Michael Dutton Talks About The Rebirth of Quad

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If only labels like AF and DV started ten years earlier doing this stuff, imagine all of the stuff that they might have had access to that cannot be obtained at this point in time.

I used to have a quad reel somewhere that sums this all up very well "Be Thankful for What You Got" :)

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I mean, Pentatone started 15 years ago and released an incredible volume. But I think clearances in pop are harder.
 
I mean, Pentatone started 15 years ago and released an incredible volume. But I think clearances in pop are harder.

Coupled with the fact that some of the execs at Pentatone had formerly worked for Philips and had a good working relationship with the label and had an awareness that none of their QUAD masters had ever previously been released in ANY FORMAT.

And yes, POP/ROCK and even JAZZ QUAD masters command greater licensing fees than does Classical.
 
If only labels like AF and DV started ten years earlier doing this stuff, imagine all of the stuff that they might have had access to that cannot be obtained at this point in time.

I used to have a quad reel somewhere that sums this all up very well "Be Thankful for What You Got" :)

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Greaaaaat Song :giggle:
 
Thanks for sharing Brian.

I find it interesting concerning Michael's assessment of 4.0 vs. 5.1 for his own classical recordings. "The center channel makes the front stereo image less wide and the use of the bass speaker [LFE channel] affects the phase/image placement of the bass in the recording."

Apparently, BIS, CHANDOS, PENTATONE, et alia, disagree and do employ the center channel for their prior/current Classical recordings but usually shy away from the LFE bass channel resulting in 5.0.

Having heard EPOCH originated Classical QUAD Recordings, I can attest that they sound as good as any I've heard. Their recent freebie EPOCH Classical Sampler RBCD was excellent [don't know if any more are available but if they are .... grab one].

And of course, it's good to know that Michael J. Dutton was and is a QUAD 'junkie" at ❤ And as we all know ..... EVERYTHING SOUNDS BETTER in SURROUND [if done right]!

There are others who share his belief about 4.0 recordings. Including Ray Kimber at IsoMike.
IsoMike's recent Multichannel DSD 256 recording of Chopin's The Last Waltz was also done as a 4.0 recording.

ChopinLastWaltz_cover_2-300x300.jpg


https://isomike.nativedsd.com/albums/ISOMIKE5606-chopins-last-waltzhttp://blog.nativedsd.com/producers-note-by-ray-kimber-isomike/
 
If only labels like AF and DV started ten years earlier doing this stuff, imagine all of the stuff that they might have had access to that cannot be obtained at this point in time.

I used to have a quad reel somewhere that sums this all up very well "Be Thankful for What You Got" :)

View attachment 41650
Yes, I agree that we missed out on plenty of major things - to never appear in the now fast passing of time. I have to think that the original DTS line by DTS Entertainment, the SACD line by Sony (WMG's DVD-A line did not offer quad masters afaik), Quadio by Rhino, EMI's quad DVDs, AF's absolutely wonderful but short lived run, and now DV's impressive continuation of the Quad legacy is still quite surprising. And what they could not seem to get done, where we feel a deep disappointment, there is (to help balance that out) the QR/Q4 series of conversions that are drop dead spectacular. Like the William DeVaughn reel, I can count a double dozen titles that rival anything done by DTS, AF, or DV for musical interest, artistic attainment, and quality delivered.

it's almost (but not really) a disappointment that many of the DTS, AF, DV, and others' reissued quad titles were already out on (HIGH Quality) Q4s in the 70s (or the Red Robbin known series of excavations). In other words, I include a professional grade Q4 transfer or conversion if you will, as just as serious a release and as important of an effort as what has appeared on AF or DV. The Arlo Guthrie, Jerry Reed, Bette Midler, ZZ Top, Deep Purple "MH" and Black Sabbath "rite of passage" album are as important as any AF/DV release, and sometimes surpassing even a DTS release in quality and importance.

So when we get an amazing reissue of a Q8 or SQ (only) quad title on digital disc, I feel a little more giddy than I do when we get a former Q4 on modern disc. Just my emotional response. And to others out there, the vast majority of the buying public who will spend for surround content to play on their newly upgraded home theater surround system, it often matters none what went down on an old 70s format or didn't. I know that.

Anyway, I enjoy reading your's and everyone's take on how we feel about where we've gone (and not gone) with this stuff - coming from that severely limited and eventually stunted growth at 1975 or '76. And onto DV's cherry picking of the best of what's now available to get released.

To be "thankful for what we've got" is more fun and interesting to me (at this very late point), than the lists of what we'd like to see released or reissued. Talking Bette Midler or ZZ Top, or the other Q4s I'd already mentioned above, and Donald Byrd, Art Garfunkel, Poco, and Herbie Hancock as well, is where it's at! Top fusion quad discs of RTF, MO, and WR, to say nothing of Billy Cobham previously unreleased quad.

My glass is also feeling pretty much more than half full.
 
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Quad is still the "meat" of a 5.1 mix. They're not just different animals or something.
135 deg placement for the rears is perfectly acceptable in a 5.1 array should you prefer it as well. 120 deg placement is simply a fine idea and many people agree. And 4.0 sounds just like it's supposed to in either setup IMHO. (Listening to the Beatles "stereo" mixes on a standard stereo array would be more 'altering' than listening to a 4.0 mix with 120 deg rears as those mixes were made on a dual mono system with the speakers 3' apart. Just for perspective.)

As far as bass content in any of the main full range channels vs the '.1' bass fx only channel... There should be no difference between the sound of some bass content directed to the mains vs the Lfe. If there is... You either have a phase mistake getting away from you if it's truly in the channels of the mix or you have a system calibration issue (possibly with speaker management calibration) at hand. The dude outed himself as having a setup issue by writing that. :D

Any problem with a 5.1 mix is all about the mix! The extra front center solo channel and the extra bass fx channel aren't leading anyone to making a poor mix. They're doing that all themselves. There are plenty of mono mixes that better both stereo and surround mixes. Nothing to do with the channel formats. All about the mix work. It turns out there are some 5.1 mixes where the format was treated like a novelty and they're genuinely shitty mixes. Same thing happened with some early stereo remixes vs the mono mixes.
 
Yeah old thread; I just read it, though.

I have to disagree about the center channel thing. There's nothing fundamental that makes a center channel bad for music. The idea it decreases the width of the image is pure nonsense in an absolute sense. More channels = more points in space locked for off-axis listeners instead of one or two greedy people in the sweet spot.

The problem traditionally is that people have tended to use different speakers for the center and this was born off the fact that short of a projector (and perhaps an audio transparent screen), large CRT TVs (including rear projectors like early HDTV models) basically demanded horizontally orientated abominations that almost never sounded as good for music as the mains and were often rife with lobing issues as well. They were meant to lock dialog in place for movies and little else.

If ones uses three identical front speakers evenly spaced, all these problems disappear and the sweet spot more or less now sounds identical with or without a discrete center being used, but for people sitting even slightly off center, the image across the front is much more stable now. 5.x recordings can always be downmixed to 4.0, but 4.0 upmixed to 5.0 is a bit more problematic in keeping things discrete without any anomalies.

Atmos takes this to a new level and can stabilize imaging much better across multiple rows of seats if desired by adding even more "in-between" speakers that are discretely rendered, let alone adding a height layer for either room reflections or even more discrete sounds.

The difference between even a very well imaged 4.1/5.1 album like Alan Parsons excellent On-Air (mostly 4.1 with JFK's moon speech bit appearing in the center on one song) and a newer album like Yello's mind blowing Atmos version of their recent album Point s is absolutely breathtaking. Upmixing On-Air with something like Neural X doesn't even come close.

While I always welcome more quad and 5.1 albums (still much better than stereo when done well), I'm definitely more interested in hearing more future albums in Dolby Atmos or even DTS:X or Auro-3D.

Of course, a surround album is only as good as its mix. I still prefer the stereo version of Pink Floyd's Division Bell to the 5.1 version. The 5.1 version somehow lacks something in the kicker drum that's in the stereo version. In stereo, it kicks me right in the gut. In 5.1 it's not even there. I prefer Roger Waters QSound version of Amused to Death to the newer 5.1 version as well, but part of that is him changing some of the tracks in the process.
 
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