I’ve been after this Q8 for a while and finally managed to get my hands on a copy. Classic album with a fantastic quad mix. The engineers at Sigma Sound must've had a blast mixing this as there's so many elements to play with - practically every song is loaded with multiple guitar parts, multiple horn parts, strings, keyboards, percussion (congas, bongos), occasional vocals, etc.
As with all the PIR albums that received the surround treatment, the quad mixes are discrete, clever, and never gimmicky. The saxophone generally acts as the 'voice' on most tracks and as such is placed in front center, but occasional keyboard and guitar solos pop out of the back corners. One of my favorites is “Cheaper To Keep Her” - it starts with the organ alone in the front right channel, then congas enter from left rear, drums in front left, horns in right rear, and sax in the center. By the end of “TSOP”, it feels like you’re in an epic funky tornado of instruments.
I also noticed that every track has one or more elements diagonally-panned in ‘quad center’.
- “Zack’s Fanfare” - drums in FL & RR, low brass in FR & RL
- “Love Is The Message” - drums in FL & RR, strings in FR & RL
- “My One And Only Love” - drums in FL & RR, strings in FR & RL
- “TSOP” - bass guitar in FL & RR
- “Zack’s Fanfare (I Hear Music)” - bass guitar in FL & RR
- “Touch Me In The Morning” - drums and bass guitar in FL & RR
- “Bitter Sweet” - bass guitar in FL & RR
I found it a bit strange that half the songs have the diagonal drum kit and the other half have it in stereo across the fronts. I guess they wanted the drums to be more prominent on some songs compared to others? Or maybe it has something to with the way the mix sounded after being encoded to SQ and decoded?
Going with a “9” overall - as good as this mix is, I think the quad
Philadelphia Freedom is even better (get the D-V SACD if you haven’t already!).
“Cheaper To Keep Her”:
“TSOP”: