In my travels around the eBays of the world I've come across a few of these German WEA CD-4s, and really out of curiosity I thought I'd start a thread that collates all of the known ones, because @Mark Anderson 's discography has some, discogs has some, and I think maybe one or two I've only seen on eBay.
The timeframe for the release of these albums seems to be '75/'76 (possibly some in 1974, I can't be sure) based on the titles involved - I'm not an expert on run-out grooves and deadwax inscriptions, but a cursory examination of a couple of them on discogs suggests that the information on the German releases is different from their US counterparts, which suggests that they were unique cuts and manufactured in Germany, rather than simply having had stampers sent from the US. Further proof of this would be the fact that two titles, Passport's Hand Made and Fats Domino's Hello Josephine - Live at Montreux weren't released in the US at all (I know the Passport title came out in Japan in 1973) suggests that Germany definitely had it's own CD-4 mastering facility.
I did find a couple of German sites that discuss quadraphonic sound in Germany that shed a little light on some of this, Klaus Hönemann's Status of CD4 in Germany during "the glory days of Quadraphonic" and hifimuseum.de's Die Quadrophonie 1969 / 1979 section, but neither has a full accounting of these German-cut CD-4 releases. I was hoping that by collating what I've found here, that between the international nature of our membership we might be able to determine if this is the extent of what was released - what I've found seems to be a somewhat strange cross-section of WEA releases, which suggests that maybe there are some more.
The catalog numbers seem to follow a bit of a standardized format that simply adds a '2' to the stereo version - for example, if the stereo release of America's Hearts was WB 56 115, the quad version was WB 256 115. You can also ascertain the label from the 4th digit from the right: '0' = Atlantic , '2' = Elektra, '4' = Reprise, '6' = WB, and the 5th digit from the right seems to change from '4' to '5' sometime in the '74/'75 era which suggests to me that maybe it's a price code.
There's also a direct equivalence between German catalog numbers and UK catalog numbers of the same titles. Take the Fats Domino release for example: German stereo version: ATL 50 107, UK stereo version K 50107 / German quad version: ATL 250 107, UK quad version K2 50107. The same goes for all the other WEA titles that made it into the UK - while they omit the three letter label prefix (WB, ATL, etc.) of the German releases, as I said above, the 4th digit from the right will tell you what label the album is on.
All of these German releases seem to be packaged in a stereo sleeve with a large 'CD-4 QuadraDisc' sticker unique to the country affixed to the front, which is the only external indication that the album is quad. It's only the record label inside that has the correct quad catalog number inside. I thought I'd include here a selection of these album covers and labels sourced from discogs and my own collection to assist people with identifying these German pressings:
I also discovered a couple of pages of a German CD-4 catalog on a book seller site - unfortunately it was already sold, so if anyone has a copy, I'd be interested in seeing it. I think it might be from 1973 so possibly too early to cover any of these titles, but who knows.
The timeframe for the release of these albums seems to be '75/'76 (possibly some in 1974, I can't be sure) based on the titles involved - I'm not an expert on run-out grooves and deadwax inscriptions, but a cursory examination of a couple of them on discogs suggests that the information on the German releases is different from their US counterparts, which suggests that they were unique cuts and manufactured in Germany, rather than simply having had stampers sent from the US. Further proof of this would be the fact that two titles, Passport's Hand Made and Fats Domino's Hello Josephine - Live at Montreux weren't released in the US at all (I know the Passport title came out in Japan in 1973) suggests that Germany definitely had it's own CD-4 mastering facility.
I did find a couple of German sites that discuss quadraphonic sound in Germany that shed a little light on some of this, Klaus Hönemann's Status of CD4 in Germany during "the glory days of Quadraphonic" and hifimuseum.de's Die Quadrophonie 1969 / 1979 section, but neither has a full accounting of these German-cut CD-4 releases. I was hoping that by collating what I've found here, that between the international nature of our membership we might be able to determine if this is the extent of what was released - what I've found seems to be a somewhat strange cross-section of WEA releases, which suggests that maybe there are some more.
The catalog numbers seem to follow a bit of a standardized format that simply adds a '2' to the stereo version - for example, if the stereo release of America's Hearts was WB 56 115, the quad version was WB 256 115. You can also ascertain the label from the 4th digit from the right: '0' = Atlantic , '2' = Elektra, '4' = Reprise, '6' = WB, and the 5th digit from the right seems to change from '4' to '5' sometime in the '74/'75 era which suggests to me that maybe it's a price code.
There's also a direct equivalence between German catalog numbers and UK catalog numbers of the same titles. Take the Fats Domino release for example: German stereo version: ATL 50 107, UK stereo version K 50107 / German quad version: ATL 250 107, UK quad version K2 50107. The same goes for all the other WEA titles that made it into the UK - while they omit the three letter label prefix (WB, ATL, etc.) of the German releases, as I said above, the 4th digit from the right will tell you what label the album is on.
All of these German releases seem to be packaged in a stereo sleeve with a large 'CD-4 QuadraDisc' sticker unique to the country affixed to the front, which is the only external indication that the album is quad. It's only the record label inside that has the correct quad catalog number inside. I thought I'd include here a selection of these album covers and labels sourced from discogs and my own collection to assist people with identifying these German pressings:
LABEL PREFIX | CATALOG NO. | ARTIST | TITLE |
---|---|---|---|
WB | 256 115 | America | Hearts |
ATL | 240 506 | Billy Cobham | Spectrum *UNRELEASED* |
ATL | 250 107 | Fats Domino | Hello Josephine - Live at Montreux |
WB | 246 183 | The Doobie Bros. | Toulouse Street |
WB | 246 217 | The Doobie Bros. | The Captain and Me |
WB | 256 094 | The Doobie Bros. | Stampede |
WB | 246 286 | Graham Central Station | Graham Central Station |
REP | 244 258 | Gordon Lightfoot | Sundown |
REP | 254 033 | Gordon Lightfoot | Cold on the Shoulder |
ATL | 240 483 | Passport | Hand Made |
WB | 256 116 | Seals & Crofts | I'll Play For You |
REP | 254 031 | Frank Sinatra | The Main Event Live |
ELK | 252 021 | Tony Orlando & Dawn | He Don't Love You (Like I Love You) |
WB | 256 109 | Dionne Warwicke | Then Came You |
WEA | 228 008 | Various Artists | CD-4 Quadraphonic Experience |
I also discovered a couple of pages of a German CD-4 catalog on a book seller site - unfortunately it was already sold, so if anyone has a copy, I'd be interested in seeing it. I think it might be from 1973 so possibly too early to cover any of these titles, but who knows.