Adam did you get any type of warranty when you purchased the demodulator from Italy? Not to sound negative, but way back in the day the failure rate among these CD~4 demodulators was high. And another important consideration......When you start putting components between your player (or Turntable) to your receiver, unlike digital, analogue does suffer degradation so I would upgrade my RCA interconnects (do NOT use the cheapies that come with the units) and this goes for the RCA outputs from your TT to the Surround Master and from the Surround Master to your receiver. You will experience an immediate upgrade in sound if you choose those RCA interconnects WISELY. Is there a local audio dealer that can lend you RCA interconnects for audition so you can experience firsthand the difference in SQ among the various interconnects?
Buddy, I AM rooting for your success but little Davy has met his Goliath. It's a bitch of a system to conquer.....and conquer is an apt word. Only wish the Surround Master guru would hurry up with his CD~4 demodulator but I don't envy the task he has ahead of him.
(Fully aware that this thread is not for a whole spiel about my trials and tribulations with CD-4.. sorry.. 
I'll just respond to Ralph's latest post now and then I guess we can get back to the scheduled programming! )
No guarantee Ralph, it was sold as seen and the seller in all fairness clearly outlined in the description no implied warranty.. a risk I was willing to take for a unit with the right voltage etc. and that wasn't going to clobber me for import duty, among other things.. hand on heart it was the cheapest option that ticked a couple of other boxes.
Just as an example of the alternatives available at the time, I looked at buying one of those new old stock ones on eBay (seller based in Canada) but it would have ended up costing me approx £250 (as of today that's in excess of $300 US in total, with shipping and customs charges.!!) absolutely not gonna go there for that kind of dough, much as I love this hobby of ours!
Regarding Cabling, to be honest I'm just using whatever phono cables I have to hand (nothing bar the turntable which has them hardwired to the tonearm, has come with any so I've been scrabbling around a bit.. Dave kindly threw in a bunch of quality interconnects, speaker cable and other goodies when I got some gear off him and I've been using some of that, it all sounds great so far, that's not the problem, well I don't
think it is.. its that the other day the JVC unit perfectly demodulated the 2 channels into readily distinguishable (if not totally discrete) FL, FR, SL, SR and now all I get is both Left channels in both FL and SL, while FR & SR are almost but not quite spot on with a nice feeling of separation even if there is some bleed evident if you go right up to either FR or SR.. anyway I'm barely past day 1 in this whole CD-4 fiasco, so I may just be missing something really obvious.. who knows!? I don't!
Thanks Ralph, that's kind of you rooting for me.. I've got no preconceptions.. well that's not true, I kinda feared this might be a nightmare.. so far its like the beginning of what could turn out to be a bad dream, if I let it get under my skin and mess with the inner workings of my miiiiindddd...! Haha.. I don't care really, its all a bit of fun.. it just would be nice to be able to say (not that its likely I'd be able to find anyone outside of QQ who might listen!) "You know that CD-4 Quadraphonic vinyl thing from the 70's? Oh you do! How wonderful! Well, I've got one and it actually works! How about that eh?" Oh.. there goes some tumbleweed to accompany those bells in the CD-4 setup disc that went round the room the right way for about five minutes..! Haha..
Amen to that, my 4-earred friend! That Involve CD-4 demodupotatopeeler cannot come soon enough..
