I got my start in a very similar way to
@MidiMagic . In 1970 Pop Tronics there was an article none other than J. Gordon Holt. It was titled
Hafler vs Scheiber: 4 channels on Disc. It showed the Hafler diamond & Scheiber corner speaker layouts. What was cool about it was it didn't even need high tech stuff to work, just speakers hooked up a certain way. So the only spare speaker laying around was a 12" full way naked speaker my friend liberated from where he worked, Pizza Hut. I hooked it up like a Hafler rear speaker & put on stereo
Switched on Bach. Like others here, I was blown away. It seemed like magic to hear that music from, sort of, all around. Had I listened to something more mellow I probably wouldn't have been near as impressed.
That 3rd speaker didn't stay hooked up to long it was just a proof of concept test I guess. But a few years later I was able to move out of my parents house & had acquired a few more pieces of gear. The 1st real piece of quad gear I had was also one of Sansui's 1st, a QS-1:
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It was beautiful unit for that time & had meters & the controls for balance the way I like best even today. But it wasn't Variomatrix at all. In fact Sansui called it the Quadphonic Synthesizer. This was so early Sansui was working on QS as we know it & saw the main purpose of the QS-1 for playing back stereo. It had an odd mode option to "rotate" outputs 90 or 180 deg, not phase, but position.
At that point, summer '74, I had a Phillips 212 TT (bye bye Garrard), a Kenwood KA-2000 40 WPC integrated amp that handled phono pre-amp & rear ch amplification. For front chs I had a Dynaco stereo 120 that did not have tone controls so I added a RS 5 band equalizer. Don't look at me like that. Maybe you did too.
Empire Jupiter speakers for the front. The ones that looked like giant
salt 'N pepper shakers. KLH 8" 2 way speaks for the rear.
I added a stand alone small Sony SQ decoder I think it just had 10/40 blend. Then I got a Sansui CD-4 decoder & it was getting more complicated to switch & balance things properly. So I got a good trade in at Hi Fi Fo Fum on all except the TT & acquired a Kenwood 9940. It really solved a lot of problems & was totally reliable but eventually I figured out that done right, seperate components was a much more attractive way to go for me.
So the 9940 & all that stuff is long gone. Oh except for my first hi-fi purchase ever, the little Kenwood KA-2000. But since that time I have
always had a quad/surround sound set up. What trip it's been & when I read stuff in this thread I know I am in good company.