syntronic research inc? enviroments

[roundhousequad]

does anyone know anything about these albums being quad mine all have it on them. example sd 66004
Jim

 

[tejanoboy]

If it isn't WAY too late to reply...I have several of those records, thunderstorm, beach waves, and they mention a system that works with all the popular matrices. SO, is it possible that the ENCODE side of the EV Universal Decoder formula was used? Probably not, but it would be cool and very rare, no?
To me, they sound way better decoded as QS than as SQ, but I'm using a QRX-5001, probably a bit biased toward QS, eh?
TB

 

[jaybird100]

With these types of sound effects, I don't think the encoding system would matter that much, since absolute directionality isn't totally necessary. I have these albums, too. They sound fine in whatever system I play them in. Dolby PL II does seem to be the best way to play 'em; essentially QS with Tate circuitry added, and that means a great effect. Don't be too hung up on how they were encoded; just enjoy 'em.

 

[ClarkNovak]

Yeah, I seem to remember these as QS as well, although it wasn't specifically stated anywhere on the records themselves. Syntonics was distributed by Atlantic but had their own imprint, which explains how a WEA Quad release was not CD-4.

 

[jdmack]

Does anyone here have a premium LinkedIn account? If so, they could send a message to Irv Tiebel and ask him what encoding was used on the albums. I'd also like to know if the original field recordings were four-channel or if the recordings were processed to create artificial surround properties.

www.linkedin.com/pub/irv-teibel/10/146/148

J. D.

 

[Doug G.]

I have the first one, SD 66001, and there is no mention of quad anywhere.

Must have been the later ones, huh?

Doug

 

[Bob Squires Jr]

I have one on a cassette. It is a QS encoded (it says so on the back of the cover)
It's the only quad cassette I've ever physically seen although I know Angel did some
SQ tapes.

 

[Disclord]

>>Dolby PL II does seem to be the best way to play 'em; essentially QS with Tate circuitry added<<

Nope - DPL-II is NOT "essentially" QS with Tate added. Not by a long shot. Jim Fosgate abandoned ALL Tate technology (for reasons having nothing to do with the actual Tate IC performance) in favor of Peter Scheiber's later decoding patents and their variations. PL-II and QS have NOTHING to do with each other either. All this nonsense that Dolby MP/PL/PL-II is somehow related to QS or that Fosgate decoders (other than the 101A) has got to stop. It's all flat-out WRONG.

 

[Bonzodog]

From Dolby's web site:

Ioan Allen: We went to Barbara Streisand, her production company, to try and get a release of A Star is Born in Dolby Stereo. They said, “OK, we'll do it, but only if you can do an effects track”, which was what the surround track was called in those days. It was literally effects. It switches on, switches off. It wasn't like ambiance. It was with clear cut effects.

Well, I went to the engineering department. I said, “can you do this? Can we find a way to encode surround material in?” Oh yes, they said, “how long have we got?” I said, “you've got until December.” This is 1976. July passed, August passed, September passed, we got to October.

[laughter]

By this time, I'd committed to First Artists [Production Company –Ed.] to provide a surround channel off the optical. There are things you can't do. You can't put the surround on the other side of the film, because then you cease to have single inventory. You've got to find a way to code it into that track.

So, I frankly then kludged together a combination of Sansui's QS matrix system, a delay line to suppress crosstalk. People think that delay on Dolby Surround is to do with sound effects or something, but it isn't, it's just to reduce the crosstalk. And a Dolby B decoder to take the noise out of the bucket brigade delay we were using.

Lo and behold, I had a working surround system. Demonstrated it to First Artists, they said “fine”, and that became the first film in Dolby Surround. And that stayed to this day as the basic thing that developed into ultimately Pro Logic II.

 

[Disclord]

From Dolby's web site:

Ioan Allen: We went to Barbara Streisand, her production company, to try and get a release of A Star is Born in Dolby Stereo. They said, “OK, we'll do it, but only if you can do an effects track”, which was what the surround track was called in those days. It was literally effects. It switches on, switches off. It wasn't like ambiance. It was with clear cut effects.

Well, I went to the engineering department. I said, “can you do this? Can we find a way to encode surround material in?” Oh yes, they said, “how long have we got?” I said, “you've got until December.” This is 1976. July passed, August passed, September passed, we got to October.

[laughter]

By this time, I'd committed to First Artists [Production Company –Ed.] to provide a surround channel off the optical. There are things you can't do. You can't put the surround on the other side of the film, because then you cease to have single inventory. You've got to find a way to code it into that track.

So, I frankly then kludged together a combination of Sansui's QS matrix system, a delay line to suppress crosstalk. People think that delay on Dolby Surround is to do with sound effects or something, but it isn't, it's just to reduce the crosstalk. And a Dolby B decoder to take the noise out of the bucket brigade delay we were using.

Lo and behold, I had a working surround system. Demonstrated it to First Artists, they said “fine”, and that became the first film in Dolby Surround. And that stayed to this day as the basic thing that developed into ultimately Pro Logic II.

QS decoding (NOT encoding) was used on a few films only for Vario-Matrix decoding of the mono surround channel with Dolby's own gain-riding logic for Center Front - that's it - and only used for about a year or so until the Tate IC's became available. The Dolby MP Matrix encodes Lf, Cf, Rf and Surround (Back) in EXACTLY the same way as SQ - it is NOT a derivative of QS in ANY WAY. The first Dolby units used kludged QSD-1's to decode a mono surround channel, but that's it. And it's one of the reasons Dolby STRONGLY advocated against panned dialog in a Dolby MP film - the QS just couldn't do it correctly. QS encoding for Lf/Rf is completely different. When the Tate IC's became available, Dolby switched over to them because they were a whole lot faster, gave greater separation and they could use them to steer every channel instead of just the surround channel. So, while Dolby did start out using QS Vario-Matrix decoders as a quick band-aid for surround logic decoding, the VAST majority of decoders (after 1978) used the Tate DES - which was an outgrowth of SQ - and had NOTHING to do with QS. Just look at the Dolby encode points on the Energy Sphere - then look at QS - except for Center Back and Center Front, there's no relation - nor is there any cross-blend like QS requires to encode Lf/Rf. Look at the Dolby Pro-Logic patent and the Tate DES patent - not much of a resemblance to QS (BTW, the QS equations in the DES patent were there just for protection against Sansui trying something similar - they were NEVER implemented in any form of DES decoder, not even prototype).

If you try to decode a Dolby MP soundtrack with Vario-Matrix then any hard-left or hard right panned sound will end up at Center Left or Center Right. Try it with SQ and it will decode properly into the Front Left or Right. Oh, and in the quote above, he didn't kludge together a QS Matrix - he used standard stereo L/R encoding with CF + a 180 polarity inversion for Surround and ADDED a Vario-Matrix decoder to enhance the surrounds. I've talked to Ian in the past and he confirmed it - nothing EVER went through a QS Encoder.

Dolby MP matrix is a 4-point matrix, L-C-R-S. Basically Hafler matrix with logic. The slow-as-molasses PL-II is not in any way related to QS. The fronts are encoded in EXACTLY the same was as Dolby MP or SQ and the rears are a simple polarity inversion with level imblance to indicate directionality. It uses 'real' coefficients, unlike SQ or QS which use imaginary ones to encode the rears.

 

[Bonzodog]

All Dolby Surround encoding and decoding schemes are great circle matrices (QS), not spherical (SQ).

You can choose to encode or decode any point on the circle.

I own a couple of Sansui QSE-5X's. They have a socket where you plug in the resistor network that sets the matrix parameters.

I have both the Lf-Rf-Lb-Rb and L-C-R-S blocks that plug into the encoder socket.

The one is used for music, the other is used for film or video.

The encoders have been used for film and video soundtracks more often than for music.

 

[tejanoboy]

I have NEVER heard of SQ being used for anything other than commercial recording releases, not movies, TV, or the like, although many FM stations used it for a brief time in the 70's.
I actually traded TWO good DPL-II rigs to get a Sansui QRX-5001, and I now watch all the movies and TV through IT. True, it decodes different points along the circle, sending left and right a bit far to the sides, but the smooth behavior and (to my ears, anyway) more convincingly realistic sound field make it worth it.
If you look at the coefficients for Dolby PL-II, MP, and QS, yes, the numbers are different, but they work in an identical way, in phase front, out of phase back, and the front and back 90 degrees apart. Sure looks like QS ancestry to me! TB

 

[tejanoboy]

Yeah, I seem to remember these as QS as well, although it wasn't specifically stated anywhere on the records themselves. Syntonics was distributed by Atlantic but had their own imprint, which explains how a WEA Quad release was not CD-4.

On all three of my Syntonic albums, it states that they have ALWAYS encoded their records, even the ones with no mention of quad, and that they avoided CD-4 because the carrier becomes audible when played at 16 2/3 RPM. Some of these discs were meant to be played at all different speeds to produce varying effects.
(Hard lesson I learned about CD-4...it on a regular stereo, electrostatic tweeters, and pet bats don't mix...ouch!) TB

 

[Disclord]

QS is not a great circle matrix - RM is and QS is only "compatible" with RM at the four corner points. QS rear channel decoding was used in the early days of Dolby MP with Dolby's gain-riding center channel - then it was dropped in favor of Tate DES decoding (with modifications to create center Front and Center Back) - it has, and always has, had more in common with SQ than QS.

And I never said Dolby MP used SQ encoding - it uses its own Dolby MP (basically Hafler matrix) encoding, which more closely matches SQ than QS. Dolby dropped the use of QS in the late 70's, that's a fact.

 

[Philip Spinner]

Since everyone here has raised my curiosity level on these discs I dug my eleven titles to check the notes. Many of them mention that any matrixed decoding would work but the last two I have (disc 10 and 11 ) include an inner sleeve that says SR releases are encoded with a special matrix coding for playback in quadraphonic, compatible with SQ, QS and RM matrix systems.
Phil.

 

[Bonzodog]

Here are some phaser diagrams.

QS - from the Sansui encoding manual from the '70's. (I have previously posted the entire manual.)



RM - Proposed Universal (Regular) Matrix from The 41st Convention of the AES, October 7, 1971, NY, NY



SQ - from the CBS Paper "A compatible Stereo-Quadraphonic (SQ) Record System by Benjamin B. Bauer, Daniel W. Gravereaux, and Arther J. Gust

View attachment SQ Matrix.bmp

Everyone is free to make up their own mind, which is more similar to what.

Which are spherical matrices and which are circular.

If you would like, I could re-print the math, but wouldn't that just bore everyone?

 

[Bonzodog]

@ roundhousequad

We seem to have hijacked your thread.

 

[MidiMagic]

The Dolby Surround system is based on QS and the original Dynaco diamond.

The left and right front speakers are based on the left and right channels in the recording, not the left front and right front of QS. This is the same as the left and right speakers of the Dynaco diamond.

An EV-4 decoder would do a better job of decoding Dolby Surround than a QS decoder, though I have used both, using a 4-corners speaker placement.

Only the 4-corners version of QS is not fully great-circle. The pan-potted version I use is fully great-circle.

 

[Disclord]

If anything, Dolby MP Matrix is closest to the Dynaco Diamond layout as you stated, but in terms of Dolby theatrical use the QS system was used only for a very short time to encode the surround channel (in mono) and decoded it via Vario-Matrix. The Vario-Matrix was NEVER applied to decoding the center or left/right in Dolby theaters. Dolby used a gain-riding logic design for the Center channel (they had several patents on it). When the Tate DES IC's became available, Dolby abandoned the QS system completely. They used modified circuits around the Tate DES IC's to fully decode Left, Center, Right and Surround. The modified Dolby-B Noise Reduction was added only to help reduce the noise caused by the analog, bucket brigade, delay line on the surround channel.
So, yes, Dolby did use Sansui QS for a short time, as a kludged together system since they had to add surround so quickly, but then completely abandoned it for the final "MP Matrix" with full Tate decoding. Dolby MP Matrix is 'basically' Dynaco with all-pass phase shifters added to the fronts for reference phase shift and a quadrature shift across the back plus polarity reversal for Surround encoding. If they had used QS (thank goodness they didn't!), we'd have only 7db separation between Left and Right in 2 channel playback! In regards to Dolby MP and SQ, all positions across the front are encoded in SQ and Dolby MP in exactly the same way, as is the Surround channel.

As a side note, Sansui altered the QS matrix twice after introducing it - once to make it more stereo compatible (standard QS had severe FM compatibility problems and stations stopped using it due to listener complaints - SQ had no such problems) and once again when they submitted it to the FCC as a compatible 4-4-4 contender for the Quad FM inquiry.

BTW, Bonzodog, do you have a PDF copy of the "RM - Proposed Universal (Regular) Matrix from The 41st Convention of the AES" paper you could email to me?

 

[Bonzodog]

First off, we must not confuse the matrix with the logic / enhancement circuit.
When I speak of the matrix, I mean the matrix. Not the Vario-Matrix or Tate
directional enhancement system.

They are two different things, the matrix and the directional enhancement.

If when you say matrix, you mean matrix plus directional enhancement system,
and when I say matrix I mean the matrix ONLY, regardless of the directional enhancement system,
we are talking about different things, and wasting each others time.

When it comes to the great circle matrix, one can encode and decode to any point on the matrix.

Dolby MP (and Dynaco) encodes to front center, rear center, left and right.
QS encodes to left front, right front, left rear and right rear.

They are different points on the same matrix. Check the math.

Encode Left on the Dolby encoder, it will decode Left on the Dolby MP matrix decoder,
but equal level left front and left rear on the QS matrix. It's in the math.

Encode Left Front on the QS matrix, it will decode Left Front on the QS matrix decoder,
but equal level on the left and on the center on a Dolby MP matrix. That's the equation.

If you came by our studio, I could show you this in a mix room, as we have QS encoders
and decoders, as well as SEU4's, SDU4's, DP563's, and DP564's.

If we can't understand why this is or how it works, we can take the above diagrams to
our local high school and ask to speak to a math teacher.