Disclord
900 Club - QQ All-Star
For those of you who are fans of the drummer Buddy Rich and bought Gary Reber's quadraphonic DVD of his 1985 Buddy Rich production - and if you have an LD player and Fosgate Tate II or another good SQ decoder - get the LaserDisc release. It's better than the DVD.
Some background:
Back in 1985 Pioneer Artists released an SQ LaserDisc of drummer Buddy Rich - it was a co-production between Buddy Rich and Ruggles-Reber Productions, who also owned Tate Audio and the Tate DES IC's and patents. The Buddy Rich session was encoded directly to SQ with a 16-channel CBS Position Encoder that had been modified for better sound (higher quality op-amps and and other components in the phase shifter section, etc.) and the 2 channel Position Encoded SQ output was recorded directly to Sony 1610 PCM digital on U-Matic tape while the NTSC video was recorded to C-type VTR. Anyway, Pioneer released it on LD with SQ PCM audio, although Pioneer Video would not allow the SQ logo on the front or back disc jacket or disc label- only a statement on the back jacket that it's "An SQ/Tate System Surround Stereo Recording" was allowed - they did allow Reber to have an insert showing microphone placement and explaining SQ and all the equipment used. Sony released it on their "Video 45" label as one of the few pre-recorded Super Beta Hi-Fi tapes. Mobile Fidelity also released it on LP and CD in SQ (since that was the only master made)
A few years ago Gary Reber re-issued the program on DVD, but because it was mixed directly to SQ, there was no multi-track masters to remix into surround sound, so he used his own Fosgate Tate II 101A to decode the digital U-Matic SQ master and re-encode it to dts 4.0 for the DVD (sadly, they didn't include the 2-channel SQ encoded mix on the DVD, only the Tate decoded one). I've always thought the DVD sounded really good and 'quaddy', but I recently ran across the Buddy Rich LaserDisc on eBay for 99 cents with 3 dollar shipping - so I bought it. It arrived recently and wow, in comparison with my Fosgate, Gary Reber's Fosgate Tate II decoder wasn't working very well when he made the DVD - the LD as decoded through my Fosgate Tate II sounds much more discrete, with better phantom imaging and there is much less channel leakage - when compared, the DVD sounds like it has maybe 10-12 db of separation between channels front-to-back whereas the LD, via my Fosgate, sounds almost discrete. It's an amazing difference, and yet the DVD in no way sounds 'bad' - by itself it's very impressive - I just think Reber's Fosgate was a bit out of alignment (the DVD's release notes say they had to go through three 101A's to find one that worked right - I'm surprised Reber kept 3 of them!) I wonder how it would sound decoded with Oxforddickie's PC decoding process?
One thing I've never understood about this recording is why it was done when it was? When it was recorded and released in late 1985, the Fosgate Tate II decoder had been out of production for almost a year (and had never sold in large numbers anyway); no Tate II chips had been made by Exar in a few years; Dolby had cut their ties with Tate Audio after stocking up on enough Tate DES chips to get them by for 3 years or so, and Tate Audio was just about bankrupt from all the back and forth lawsuits between them and National Semiconductor over the original Tate chips that weren't made correctly. (the original Tate DES patent had even expired in the UK in 1983 because Wes Ruggles didn't have enough money to pay the yearly patent maintenance fees) And no company was at all interested in bringing forth a new decoder that decoded SQ; to everyone in the industry, the future was Dolby Stereo compatible surround sound for home theater - all the independent decoder companies like Fosgate, Aphex and Shure, were directing their energy at custom logic systems to decode Dolby Stereo, not kludging Tate IC's with extensive add-on circuits to make the Tate DES decode Dolby Stereo. Dolby was, by then, already beginning work on what would eventually become Pro-Logic because they wanted their own patented logic design they could license to consumer electronics companies and to have a 'perfected' decoding system for their theater decoders. Making the Tate IC's work to decode Dolby Stereo wasn't cheap and Dolby knew no more IC's would be made. They wanted the control and quality they were used to with their own Noise Reduction designs and licensing.
Yet the insert for the Buddy Rich LaserDisc talks about the Tate System SQ format and decoders as if both have some kind of bright future and a consumer will have a slew of decoders and recordings to choose from - it never mentions either the Audionics or Fosgate decoders - just Tate System/SQ Decoders and that it is a SQ/Tate System 360 Spherical Surround Stereo recording. It's like Reber and Ruggles had some weird 'fantasy' that SQ and the Tate DES would make some major comeback.
Anyway, if you've got an LD player and a good SQ decoder, pick up this LD if you can get it for cheap. The highest price I've seen for it on eBay is 20 dollars. If you haven't heard the program (or of Buddy Rich) at all, get the DVD from Netflix - it's a good program with great music that even through Reber's less-than-optimal Fosgate decoder, sounds nice.
Some background:
Back in 1985 Pioneer Artists released an SQ LaserDisc of drummer Buddy Rich - it was a co-production between Buddy Rich and Ruggles-Reber Productions, who also owned Tate Audio and the Tate DES IC's and patents. The Buddy Rich session was encoded directly to SQ with a 16-channel CBS Position Encoder that had been modified for better sound (higher quality op-amps and and other components in the phase shifter section, etc.) and the 2 channel Position Encoded SQ output was recorded directly to Sony 1610 PCM digital on U-Matic tape while the NTSC video was recorded to C-type VTR. Anyway, Pioneer released it on LD with SQ PCM audio, although Pioneer Video would not allow the SQ logo on the front or back disc jacket or disc label- only a statement on the back jacket that it's "An SQ/Tate System Surround Stereo Recording" was allowed - they did allow Reber to have an insert showing microphone placement and explaining SQ and all the equipment used. Sony released it on their "Video 45" label as one of the few pre-recorded Super Beta Hi-Fi tapes. Mobile Fidelity also released it on LP and CD in SQ (since that was the only master made)
A few years ago Gary Reber re-issued the program on DVD, but because it was mixed directly to SQ, there was no multi-track masters to remix into surround sound, so he used his own Fosgate Tate II 101A to decode the digital U-Matic SQ master and re-encode it to dts 4.0 for the DVD (sadly, they didn't include the 2-channel SQ encoded mix on the DVD, only the Tate decoded one). I've always thought the DVD sounded really good and 'quaddy', but I recently ran across the Buddy Rich LaserDisc on eBay for 99 cents with 3 dollar shipping - so I bought it. It arrived recently and wow, in comparison with my Fosgate, Gary Reber's Fosgate Tate II decoder wasn't working very well when he made the DVD - the LD as decoded through my Fosgate Tate II sounds much more discrete, with better phantom imaging and there is much less channel leakage - when compared, the DVD sounds like it has maybe 10-12 db of separation between channels front-to-back whereas the LD, via my Fosgate, sounds almost discrete. It's an amazing difference, and yet the DVD in no way sounds 'bad' - by itself it's very impressive - I just think Reber's Fosgate was a bit out of alignment (the DVD's release notes say they had to go through three 101A's to find one that worked right - I'm surprised Reber kept 3 of them!) I wonder how it would sound decoded with Oxforddickie's PC decoding process?
One thing I've never understood about this recording is why it was done when it was? When it was recorded and released in late 1985, the Fosgate Tate II decoder had been out of production for almost a year (and had never sold in large numbers anyway); no Tate II chips had been made by Exar in a few years; Dolby had cut their ties with Tate Audio after stocking up on enough Tate DES chips to get them by for 3 years or so, and Tate Audio was just about bankrupt from all the back and forth lawsuits between them and National Semiconductor over the original Tate chips that weren't made correctly. (the original Tate DES patent had even expired in the UK in 1983 because Wes Ruggles didn't have enough money to pay the yearly patent maintenance fees) And no company was at all interested in bringing forth a new decoder that decoded SQ; to everyone in the industry, the future was Dolby Stereo compatible surround sound for home theater - all the independent decoder companies like Fosgate, Aphex and Shure, were directing their energy at custom logic systems to decode Dolby Stereo, not kludging Tate IC's with extensive add-on circuits to make the Tate DES decode Dolby Stereo. Dolby was, by then, already beginning work on what would eventually become Pro-Logic because they wanted their own patented logic design they could license to consumer electronics companies and to have a 'perfected' decoding system for their theater decoders. Making the Tate IC's work to decode Dolby Stereo wasn't cheap and Dolby knew no more IC's would be made. They wanted the control and quality they were used to with their own Noise Reduction designs and licensing.
Yet the insert for the Buddy Rich LaserDisc talks about the Tate System SQ format and decoders as if both have some kind of bright future and a consumer will have a slew of decoders and recordings to choose from - it never mentions either the Audionics or Fosgate decoders - just Tate System/SQ Decoders and that it is a SQ/Tate System 360 Spherical Surround Stereo recording. It's like Reber and Ruggles had some weird 'fantasy' that SQ and the Tate DES would make some major comeback.
Anyway, if you've got an LD player and a good SQ decoder, pick up this LD if you can get it for cheap. The highest price I've seen for it on eBay is 20 dollars. If you haven't heard the program (or of Buddy Rich) at all, get the DVD from Netflix - it's a good program with great music that even through Reber's less-than-optimal Fosgate decoder, sounds nice.
