Hi I'm a newbie and need help with Quadraphonic hardware questions.

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also, if not, what can you play through it other than another turntable? Thank you
 
I have one other major question for anyone with knowledge for me: If a receiver has two phono sets, can you play a tape player or rca cd player through one outlet? Thank you~

In short, NO!! Phono inputs will typically have 1.5mV to 3mV input. where as an Tape or Aux input may be 160mV to 180mV. You will blow your inputs.

Spence
 
And, even if you don't blow the electronical components associated with the phono inputs, the result will be terrible overload and distorted sound. Not to mention that the phono preamps have RIAA compensation too.

The phono inputs are strictly reserved for magnetic phono cartridges.

Some early amps had inputs for both ceramic and magnetic cartridges and you could use the ceramic input for other high level devices but generally, modern amps or receivers' phono inputs are meant for magnetics.

Doug
 
take offense - i am sure - sell that stuff and buy sansui - the ONLY true quad decoding out there.:chill

buy any of the qrx - X001 models - get it rebuilt - if you have to go with amps because youre a power nut ( i am ) have the rebuilder put you in some pre-outs and use your marantz amps.

i am sure someone might disagree:howl - but why go to all this trouble to have lousy 4-channel separation? ive had a beautiful marantz 4400 with every decoder offered and i really didnt know what quad sounded like until i bought a beat-up qrx9001 - still sounded better than my rebuilt marantz - then when i had the 9001 rebuilt...well, live and learn....and i learned the expensive way - buy sansui.

i kept the marantz until the power board melted - they always do - and sold it to have another sansui rebuilt - qrx-7001 - not much power there - so i use two amps - again, both rebuilt - and im not sure if it is the room or the speakers or what - but that one sounds better than the 9001. again, if you got marantz stuff already - i totally understand....use 'em till they die. and when they do - GO SANSUI.

I do not LISTEN TO A PARTICULAR FORMAT OF LPS or CDs - i buy stereo crap CDs and LPs and make my receiver do the work - and only sansui takes a stereo input and has the separation that is worth the effort.

now there are those that want to listen to just cd-4 - granted, if i had the room i would have a cd-4 setup with all that expensive cartridges on my expensive quad turntable and neat deteriorating cd-4 LPs so i can listen to The Doors over and over again - for that i would use a Tate.

i own a landscape maintenance business - and when it comes to buying equipment it must be able to be used on all of my account's lawns - if i have to buy one lawnmower for one particular account, well, that is an account somebody else can mess with.

again, if i am wrong about the decoding in the qrx-X001 model receivers - somebody shut me up - but ive had the pioneer flagship (FagShit) ive had the best marantz had to offer (scoffer) ive had several early generation quad sansui's (san-phooey) the 5500a and 7500a ..... and the X001 receivers are better - and they look great and if you have the need to listen to commercials - great tuners - and if you have a karaoke party:spot its gotta mic input to sing along with Bananarama (ahem):banana: or go one better - i pull out my 1969 white fender mustang axe ....and wish i could play better guitar! :yikes but its better than pulling out my fender tube amp - because then i am not playing along with the music - rather , against it.

and i say this to a quad newbie - because i wish someone had said the same to me about $10,000 ago.

w.a.reid - :smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin
 
I have a question for you. I have a Marantz 2440 quad rear amp and decoder SQA-1. Will the SQA-2 work with this or must it be a SQA-2B?
 
if the decoder fits - then it works - and i think they are all exact same dimensions:confused: - so they are all interchangeable:rolleyes: - buy them all...see what you think.:phones keep in mind "it fits - so it must be working" is wrong.... i have had some off of EPAY that didnt work at all - one time i got one and it had a dirt dobber nest in it - but that im sure is rare.:eek: if you have a question whether it works or not - send it to chris ready in PA - he knows how to test those things into overdrive.(y)

i dated a girl once with a rear amp - but i couldnt get any horizontal separation out of her.:yikes

w.a.reid:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin:smokin
 
I wasn't sure. Someone told me that the SQA-2 was for the 4xxx series of Marantz and if you had a 2440, you needed to get a SQA-2B or SQA-1. Is that true do you think? I want to buy a SQA-2 but don't want to invest the money in one that was not designed for my 2440 Quadradial adaptor...Thanks to anyone who can assure me:)
 
Can anyone tell me what stylus's I can use for quad records besides shibata's? What do you recommend and what do I look for as far as cartridge and stylus names and numbers? Also I have a Technics SL-D2 turntable with a Stanton 681EEE stylus in now. Thank you!
 
G'Day Quadnewbe.....
If you intend on just using matrix quad formats such as SQ or QS, you can pretty much use any stylus profile you want. The Stanton you mentioned should be fine. I have a Stanton 680 on one of my turntables, and on matrix stuff it works great. However if you want decode CD4 you WILL need a stylus profile that can read the high frequency info which is in the grooves of CD4 lp's to trigger the decoding. i.e a shibata.
A common current model well regarded cartridge with a shibata profile is the Audio Technica AT440Mla.

The Stanton 681EEE should work fine with the Decoder/s you mentioned.
 
Hi!

I'm a SONY SQ DECODER 1000 connected by MULT CH IN to a Pioneer SC LX-81.

In this configuration I can put only the four channels level but no the other setups like distances, EQ, ecc.

If I play a SQ record, I could retrieve the surrounds channels like Dolby Prologic/Surround with the receiver?

If I rip the LP information to a normal CD, I could retrieve the surrounds channel using the SONY SQD line multichannel input?

Thanks a lot.
 
Although I am a new member of the Quad forum, please allow me to add some comments to Doug G's above. So that you understand my involvement with quadraphonics, I am 54 years old and was heavily involved with quad as soon as it came out. Subsequently I decided to do mythird-year BSc thesis on quadraphonics at Imperial College of Science & Technology, University of London (1976) for which I received a merit. The research for this project involved meeting senior engineers of Sony, Sansui and JVC, all of whom were most helpful, and spending a lot of time at Abbey Road studios in the company of Ken Townsend, the studios being situated five minutes walk from my home. Subsequently I worked for Graham's Hi-Fi, a top-end hi-fi retailer considered to be one of the five best hi-fi shops in the world (according to international reputation). My own experience of quad - and I still have more than 100 mint condition LP's that are collector's items - was using a Linn LP12 turntable with Grace G707 arm and Grado G1 cartridge (the latter costing, in 1979, about $600). Previoosuly I had used JVC's (1 and 2), but there has never been any doubt that the Grado was far superior. I even tried it in an Ittok arm, but in my humble opinion it performed better in the Grace as mechanically they were better suited. The point about this is that the very best reproduction of quadraphonic, or stereo, will always occur when the predominate budget is spent on the turntable / arm / catridge combination and not loudspeakers as used to be thought. The phrase 'rubbish in, rubbish out' is a truism and particularly relevant here. However, be aware that quad reproduction is very gimmiky, in that whilst it might be exciting to be surrounded by sound, it's never like that in real life. CD4 discs, in particular suffer from restricted dynamic range and reduced frequency response of the rear channels compared to the front which is very apparent in a good system. My advice? With all humility, get a good stereo and enjoy the memories of a wonderful time gone by!
 
Trevor,

With all due respect, the name of this forum is "QuadraphonicQuad" and I doubt that members wish to be advised to forget about quad and restrict themselves to mere stereo.

Doug
 
Hello Trevor

I must admit your post has left me a bit confused (it's pretty easy to do!). So you are replying of sorts to @Doug G.'s reply from 12 years ago? He was talking about RIAA vs line level inputs & distortion. I see no correlation between your comments & Doug's. However the bulk of your missive almost duplicates what you said in New Member Introductions. With the exception of:

However, be aware that quad reproduction is very gimmiky, in that whilst it might be exciting to be surrounded by sound, it's never like that in real life. CD4 discs, in particular suffer from restricted dynamic range and reduced frequency response of the rear channels compared to the front which is very apparent in a good system. My advice? With all humility, get a good stereo and enjoy the memories of a wonderful time gone by!

The more I read this the more odd it seems. Like joining, I dunno, an equestrian forum & telling the members forget about horses & just enjoy those new fangled combustion engine cars? And how is buying a good stereo system supposed to help one enjoy the quad memories of a wonderful time? And even, of course, if it plays quad, it plays stereo. There are many members here with true high end high quality set ups & they can enjoy music/movies much better with a good surround set up than someone could with stereo only.
 
Hello Trevor

I must admit your post has left me a bit confused (it's pretty easy to do!). So you are replying of sorts to @Doug G.'s reply from 12 years ago? He was talking about RIAA vs line level inputs & distortion. I see no correlation between your comments & Doug's. However the bulk of your missive almost duplicates what you said in New Member Introductions. With the exception of:



The more I read this the more odd it seems. Like joining, I dunno, an equestrian forum & telling the members forget about horses & just enjoy those new fangled combustion engine cars? And how is buying a good stereo system supposed to help one enjoy the quad memories of a wonderful time? And even, of course, if it plays quad, it plays stereo. There are many members here with true high end high quality set ups & they can enjoy music/movies much better with a good surround set up than someone could with stereo only.

In truth you are correct. However the longer I have been involved in the hi-fi business, I realised that the Holy Grail is to get as close to the recorded performance as possible. Irrespective of the medium used to carry the original information, the quest is retrieve that information as close to 100% as possible. That does not mean one cannot enjoy a medium that has difficulties such as most quadraphonic discs, with phasing problems with QS and SQ, sound steering problems as with the Tate decoder and others, and curtailed back channel frequency response with CD4 and in my time I did enjoy surround sound for what it was. But then I missed the fine details of the performance which I got by going back to stereo, upgrading my turntable to a Linn LP12, and using a Naim 250 based tri-amp system. Both have their place in the world (stereo and quadraphonic), but cater for different markets. I am still very interested in all things quadraphonic but nowadays from a purely technical angle.
 
CD-4 recordings had the reduced frequency response of 15 Hz-14.5 KHz on all 4 channels (not just the back channels) and in stereo as well as in CD-4. It was a built-in limitation to the CD-4 system. With the carrier at 30 KHz, the baseband cannot equal or exceed 15 KHz. Any signal over 15 KHz would cause aliasing.
 
It was not just the limitation in frequency bandwidth, although that is important for the following reason. Whilst it is true that a human cannot generally hear above 20kHz, the question is about the type of harmonic distortion that one can hear at middle to high frequencies. This is a very detailed subject that you can read about widely on the Internet, so I won’t copy and paste pages and pages here, but explains why transistor and valve amplifiers sound very different. The other thing to consider about CD-4 is that discs could not be cut very loud because the stylus simply could not trace great amplitudes at high frequencies, and therefore the discs were prone to a greater noise level and reduced dynamic range compared to normal discs. Several test records were produced to test a cartridge’s ability to trace the grooves and to experiment with tracking weight. I used to use a JVC X1 and X2 with Shibata stylus in a Grace G707 tonearm on a Linn LP12. Having occasionally experienced carrier signal loss, I turned to a Grado Signature IIIa moving magnet cartridge (although it was very expensive at about US$ 600) which was by far the best in all respects for CD-4.
 
I think most modern high end cartridges do have sufficiently wide frequency responses huh? Most have a line contact stylus of sorts.

Looking at the specs of my Grado Master 2 Statement ( the 1.0mV output, moving iron ) it claims to go up to 60Khz. The only issue, of course, is that no Quad decoder can handle a low output like that! Just as most current High End cartridges are MC so they don't have the power either. I wonder if a step up transformer of sufficient wide bandwidth would work?

Now then, Grado does make a high output, 5mV, version of the Master that should drive those decoders quite well. Huh?
 
I doubt a step up transformer of sufficient wide frequency bandwidth exists, although of course I could be wrong. Put in another way, I have never seen one.
 
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