thought there were several players that would automatically mix the center speaker into the FR and FL just by choosing no center channel in setup.