Sansui QS-1 Anybody want it before it goes on eBay?

[ndiamone]

A Sansui QS-1 was destined for the dumpster this morning at the swapmeet and I inherited it from the family of Eddie Martinelli, a former quadraphile and long time swapmeet booth holder who passed away recently.

His mom, sisters, daughters and other family kept his booth over the past few weeks and just started blowing out his gear, same as what'll happen to my gear when I die.

Anyway, I got a lotta great deals out of there over the past month or so, and now this morning was the last Saturday for which Ed had prepaid the booth rent, so his family just cleaned out his entire basement.

Some things went to other people that care more about them then I did, and then the rest, his mom was like ``You've been around the longest and been the most help, so here---if you don't want it, we'll just stack it up behind the school in the E-Waste collection center.

A lot of it was old chintzy trashed up old Q-8 players, and the all-plastic Garrard type all-in-ones they came in, so I just rescued the players and turntables out of those and E-Wasted the rest.

Then there was a few demodulators and decoders of which this is one which I will be testing out and putting forth here first for whoever wants it before they go up on eBay.

 

[spenceo]

PM Sent

 

[newbobbyc]

Hi!
Sad about your friend. I have collected many pieces over my lifetime and haven't a clue what my family will do with all of my stuff when I "go" ???? Some of it is quite valuable. I guess we need to have a chat about this some day soon!

YES! I am interested in your Sansui QS-1 if I am not too late! I only JUST saw your post this afternoon.

I JUST hooked up mine which I acquired many years ago but never tried until NOW! The controls are dirty, and I went online to try to find and download all possible documents I can find for it!

I think it will be a very GOOD idea to have two QS-1's for spare parts and A-B comparisons when trouble-shooting!

Get back to me when you have a chance OK, and VERY nice to meet you! Where are you located?

I am near Morrisburg, Ontario about 4 miles from the St Lawrence River and the Canada/USA border, so we are NEIGHBOURS, eh? We say "eh" a lot in Canada by the way! Nice to meet y'all! Americans say "y'all" as often as we Canadians say "eh", eh?

teehee, teehee

Sincerely,
Bob Clarke

 

[ndiamone]

Sorry, I couldn't get you the QS-1 but SpenceO beat you to the Inbox.

Hi!
Sad about your friend. I have collected many pieces over my lifetime and haven't a clue what my family will do with all of my stuff when I "go". Some of it is quite valuable. I guess we need to have a chat about this some day soon!

Well if you mean ``try and explain to the wife, daughters and sisters which gear is worth what'', you're wasting your time in my opinion. Women never care, never know and never want to know. All they want is everything out from underfoot. Ninety percent of the time this is how the next generation of now-wannabe soon-to-be-real engineers gets ``fed''.

The only thing you MIGHT be able to do is if one of your sons, grandsons, nephews etc already has an interest in vintage gear, you might see if you can break the Old Engineers' Code of Silence that's been around since the Middle Ages (ours as well as society's) by trying to sort of educate him in bits and pieces on the sly, working little interesting trivia and tidbits into conversations and hoping that he'll take the bait and want to learn about the whole scene like I did.

Except it wasn't my dad or uncle or granddad or any other relative I was learning from, it was the old bachelor easy-listening radio-station engineer who taught me, that lived on the corner of our block. I also got my first paid engineering gig with him as well, (dubbing master program reels onto individual carts and keeping the carts, cart machine and reel players in operation) only because, being one myself, I was immune to Fat Guy Smell, also had no friends and also had no interest in afterschool activities.

So you might have to broaden your scope there as well when you start looking for disciples/trainees/engineering assistants, etc. The man to save all your gear from the thrift shop or landfill might be a chubby little neighbor geek or dork that you may have only passingly known existed.

And then the last thing is do like all the guys here do: in your Final Arrangements Papers (yeh I know a man leaving his final (or any other) wishes written down anyplace for somebody to find that's like men going to the dr or taking out the trash without being asked) leave notice of your membership on this board and your password thereto.

Just tell all your family if they REALLY want to honor your life at LEAST take the little bit of time outside of their grief (or relief depending) to contact the guys on the board here for first dibs.

If you're lucky, like our ex moderator Cai Campbell who passed away a couple years ago, your family will take the message to heart, guys here will buy the gear and music collection for a fair price and you can send a kid to college in your memory on the proceeds.

If not, even if it's just to contact the membership at large only to say ``He's gone,all we want is his stuff out from underfoot,first man to show up with a truck gets it, '' like has been done for decades at least that's better than being destroyed donating to thrift shops or hauled off into a landfill by people who don't want, don't know, and don't care what happens to everything.

Or else you can just put my name in your papers and I can send one of my disciples to come get it all when the times comes and save your family the packing and hauling costs like I've been doing since I was eight.

(LOL)
(Maybe).

Which is why I have several guys' lifetime collections of music movies and machines.

And the reason why I was able to get my own MSEE degree.

Anybody up for paying for my PhD. with the proceeds of selling vintage movies music and machines?

 

[quadtrade]

a qs 1 is a decent switching box, a few connections, thats about it. As far as qs forget it.

 

[ndiamone]

a qs 1 is a decent switching box, a few connections, thats about it. As far as qs forget it.

Obviously these two guys like the sound otherwise they wouldn't have more than one,

 

[Disclord]

The problem with the QS-1 is it's not really a QS decoder - it's more of a "synthesizer" and has very odd and cheap phase shifters that aren't really quadrature shifts - they add a bizzare sounding phase modulation to the signal, so nothing gets decoded correctly. Add that to the fact that it's not Vario-Matrix based and you have a box that's good for switching and stuff, but that's about it. That's not to say that someone wouldn't like the effect it produces, but it's not accurate in terms of decoding or anything like that.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

 

[Old Quad Guy]

I remember these type of boxes living 2 blocks from the mall and Pacific Stereo where there were lot's of stores that had Quad stuff at the beginning and there were a bunch of boxes that gave one a synthesized effect. Some stores had different type "set-ups" at the same time that allowed you to listen to multiple devices so you could hear what they sounded like. Some decoded well enough for the time, others did not. Some were made just to give your stereo an extra AMP to power 2 extra speakers and some effect. At the time for some folks, that's all they wanted anyway. They didn't want or expect anything else more than that.

With discrete DVD-A/SACD/BR music titles and simple hardware it's easy today to forget that there was a time about 40 years ago that just to synthesize your stereo records and have 4 speakers was a new cool thing and the beginning of more sophisticated Multi-Channel. It was a start, a novelty and good fun. You knew what it was because you could hear what it did. And the public was interested in learning about Quadraphonics. And they did, unlike the DVD-A/SACD era. The possibilities for Quad back then in the early 70s felt endless. This was the next big upcoming thing that would soon overtake stereo. But the record companies didn't come up with the same title of EVERYTHING in Quad at the same time a Stereo record came out and that hurt sales IMO more than different formats. As far as formats, anyone could do Q8. Us long suffering Quad fans had to wait sometimes on a hot new title because it might come out in Quad and one would get more value from it. These type of boxes are fun, worth collecting and fooling around with for the history of it all. Listening to them gives you a window into the past.

 

[spenceo]

I didn't pick this up for its quad abilities, Its just kinda a cool looking unit. I've always been a sucker for 4 large VU meters. I think it will look bad ass with the rest of my classic quad gear. Not to mention the new Lou Dorren demod/ with 4 large VU meters. With all my different pieces, I will probably use it for some sort of switch box. Anyone know how many 4 channel inputs it has?

Spence

 

[Disclord]

I didn't pick this up for its quad abilities, Its just kinda a cool looking unit. I've always been a sucker for 4 large VU meters. I think it will look bad ass with the rest of my classic quad gear. Not to mention the new Lou Dorren demod/ with 4 large VU meters. With all my different pieces, I will probably use it for some sort of switch box. Anyone know how many 4 channel inputs it has?

Spence

I fully understand that - I LOVE the VU meters on my Sony SQD-2020 and even if it had the worst SQ decoding in the world, I'd still have it in my system for its switching and VU abilities. I wish some company would make a low-cost, stand-alone 5-7 channel VU meter for home systems - DTS/Datasat had always had a stand alone version for their DTS Mastering Tower on soundstage's - I often see it in special features clips on DVD and Blu-ray, and that's exactly what I want.

 

[ChristopherLees]

Of course sansui did come out later with a some great stand alone decoders...with similar model numbers which can easily confuse those not familiar with the range...QSD-1 and QSD-2 and whilst Tad is right in saying the QS-1 is not very good for QS...I have to admit that it looked kinda cute...the vu meters are nice... be nice if my sansui x-2 had them...although it would make it a much larger unit..

 

[zabble]

I use a QS-1 as a four channel pre-amp. Dave Vacarro of Chicago Audio turned me on to the clean signal path of this otherwise useless Sansui device. The decoder is really bad. But after a couple relatively simple mods, it works beatifully as a 4 channel pre-amp. Super clean.

 

[ChristopherLees]

I use a QS-1 as a four channel pre-amp. Dave Vacarro of Chicago Audio turned me on to the clean signal path of this otherwise useless Sansui device. The decoder is really bad. But after a couple relatively simple mods, it works beatifully as a 4 channel pre-amp. Super clean.

yes that's the good thing about the qs-1...conversely there are other really good and great decoders that either had no switching or pass through or had a sonically bad sounding pass through...what annoyed me about the Tate was that although it decodes sq really well, I always felt that the pass through rolled off the top end a little...well actually quite a bit in my system when i think about it..not to mention the rca sockets on the back panel that want to physically throw off most modern cables with larger plugs...that is if you can even squeeze them on in the first place..

 

[DennisMabry]

I wish some company would make a low-cost, stand-alone 5-7 channel VU meter for home systems

I have thought for some time now that this would be a great idea for a new CE product. Almost no one puts VU meters in multichannel amps or receivers anymore. You can still get them on high end products like McIntosh but nothing in the mid to mass consumer end. Of course the meters would have to match and/or exceed the power rating of the amplifier, along with some type of calibration from pre amp outs or speaker outs. In the end I'm not sure how inexpensive it would be however if somebody built one I would seriously consider it.

Another thought would be an on screen VU display or an app for ipads (no moving parts).

"They say I'm a dreamer....... but I'm not the only one..."

I'll have to get over to Spence's house to check out the new toy!

 

[spenceo]

I use a QS-1 as a four channel pre-amp. Dave Vacarro of Chicago Audio turned me on to the clean signal path of this otherwise useless Sansui device. The decoder is really bad. But after a couple relatively simple mods, it works beatifully as a 4 channel pre-amp. Super clean.

Hi zabble, What mods have you done to the QS-1 and do you know the specs on the output voltages, Specifically the High and low set of outputs. Which set (High or Low) do I use for the Tape in on the amp?

Thanks Spence

 

[zabble]

Hi zabble, What mods have you done to the QS-1 and do you know the specs on the output voltages, Specifically the High and low set of outputs. Which set (High or Low) do I use for the Tape in on the amp?

Thanks Spence

Actually, Dave did the mod. I really couldn't tell you. Not because it's a secret or anything like that. I just don't know. You might want to look him up and ask him. He's a friendly guy.