1960s & 1970s "Blast from the past" blog bya Baby Boomer

[Obbop]

Hello Herd,

Sadly, here atop the cultural backwater of the Ozark Plateau where I huddle in my hovel that is infested with the brown recluse spiders native to this area, my quad life consists of fond memories when I melted into my comfy recliner as the groovy tunes swirled around me.

My beloved QRX-9001 died after many years of devoted service. Financial constraints condemned me to a life without acquiring replacement quad goodies. Time passed and my groovy back-up decent-quality Sony receiver died and then the move south to warmer climes and then the ear troubles worsened and.... and.... well, music is still enjoyed but I can not physically or financially dabble in quality audio.

My blurb is not intended to be a tale of woe. Nope. Just a mention that accounts for the lack of activity at this site that I saw grow from seeds planted elsewhere upon the Web back in the middle to later 1990s. And, not long before the Web hit the masses big time I recall the snail mails crossing the planet bringing old quaddies back together again and leading to the short-lived printed and mailed quad pamphlet whose name I forget and the few copies I had were lost somewhere during my moved from shanty to hovel then a shanty than finally the hovel that has been home the past 5 years.

The interest in quad is alive as evidenced by the steady flow of visitors to my very basic quad blog meant to enlighten those knowing very little to nothing about quad. I started keeping track of what countries the visitors come from. Go take a look if curious:

http://quadraphonicaudio.wordpress.com/


Scroll down for the country list.

A work in progress to assist those interested in quad is a Pinterest page:

http://www.pinterest.com/obbopp/quadraphonic-surround-of-the-1970s/


Now for the reason I arrived today..... for you ancient geezers out there.... you old fart Baby Boomers.... if you need a diversion from the constant aches and pains your ancient age is forcing upon you maybe a blast from the past will wake up your idling mind. Maybe.



Top 10 Flashback! The music of your life…warts and all

" I find a music survey from a Top 40 radio station of the past (generally 1965-85, but there have been many outside that range) that corresponds to the current week and post the top ten songs from that survey, complete with videos so you can hear the songs as well, along with an outline of the radio station. I pick radio stations from all over the U.S. and Canada, and there’s been one from Australia as well. Each song is accompanied by commentary from yours truly – fun factoids a la Casey Kasem, memories of hearing the song, etc. I also include what I call the “oh, wow” song of the week, a song below the top ten that you won’t hear on the radio any more, but deserves to be heard again. I’ve also made a few podcasts, which feature a countdown of the songs of the week with radio jingles and period commercials added. Oh yes, you’ll know whether I like the song or not, and I pull no punches if I don’t. "

The blog is a work in progress so that means regular updates. I enjoyed wandering the site and there is a lot of wandering to go before I visit every page.

Here is the link to a site you may enjoy:

http://t10fb.wordpress.com/


Have fun and may the future of surround sound be groovy and may the nifty stuff from the past continue to add its audio delight.

 

[JonUrban]

Hey Obbop, good to see you still doing it! (Obbop is an original QQ member from the beginning)

The snail mail thing you remember was Larry Clifton's "Quad Quarterly", which begat the "Quad Incorporated" booklet and updates which categorized every quad release, which in turn begat the web pages Mark Anderson created as the Quad Discography. (Follow that?)

The link to your blog still stands on our main page, but unfortunately the vB 4 upgrade kind of made that page obsolete, but anyone who finds it can still get to the links there.

Sad to hear about your QRX. Time takes it's toll on everything and everyone I'm afraid.

 

[Quadwreck]

I have made lists of all charted singles from 1955 to 1982, listing them by each year in the chronological order that they charted. I'd be glad to share them here, if anyone's interested.

 

[Obbop]

I believe the Quad Quarterly newspaper was prior to the very low-budget newsletter I am referring to. There was only 4 or 5 issues and they were home-made and reproduced on a Xerox, I believe. My memory is poor but wasn't the source by an individual living in the Pacific northwest?

I remember sending snail mails to folks whose addresses I found in the library while researching quad. This was in the late 1980s and early 1990s before the masses started hitting the Web.

The snail mail trickled in and folks who had lost track with each other were brought together again as I responded and shared current snail mail addresses.

I can not remember names but those contacted were quad adherents during its hey-day.

Surely somebody recalls the particular publication I am referring to.

From Clifton's site:

"First came The QUAD Quarterly. It provided corrections and updates (quad records were still appearing) to my quadraphonic discography, QUAD Incorporated. After two years, we renamed it MCS Review when we expanded the publication to include articles, reviews and more extensive news. During this period, some issues exceeded 40 pages.

By the end of 1985, the publication had looked at about every surround-sound topic we could imagine. So, we changed to mostly just reporting new developments and delivered these in a light-weight (4 pages) monthly format, which we called MultiChannelSound. This final format did not last very long, just a few issues. Producing MultiChannelSound was strictly a labor of love, performed outside of day job hours. A mid-life career change, a daily two-hour commute and night school left no time for quad. And so in 1986 I folded the publication."

Yes, the minimal very basic publication I am referring to was from around 1994 or 1995.

The rapid acceptance of the Web quickly negated the need for dead tree-based publications as the electrons flowing through the intertubes allowed folks to spread groovy stuff quickly and easily.

Enough of this. There's bodacious bikini babes to peek at!!!!!

 

[DuncanS]

All those pictures of Quad kit, its like cat-nip! :wave

I remember pouring over the adverts as a teenager hoping to be able to afford to buy the equipment.

 

[Quadwreck]

Larry Clifton started the Quadraphonic Quarterly, later changing the name to Multi Channel Sound (MCS) Review. It stopped in the later 1980s, Quadtrade started a new publication in the 1990s.

 

[John Svensson]

Most likely it was "Quadtrade", about 8 pages each. I still have my copies, including the announcment of the the revolution to begat by the new AC3 chip!

 

[Obbop]

"Quadtrade"

I believe that is the very short-lived publication I recall being present just before I scrambled aboard the Web's awesomeness via AOL and the mighty Cyrix DX4-100 CPU-powered electronic brain.

The Web has evolved so much!!!

And the sites offering information about quadraphonics have increased in number and scope.

All is groovy!!! Oh... and then the eBay as a place to find acquire quad goodies allowed folks to get their paws on nifty-keen goodies.

Good times!!!! And quadraphonicquad is the bestest quad hang-out in the known universe!!! YAY!!!!!!

I do not know if this is the bestest place for modern surround sound since I haven't dabbled in this new-fangled city-slicker stuff all the younguns are involved with... and apparently a few of the old codgers from ancient days when the Baby Boomers were booming.

You younguns have fun and behave yerselves' dagnabbit.

 

[Doug G.]

Obbop. have you considered separates to replace your 9001? The financial hit wouldn't be as bad as having to buy one of the old quad receivers which, these days, go for fairly hefty prices.

That's what I have done in my latest venture. Heathkit amps and separate decoders/demodulators and a tuner.

Just thought I would mention it. I hate to see you (or anyone) go without good quad.

Doug