Dylan Berichon
701 Club - QQ All-Star
"Tender Loving Care"
it's the late 70's all over again, DualDisc, DVD-A and SACD all dead
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... and a well-positioned matchbook jammed under the cartridge for aligment. That would be the MBJUC tactice ... closely followed by yanking the tape out and stringing it for blocks out of the car window ... or winder for you folks south of the border. Mike.
Two things quad 8 tracks had going for it, and why I still buy them - music choice and channel separation.
Nowadays the tape only needs to play properly right through once. I convert them to DVD-Audio then store them away in archive boxes in my air-conditioned home cinema ( a coverted double-bay garage).
Nowadays the tape only needs to play properly right through once. I convert them to DVD-Audio then store them away in archive boxes in my air-conditioned home cinema ( a coverted double-bay garage).
Chris Gerhard
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
I regret throwing them away only because if I had waited for the internet, I could have sold them. To my surprise there are a handful of people that would buy them. To my even greater surprise there are a handful of people that would still play them if purchased and aren't just collectors. I would never under any circumstances have purchased another player. I am aware there are a few rare Quad 8-track tapes of quad music that hasn't been re-released on a better format. I don't find fault in anybody that might be interested in that format, I still have several formats beyond their viable life in the marketplace. The ones I have kept I think work well, that one didn't in my opinion. Converting them to DVD-A would be cool, but not worth buying another player in my opinion.
Chris
Chris
I for my self like to be a sound pioneer - from beginning Stereo in late 50's and quadraphony in early 70's. And I like to have also many excamples of this sound and technical developments from stereo to analog quadraphonic sound and now digital surround. But of course, each has other priorities. Of course, some Q8 (of course, I have also other 4-channel mediums in my collection), will playing awkward (each owner know this) and the quality is different, but there ar many of my collection, which will sound real well (nearly Q4) and those Q8's from CBS will give us the real channel separation. And I like the quadraphonic sound - as written before - with a real presence sound. Because I have all the Moody Blues in Q4 and could compare with the SA-CD's of this group. My impression of listening is, that there is nearly no ore smallest difference in sound quality. I think generally, that also and especially for many "only" stereo listener, Quadraphony would be also today the ideal surround-technic without all the problems of today surround sets. But over all - we have now here an interesting discussion.
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The biggest drawback for Q8 were:
- factory quality control - i've meet all possible problems on a tape dupl. with 8 track carts
- master filtering: many times the master were filtered down to 12 (early columbia) or 15KHz (wea), it's quite rare to find carts that were duplicated with a full freqency response. One of them, and thus a intresting "reference point" is Carpenters "now and then" USA Q8 who goes up to 19KHz.
No wonder such a cart sounds wonderful when converted to 24/96/4.
- factory quality control - i've meet all possible problems on a tape dupl. with 8 track carts
- master filtering: many times the master were filtered down to 12 (early columbia) or 15KHz (wea), it's quite rare to find carts that were duplicated with a full freqency response. One of them, and thus a intresting "reference point" is Carpenters "now and then" USA Q8 who goes up to 19KHz.
No wonder such a cart sounds wonderful when converted to 24/96/4.
I think that the guys who use the Fostex 1/4 inch 8-track reel-to-reel machines to play them (for conversion to digital surround sound) have the right idea. Brilliant actually! Mechanically, the cartridge was the weekest link, so eliminating it seems to be the obvious approach. Sonically, 8-tracks had the "potential" to approach the sound of a 4-track reel tape at 3 3/4 ips ... and certainly to exceed the sound of cassettes at the time. Mike.
I still have all of mine as well. I couldn't part with them if I tried. Multichannel is still by far the best way to listen to music, and I prove it at work when I demo surround music for customers. Their facial expressions say it all.
As for Sony abandoning the Dual Disc, they still issue them, but not in surround unless it's at the artist's insistance. The debacle over the copy protection that messed up a bunch of computers is still costing them big time, and in a letter I received from Sony about the dual disc issue, they stated that they haven't abandoned multichannel, but the costs of multi-
channel releases are the reason for not doing so at this time. They also stated the SACD is still alive and well, and they'll still be releasing them in all genres soon. I'm not holding my breath...
Most have been a 7140. Those were total junk. Even the heads weren't put together right. Took me too long to figure that out so I missed the opportunity of returning it to whatever that store was in L.A. that was selling them at the time and is no longer around.
I had a very strange experience with a few different Akai models, and to this day I still can't figure it out. As a tape would play, the take-up reel would warp severely, but would be back to normal after rewinding. I finally settled on a Teac A2340, which never had that problem. Did anyone else have an experience like that with an Akai?
I never knew a problem with the tape heads on the 7140, except that they weren't glass ferrite, and therefore they wore out. The 7140 would have been a decent machine if they had put in a decent ball type capstan bearing like the AKAI GX280DSS has. Mine sounded and recorded great until the aluminum capstan bearing gave out. I had to make a bearing assembly for it, as the company went out of business. It was the heads wearing out that finally killed it. I even figured out a way to add an auto reverse feature to it. It had almost everything it needed, three motors and all that, it just needed a simple circuit and some relays more. I have no idea why they didn't make it an auto reverse machine to begin with. I reckon they were too busy trying to make it cheap to make it good, and that's why they're out of business now. I still have the 7140, it's in storage. I might get some 8 track heads and make an eight track playout machine with it for doing tape transfers from 8 tracks with worn out cartridges. The SOS switches would allow you to switch from one head to the other, to allow switching between programs.
As for the AKAI with the warped reel, that's a new one on me. There were control board problems, but that sounds like a table shaft was bent slightly. It wasn't a known problem with AKAIs.
The Quadfather
As for the AKAI with the warped reel, that's a new one on me. There were control board problems, but that sounds like a table shaft was bent slightly. It wasn't a known problem with AKAIs.
The Quadfather
It was more common than you know. Several of my friends who also bought Akai decks were experiencing the same thing as well. We tried contacting Akai America about it, but they told us that since we bought the machines through the Army-Air Force Exchange Service, we had to go through them to resolve the problem. AAFES, as you can figure, was no help at all. I sold the Akai and bought the Teac*A2340R. It never gave me a bit of trouble. It also made better sounding recordings at 3 3/4 IPS.
In the early eighties I worked at an Akai service center. I didn't see it, though I am not doubting it happened, and I have forgotten a lot since then. However, I don't recall having turned down any warranty repair request because the equipment was obtained through the military channels. That wouldn't be a suitable way to treat our brave men in uniform. However, we were in an Air Force town and our boss was ex military. He may have been set up to do that. At any rate, I would have considered it shameful to turn away a soldier's repair request. It is a sorry thing that you experienced that bullshit.
The Pro Military Quadfather
P.S. Thank you for your service to our country.
The Pro Military Quadfather
P.S. Thank you for your service to our country.
I was in an overseas area (Iceland) when I experienced this lack of support. The Exchange Service, when they heard about Akai's reaction to my request, were very apologetic, but admitted they just weren't equipped to handle a situation such as mine. So I sold the Akai and bought the Teac. I wish I still had it; I still have some Q4 tapes and nothing to play them on to encode them into SQ.
Why would you encode discrete tapes to SQ? You would lose discreteness.
Better to encode it to DTS and put it on a CD. This would maintain discreteness, and also make it decodable on modern gear. Of course, I just prefer to play my Q4 tapes on my Q4 machine. No reason not to maintain such a beautiful machine. My GX280DSS is a mechanical work of art. With glass ferrite heads, I don't have to worry about the heads wearing out. These machines can still be purchased on Ebay if you want one bad enough. I paid about $250.00 for mine. I had to change the preamplifier chips, which were somewhat hard to find, and the caps, and I was able to find new chips at Union Electronics. And I had to rework the control board, which is standard procedure on these machines, due to the brass rivets on the board breaking loose. A little lubrication here and there, some cleaning, and it was ready to roll tape. I enjoy seeing the reels slowly tumble as the music plays out. I don't know why, there's just something hypnotic about it.
The Quadfather
Better to encode it to DTS and put it on a CD. This would maintain discreteness, and also make it decodable on modern gear. Of course, I just prefer to play my Q4 tapes on my Q4 machine. No reason not to maintain such a beautiful machine. My GX280DSS is a mechanical work of art. With glass ferrite heads, I don't have to worry about the heads wearing out. These machines can still be purchased on Ebay if you want one bad enough. I paid about $250.00 for mine. I had to change the preamplifier chips, which were somewhat hard to find, and the caps, and I was able to find new chips at Union Electronics. And I had to rework the control board, which is standard procedure on these machines, due to the brass rivets on the board breaking loose. A little lubrication here and there, some cleaning, and it was ready to roll tape. I enjoy seeing the reels slowly tumble as the music plays out. I don't know why, there's just something hypnotic about it.
The Quadfather
The easy and quick answer is so I have a CD I can play in my car with great stereo results, and at home through my Tate decoder. Encoding into DTS would be nice, but I don't own a DTS encoder, nor would I be able to play such discs in the car. I have taken DVD-Audio discs and made Dolby Surround encoded CD's from them that maintain an amazing amount of separation when played via Dolby PLII, but are stereo-compatible. Sad thing is, although I still have these Q4 tapes with nothing to play them on, I have to wonder if the tape is still in playable condition. They've been in my garage for quite a while. I agree that the discreteness would be lost when encoding to SQ, but the Tate decoder restores it quite well. And the benefit of the recordings being stereo-compatible is a plus for me.
Yeah, I reckon that works. I can play DTS CDs in my Dodge Ram pickup. It is equipped with a Clarion surround system. I'm using two vintage Sanyo PA6050's for amplification. These were the first truly powerful automotive amplifiers. they still sound good. Most folks that do DTS encoding do it on their computers. You have to have a four channel sound card and some rather expensive encoding software from Minnetonka, but the results can be quite good. I have some pre recorded tape that is quite old that plays fine. There was a period of time I am not sure when it was, that the tape manufacturers changed the glue they used. This was a disaster, as the new glue started breaking down after a number of years. If you recorded with any of this tape, (I understand it was mostly blank tape that had this glue) You will now find your recordings deteriorating into a sticky mess. Baking the tape at a low temperature can restore the tape long enough to copy the recording, but is not a permanent fix for the tape. If your tape was made before the bad glue was used, it is probably all right if it has been stored in a dry place. Some of my older tapes that were made in the sixties (stereo) are brittle, I sometimes get pieces breaking off when I thread them, but they play fine and with good fidelity. The Akai GX280DSS is very gentle on them, so it works out well. I have never had one break in mid tape. Ampex was one company that made the bad tape. Several years ago I bought some of this old stock and it was OK when I first got it, but it has gummed up since. Several party reels of mixed favorites were ruined, these were made for an annual quadraphonic yard party I used to throw around the fourth of July, and I had kept the previous year's recordings to build on the collection. We no longer throw the party, but I still use the remaining tapes during indoor get togethers. Since some of the reels were recorded on Maxell and TDK tape which seems to have escaped the formulation problem, they are still good I guess I could re-record the other ones since I have still have the playlists, but I rarely have the time.
The Quadfather
The Quadfather
I remember the PA6050's well. They were fine as long as you kept your impedence at 4 ohms. Lower than that, the amp would shut down. I used Precision Power amps in the one car I did a system in, complete with a Fosgate "Gavotte II" surround decoder. It used their "360 Degree Space Matrix", which was basically QS with better logic steering. It decoded QS perfectly, did a pretty decent job with SQ, and opened up the sound of stereo recordings quite effectively. I just have the stock system in my Honda Civic, and at this stage of my life, it's all I need. I used to use TDK Audia Series reel tapes when I had my Teac; I got awesome recordings at 3 3/4 IPS. I had made tapes of oldies that were amazingly clean and noise-free despite the records they were taken from. I had also recorded some CD-4 records to quad tape for the base audio club in Iceland. Those were the days...
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