Gato Barbieri - Volume 1 (Impulse! QS)

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poweragemk

New member
Joined
Feb 8, 2004
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Location
Brooklyn, NY
Hi gang,
Just picked this Barbieri LP up this weekend and, to my surprise, it's a Quad/Compatible Stereo (I guess there wasn't a Stereo-only). Listening to it in Stereo, it sounds like it could benefit from a couple extra speakers to spread the instruments out into. I'm interested if anyone here's heard the title and can comment re: the differences. I only have a 2ch setup so I won't be hearing it in quad for awhile, if ever...

Thanks!
 
There were quite a few single inventory ABC Impulse titles released, some more "quad" than others. These had very small quad markings, much like the Abcko SACDs!

I am not familiar with that one, but I am sure someone here is. Maybe Larry Clifton can chime in, as I believe he checked out most of those titles when he was compiling the Quad Incorporated book.
 
Yeah, the markings were VERY small - as in, I didn't notice until I got it home (a little blurb on the back cover, and "Compatible Stereo/Quad" on the label sides).
I may be getting a few more in this series as the music is decently interesting, so I'd be interested to know about Vols. 2-4 as well, I guess.
 
I believe the title in question is "Chapter 1" and not "Volume 1". Gato's first four albums were issued in "compatible quad" format (presumably QS/RM quadraphonic). I have "Chapter 3" and even did a DTS conversion of it. It sounds decent, but not terribly discrete and not much (if any) better than "quad-from-stereo". Still, it is interesting, sounds nice, and I really like the music. I've been wanting to get the other three "Chapter" albums but they're kind of difficult to track down, even on CD (which I presume retain the "compatible quad" encoding since the original LPs were single inventory "quad" issues).
 
Cai Campbell said:
I believe the title in question is "Chapter 1" and not "Volume 1". Gato's first four albums were issued in "compatible quad" format (presumably QS/RM quadraphonic). I have "Chapter 3" and even did a DTS conversion of it. It sounds decent, but not terribly discrete and not much (if any) better than "quad-from-stereo". Still, it is interesting, sounds nice, and I really like the music. I've been wanting to get the other three "Chapter" albums but they're kind of difficult to track down, even on CD (which I presume retain the "compatible quad" encoding since the original LPs were single inventory "quad" issues).
I've occasionally wondered if "quad/compatible stereo" and the like were not occasionally merely a marketing tool to denote records that didn't have any quad encoding per se but were merely playable on both quad and stereo systems (as, well, pretty much all quad LPs were...) It would be a way to shoehorn the magic "quad" word onto the packaging without going thru the mixing/encoding, etc. Or maybe I'm just being cynical... :rolleyes:
 
bizmopeen said:
I've occasionally wondered if "quad/compatible stereo" and the like were not occasionally merely a marketing tool to denote records that didn't have any quad encoding per se but were merely playable on both quad and stereo systems (as, well, pretty much all quad LPs were...) It would be a way to shoehorn the magic "quad" word onto the packaging without going thru the mixing/encoding, etc. Or maybe I'm just being cynical... :rolleyes:

Impulse had always been good about being accurate when it comes to denoting the quad content of their records. In fact, they went out of their way to label John Coltrane's "Concert in Japan" (AS-9246-A) as "SYNTHESIZED QUAD", which in this case meant they took a mono radio broadcast and rechannelled it into psuedo quad (this is all disclosed on the liner notes).

I have all four of Gato's Impulse quads and they all decode fairly discretely. Ed Michel produced most of these and was a big proponent to quad. I seem to rember him being quoted something to the effect that he wouldn't be caught dead at a recording session without his Sansui QS encoder.
 
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