Didn't quite know where to post this but this on Amazon's under the new Chicago Blu-Ray box reviews. I found the story relating to Columbia Records SQ equipment destruction rather interesting and was wondering if anyone else ever heard this tale. Listed as "VERY NEARLY PERFECT" 4 Stars By Alexander D. on June 18, 2016:
Great Job in remastering all except for one disc.. (IV, Live At Carnegie, was never released in Quad. Therefore, it is not in this set.)
There are none of the (mostly) extra tracks and alternate takes which Rhino included on the remastered releases of the last decade. There were bonuses on II, and V through X (and most of XI though XX, as well). This, for some, may be an irritation, but, then again, these gems were never originally released, let alone in QUAD! (Thanks to Lee Loughnane's personal oversight of the last decades' Rhino re-releases, we have these fine bonus materials. Some are fantastic. Try VIII. The extras, shine!)
As I maintain, the remastering is outstanding on all but one album. (I'll explain. You'll learn about it later, Dear Reader.) Some background. Quad media was competing and confusing galaxy of formats and each format required its' dedicated decoder. Systems were utterly incompatible with each other. There were systems such as SQ, QS, Discrete (Warner and others), etc. Think about VHS/BETA, and make it even more complicated and you'll get the notion of how the consumer was baffled. That was the world of Quad in the 1970's. CBS/Columbia released the same as this 2016 set in two Quad formats, individually, in the early-to-mid 1970's.. The Columbia LP's were "matrix" quad, known as "SQ". Yes, there were 4 channels, but the 4, or quad, was not truly pure or "discrete'...not really separate. There was much cross-channel mixing of the four channels. Columbia also released the same on 8-Track cassette...remember those? Remarkably, the four channels were truly discrete. If you had a 8-track quad system and added noise/hiss reduction gear, such as was produced by Phase-Linear and added a decent expander/compander into the system (such as made by DBX, et al.) you would have had a truly amazing aural experience, back in the day.
Columbia pressed only a very few of X on LP Matrix/SQ. The few out there are test pressings and they are rare!!! The 8-track version of X was truly discrete quad and was widely available.
X was to be the last of the Chicago Quadraphonic releases. (The record industry gave up on Quad about 1977....Columbia/CBS destroyed all of their Quadraphonic Matrix studio equipment, soon after, in the 1980's. An acquaintance of this writer related how they literally took axes and sledgehammers to their SQ recording equipment in NYC and LA, as he had witnessed it.THIS was truly shortsighted. A tragic shame...The other major record companies followed suit, and abandoned Quad (Without the attendant violent destruction of their proprietary Quad recording equipment). What they all didn't realize or foresee was that the future of multi-channel home entertainment was about to be reignited, with its' re-Genesis, merely a decade away, in the future. The renaissance began with Laser Discs of the 90's Multi-channel is the accepted standard today for all mid and upper-end systems...It is ubiquitous. There are not just 4 (or, Quad) channels which are on a contemporary DVD, but, up to 12 discrete channels are encoded on some newer, higher budget movies!) Quad is considered quaint, now. BUT, SO MUCH great music was rendered into 4 channels for the world, in the 70's! That material can not-and should not-be ignored.
The Quad releases of the 1970's suffered from the limitations of their respective mediums: LP's had clicks, hisses, limited dynamic range, bass rumble, non-linear equalization(EQ) curves, etc. 8-Tracks were even more problematic, with high noise/hiss levels and terrible wow and flutter. High frequencies were attenuated and worse, obscured by the highest hiss levels.Some labels tried encoding Dolby B on their tapes. Consumers complained it made the music sound "dull", when the Dolby button was engaged, even though hiss was drastically reduced and Signal to Noise ratio greatly improved.. (Mercifully, clicks were an artifact of LP's, only.)
Rhino has done a magnificent job of removing most hiss from their source tapes. The Wizards at Rhino/Warner have very subtly added harmonization to certain passages- very tastefully, in my humble estimation. The tracks have received wonderful ratios of expansion. The very best? The four channels are now truly discrete...just like on those 8-Track QUAD cassettes!!!!!
My only "beef"? X sounds like it was directly copied from one of those extremely rare Matrix/SQ LP's test discs. I can't believe X was copied from the master tapes/source materials. The results would have been much better, had this been the case. (I heard "scuttlebutt" that one of the original four members of Chicago owned one of these Quad LP test pressings. That member's disc, I would wager, is the source for this release of X.)
The engineers have done an admirable job of trying to fix up their source of X. They have attempted to eliminate most of the clicks pops and hisses, but the dynamic range is lacking on the X disc. Listen, carefully, and you'll hear scratches and pops of an LP. (I was able to transfer my 8-Track/discrete copy of X to a digital medium in the early 1980's...before the acetate or, tape, deteriorated- which most all of my collection,- 8-track, cassette, reel-to-reel, did, by the mid-1990's.) My digital copy of the processed 8-track discrete quad sounds much better. It has less noise, better separation, finer "presence" and brighter EQ than the version of X, in this collection....(...and, no. I will not make anybody a copy). Otherwise, the 2016 set is amazing!
Kudos to the engineers who mastered this tome! (...except for X, of course....Nonetheless, it was a noble effort, fellows!)
If you love the great Chi albums of '69-'76 AND you have Blu-Ray player AND a decent Amp. with DTS-HD capability and integrated Bass Management AND four fine speakers, each of equal quality AND a dedicated Bass Speaker/Sub-woofer AND you want to experience some of the best, high-quality music, BOTH ARTISTICALLY WORTHY AND AS A TECHNICAL MASTERPIECE, BUY THIS SET.
You will be smiling for many, many hours, as soon as you experience this music and- for years to come... I'm not kidding... get it. before it sells out. (Blu-Ray Quad is still very much a niche thing...who knows if this particular quad re-incarnation will survive? Most recent Chicago SACD multi-channel releases (I believe these are limited to CTA/I, II, V, and VI) are OOP and command a high price on Ebay/Amazon....A curiosity: CTA/I was also released as quad,about three years ago. It sold out and it is not being re-issued.. Good luck finding it for the original release price, if you can find it at all!!!)
Great Job in remastering all except for one disc.. (IV, Live At Carnegie, was never released in Quad. Therefore, it is not in this set.)
There are none of the (mostly) extra tracks and alternate takes which Rhino included on the remastered releases of the last decade. There were bonuses on II, and V through X (and most of XI though XX, as well). This, for some, may be an irritation, but, then again, these gems were never originally released, let alone in QUAD! (Thanks to Lee Loughnane's personal oversight of the last decades' Rhino re-releases, we have these fine bonus materials. Some are fantastic. Try VIII. The extras, shine!)
As I maintain, the remastering is outstanding on all but one album. (I'll explain. You'll learn about it later, Dear Reader.) Some background. Quad media was competing and confusing galaxy of formats and each format required its' dedicated decoder. Systems were utterly incompatible with each other. There were systems such as SQ, QS, Discrete (Warner and others), etc. Think about VHS/BETA, and make it even more complicated and you'll get the notion of how the consumer was baffled. That was the world of Quad in the 1970's. CBS/Columbia released the same as this 2016 set in two Quad formats, individually, in the early-to-mid 1970's.. The Columbia LP's were "matrix" quad, known as "SQ". Yes, there were 4 channels, but the 4, or quad, was not truly pure or "discrete'...not really separate. There was much cross-channel mixing of the four channels. Columbia also released the same on 8-Track cassette...remember those? Remarkably, the four channels were truly discrete. If you had a 8-track quad system and added noise/hiss reduction gear, such as was produced by Phase-Linear and added a decent expander/compander into the system (such as made by DBX, et al.) you would have had a truly amazing aural experience, back in the day.
Columbia pressed only a very few of X on LP Matrix/SQ. The few out there are test pressings and they are rare!!! The 8-track version of X was truly discrete quad and was widely available.
X was to be the last of the Chicago Quadraphonic releases. (The record industry gave up on Quad about 1977....Columbia/CBS destroyed all of their Quadraphonic Matrix studio equipment, soon after, in the 1980's. An acquaintance of this writer related how they literally took axes and sledgehammers to their SQ recording equipment in NYC and LA, as he had witnessed it.THIS was truly shortsighted. A tragic shame...The other major record companies followed suit, and abandoned Quad (Without the attendant violent destruction of their proprietary Quad recording equipment). What they all didn't realize or foresee was that the future of multi-channel home entertainment was about to be reignited, with its' re-Genesis, merely a decade away, in the future. The renaissance began with Laser Discs of the 90's Multi-channel is the accepted standard today for all mid and upper-end systems...It is ubiquitous. There are not just 4 (or, Quad) channels which are on a contemporary DVD, but, up to 12 discrete channels are encoded on some newer, higher budget movies!) Quad is considered quaint, now. BUT, SO MUCH great music was rendered into 4 channels for the world, in the 70's! That material can not-and should not-be ignored.
The Quad releases of the 1970's suffered from the limitations of their respective mediums: LP's had clicks, hisses, limited dynamic range, bass rumble, non-linear equalization(EQ) curves, etc. 8-Tracks were even more problematic, with high noise/hiss levels and terrible wow and flutter. High frequencies were attenuated and worse, obscured by the highest hiss levels.Some labels tried encoding Dolby B on their tapes. Consumers complained it made the music sound "dull", when the Dolby button was engaged, even though hiss was drastically reduced and Signal to Noise ratio greatly improved.. (Mercifully, clicks were an artifact of LP's, only.)
Rhino has done a magnificent job of removing most hiss from their source tapes. The Wizards at Rhino/Warner have very subtly added harmonization to certain passages- very tastefully, in my humble estimation. The tracks have received wonderful ratios of expansion. The very best? The four channels are now truly discrete...just like on those 8-Track QUAD cassettes!!!!!
My only "beef"? X sounds like it was directly copied from one of those extremely rare Matrix/SQ LP's test discs. I can't believe X was copied from the master tapes/source materials. The results would have been much better, had this been the case. (I heard "scuttlebutt" that one of the original four members of Chicago owned one of these Quad LP test pressings. That member's disc, I would wager, is the source for this release of X.)
The engineers have done an admirable job of trying to fix up their source of X. They have attempted to eliminate most of the clicks pops and hisses, but the dynamic range is lacking on the X disc. Listen, carefully, and you'll hear scratches and pops of an LP. (I was able to transfer my 8-Track/discrete copy of X to a digital medium in the early 1980's...before the acetate or, tape, deteriorated- which most all of my collection,- 8-track, cassette, reel-to-reel, did, by the mid-1990's.) My digital copy of the processed 8-track discrete quad sounds much better. It has less noise, better separation, finer "presence" and brighter EQ than the version of X, in this collection....(...and, no. I will not make anybody a copy). Otherwise, the 2016 set is amazing!
Kudos to the engineers who mastered this tome! (...except for X, of course....Nonetheless, it was a noble effort, fellows!)
If you love the great Chi albums of '69-'76 AND you have Blu-Ray player AND a decent Amp. with DTS-HD capability and integrated Bass Management AND four fine speakers, each of equal quality AND a dedicated Bass Speaker/Sub-woofer AND you want to experience some of the best, high-quality music, BOTH ARTISTICALLY WORTHY AND AS A TECHNICAL MASTERPIECE, BUY THIS SET.
You will be smiling for many, many hours, as soon as you experience this music and- for years to come... I'm not kidding... get it. before it sells out. (Blu-Ray Quad is still very much a niche thing...who knows if this particular quad re-incarnation will survive? Most recent Chicago SACD multi-channel releases (I believe these are limited to CTA/I, II, V, and VI) are OOP and command a high price on Ebay/Amazon....A curiosity: CTA/I was also released as quad,about three years ago. It sold out and it is not being re-issued.. Good luck finding it for the original release price, if you can find it at all!!!)
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