syntronic research inc? enviroments

[jaybird100]

>>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.

And to what do you owe your "expertise" on this? I read a white paper from Dolby Labs that stated that the Dolby MP matrix was based on QS, patents for which Dolby purchased from Sansui when they left the business. Try playing a QS recording through a Dolby DPL II decoder. It provides completely accurate decoding, with proper placement of sounds in the rear channels. Coincidence? Doubt it...

 

[Disclord]

Which whitepaper was this? I'll ask Roger Dressler for a copy. I have pretty much every one they ever published.
Dolby MP has only ever been licensed under Peter Scheiber's patents. Dolby NEVER purchased any patents from Sansui. Dolby didn't even license from Peter Scheiber until 1984.

And how do I know that Jim Fosgate abandoned Tate technology? Because he said so when he came out with the DSM-3600 that he worked on with Peter Scheiber and used Peter Scheiber's matrixing and cancellation ideas.

 

[tejanoboy]

Amen to the LOGIC and MATRIX statement! Yes, DES logic was used with a great-circle matrix for MP, but that does not in any way tie it to SQ, other than DES was ALSO used in the Tate. If I'm not mistaken, the reverse was once true, also, Lafayette's "vari-blend" was similar in principle to Variomatrix, changing the matrix coefficients dynamically. (via the blend resistors) One HUGE difference is that QS and other GC matrices can be decoded with limited separation PASSIVELY, with a very simple circuit, no phase shifting required, even post-amplification. ("speaker matrix") SQ probably could be done that way, but the power losses in the REQUIRED phase-shifters would be pretty large, I should think.
Ah, matrices, around for 4 decades and STILL being used and discussed...gotta love 'em!
As for this thread's original theme, ALL the Syntonic albums I've heard are very cool, and can still be found for a nice price out there. They are well-made discs, can be played a lot with minimal wear, and according to the sleeve on one of mine, can be WASHED like a dinner plate! They were intended for repeated playing, even telling the user to leave the top-arm on his changer off the spindle, so the changer would repeat the record over and over...NEAT!
TB

 

[ClarkNovak]

I believe I remember at least some of the SR titles being pressed up on CDs early on as well - if my memory serves me correctly. If that's the case, then these would be easily decodable as well. Re: the "washing like a dinner plate" - that's a technique I've employed for years with stubbornly dirty Lps. Warm (not hot!) water with a little Joy in it; three spins in the bath then out to be immediately wiped dry with a clean, soft terrycloth towel. I've found this to work well on really stubborn dirt, especially at the leading edge of the disc, that my Nitty Gritty simply can't get out.

Personal note: I have very fond memories of using these as background during makeout sessions during college, especially the Thunderstorm disc. But I'm sure no one else has ever done such a thing

 

[tejanoboy]

Clark, you are forcing me to TWO confessions. First, I'm afraid I also used the T-storm album during, uh, you know...what YOU said. (A single candle seemed to help, too :>)
Second, I used to play old 45's WET! When I was running a pirate...uh, I mean "non-profit" radio station, I had some nasty stax o' wax, dirty, scratchy, cue burns on most, and keeping them wet helped considerably. I kept a sprayer filled with water and a trace of KodaFlow® between the turntables at all times.
Yeah, pretty weird, but if it made a bad record playable, why not? It also minimized the cue burn problem on new discs.
Now I GOTTA ask, where can one get the SR CDs? I assume they are made from the same master tape, encoding and all? I'd love to get some of those!
TB

 

[Bonzodog]

I used KodaFlow® to wet play records too!

Where did that idea come from?

I don't remember where I heard about it.

In fact, I had forgotten we used to use it until you mentioned it here.

 

[tejanoboy]

I watched a DJ play a record wet back in the late 60's, but he complained that once he did it, it had to ALWAYS be played wet after that. He was using tap water, and in that city, it was very hard water. I tried using a bit of detergent in distilled water as a "wetting agent", but that left behind nasty stuff, too. Fortunately, I had a friend who practically lived in a darkroom (though I'm not sure he was always developing film ...ahhemm), and he told me about KodaFlow. From then on, that little spray bottle was as essential a piece of equipment as the "board" itself!
Oh, I miss the days of the QRKs...
TB

 

[ClarkNovak]

I used KodaFlow® to wet play records too! Where did that idea come from?

It's been around since Edison cylinders! 78s especially, since they were basically sawdust bound with shellac, responded to this treatment since the steel styli of the old days would burn them badly in just a few plays.

I remember an old DJ, early in my career, telling me he'd reached for the water but mistakenly sprinkled a 78 with the alcohol they kept in the studio to clean the tape heads. The disc dissolved before the song was done playing

Oh, I miss the days of the QRKs...

And Russcos! Just don't leave the drive engaged when the record was done, or <thump... thump... thump...>

 

[Bonzodog]

I don't mean the wet playing, I mean adding the wetting agent KodaFlow®.

Who was the clever DJ/photographer who made this great discovery?

 

[tejanoboy]

Sorry, I forgot they changed the name to Russco, pretty much the same t-tables, though. Not the best rumble figures around, but man, you could do pottery on those babies! Back when tight-timed formats ruled the air, and a DJ was judged as much by his cues as his voice, those t-tables were a blessing from heaven!
And the flat spot? The station I worked at briefly FIRED anybody they caught leaving the studio with the tables "in gear". I soon developed the habit of
back-cuing the record, in "neutral", and not selecting a speed until close to air time...works good as long as you engage the speed very gently!
OK, I gotta stop, my eyes are getting moist...My idea of heaven, a stack of wax (quad, of course), two Russcos, a 10-bay Spotmaster, a big old Gates Dualux II, and the freedom to use it all for FUN! (No surprise my childhood hero was Wolfman Jack, I suppose)
TB
TB

 

[tejanoboy]

Bonzodog, you made me think back to an audio book that mentioned KodaFlow, but that was in the late 70's, long after I and others had used it on records.
That book, whose title escapes me at the moment, also had some rather strange audio advice, too, like trying interconnect cables both ways. The author swore that most any cable sounded better one way than the other! OK, noisy resistors, capacitors with too-high ESR, "colorful" tubes, I can buy that, but there seems to come a point where PSYCHO-acoustics passes up common sense and the laws of physics. Big money in it, though, $400 volume control (excuse ME, attenuator) knobs, oxygen-free Litzendorf AC cables (come on, it's 60 HERTZ!), and tubes "cryogenically treated", at many times the price of a good set of Mullards or Telefunkens. Audiophile? Yup, I'm guilty of that, but audioPHOOL? Where does the boundary lie these days? Guess it depends on (a) whether SOUND is the primary reason for a purchase, as opposed to status or "bragging rights" (b) how much disposable loot one has, and (c) the ratio of ACTUAL sonic perception to what one EXPECTS/WANTS to hear. No offense to anybody spending a fortune on audio, it is a great hobby, do what sounds good to YOU, but I gotta laugh when somebody pays a fortune for a sound system, then plays 64 kb/sec. MP3s through it! BTW, the afore-mentioned book considered quadraphonic sound a "novelty"....'nuff said! Teeeeeee-B

 

[MidiMagic]

Which whitepaper was this? I'll ask Roger Dressler for a copy. I have pretty much every one they ever published.
Dolby MP has only ever been licensed under Peter Scheiber's patents. Dolby NEVER purchased any patents from Sansui. Dolby didn't even license from Peter Scheiber until 1984.

And how do I know that Jim Fosgate abandoned Tate technology? Because he said so when he came out with the DSM-3600 that he worked on with Peter Scheiber and used Peter Scheiber's matrixing and cancellation ideas.

It doesn't matter whose legal patents and whose circuits were used. The basic concepts of Dynaco diamond, Dynaquad, the old Electro Voice system, Scheiber's system, QS, and Dolby Surround were all the same. The record stylus motions are the same, and they will play on each other's decoders. They disguised them to look different, so each could get patents and not appear to infringe on the other patents. The encoding and decoding angles were slightly different, speaker locations are different, and the places the phase reversal was tucked into the encoding for 4-corners encoding were different, but otherwise, they all function identically.

 

[tejanoboy]

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.

Still more reason for me to wonder if they used the ENcode side of the EVX-44 "universal" decoder formula. In the book "Four Channel Sound", Mr. Feldman states that Electro-Voice came up with both encode and decode formulae, but that "to the best of his knowledge", no record company had used the encoding...
maybe Syntonics was the one and only? I'd try to do the math from the EVX-44 mix and come up with those coefficients, but my head would likely explode!
As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, given the random sound placement, I rather imagine a great deal of directional error would go un-noticed by most folks.
When was the last time somebody pin-pointed the location of thousands of rain drops, or a distant thunder-clap? I love the Syntonic discs, usually play them as QS, and they really can put me in a calm mood!

 

[tejanoboy]

It doesn't matter whose legal patents and whose circuits were used. The basic concepts of Dynaco diamond, Dynaquad, the old Electro Voice system, Scheiber's system, QS, and Dolby Surround were all the same. The record stylus motions are the same, and they will play on each other's decoders. They disguised them to look different, so each could get patents and not appear to infringe on the other patents. The encoding and decoding angles were slightly different, speaker locations are different, and the places the phase reversal was tucked into the encoding for 4-corners encoding were different, but otherwise, they all function identically.

For Christmas, I'm gonna ask Santa for a big ol' wall-sized round pie chart, with neat arrows showing ALL the stylus motion angles from DY to DPL-II...I'd include SQ, but then it would have to be a GLOBE, hah-hah!
(I don't believe I got that corny...time for bed!)

 

[Bonzodog]

To you from MIDIMAGIC

His chart of QUADRAPHONIC SYSTEMS!

Now blow it up and print it out!

(OK, so he needs to add Dolby PLII)

 

[tejanoboy]

Ah, (sniff) atsa thing of great geometric, triginometric, and mathematical BEAUTY!
Actually, inspired by a TV-engineer friend's wall clock that proudly displays the old NTSC color vectors, I shall make a clock with degrees around the dial, and brightly colored lines for all the different stylus motions...maybe animate it so that the different lines are lit up and driven by the control signals in ye olde Vario-matrix system! (yeah, I REALLY need a life, eh?)
Seriously, thanks, Bonzodog, that's a fine link and clear enough for even ME to understand (well, almost)
TeeBee

 

[Bonzodog]

Don't thank me.

Thank member MidiMagic for creating it.

 

[tejanoboy]

Don't thank me.

Thank member MidiMagic for creating it.

A belated "thank you" to Midimagic as well then...great illustrations!
(would have expressed my gratitude much sooner, but email has been all fouled up last week or so...)
tB

 

[ChristopherLees]

yes and another very belated thank you for this page
http://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/quadrafon.htm

 

[Doug G.]

He should dispense with the unnecessarily flippant attitude and false claims regarding CD-4, however.

Doug