Matrix H Articles

[DuncanS]

I actually have very little matrix encoded content (Stereo-4, QS, SQ, UHJ, Circle etc. on cassette/LP/CD/LD) except for Dolby Surround which I get with my VHS HiFi recordings from the DTV reruns channels.

I guess what I need to do is calculate where the sounds end up when older matrix encoded content is decoded w/DPL2 music (and soon DTS in my new receiver).


Apparently, the "matrix battle" came down to H and SQ:
https://books.google.com/books?id=A...gXEAM#v=onepage&q="cbs sq" "matrix h"&f=false

Kirk Bayne

If I remember correctly a lot of the Matrix H work was funded by the NRDC (UK National Research Development Council).

New Scientist was over 600 pages back in 1977 and only £0.35, now its a fraction of the number of pages and £6.95, and doesn't contain anywhere near as many 'good' articles, I tend to get Scientific American when I spot something interesting!

 

[Soundfield]

If I remember correctly a lot of the Matrix H work was funded by the NRDC (UK National Research Development Council).

New Scientist was over 600 pages back in 1977 and only £0.35, now its a fraction of the number of pages and £6.95, and doesn't contain anywhere near as many 'good' articles, I tend to get Scientific American when I spot something interesting!

No, I don't think so Duncan, I think they collaborated with the BBC and the IBA over the creation of HJ but only funded the later Ambisonic stuff (which had little or no involvement from the BBC).

I still take New Scientist but frankly these days they are really much biased towards cosmological stories which tend to be very speculative! I still miss the wonderful Bill Tidy's Grimbledon Down though (the episode in the issue above is brilliant)-

Do you remember the Science Journal? - it was sort of the UK's answer to Scientific American and unlike NS had colour printing. But it was expensive and only lasted a year or so before being taken over by NS.

 

[DuncanS]

No, I don't think so Duncan, I think they collaborated with the BBC and the IBA over the creation of HJ but only funded the later Ambisonic stuff (which had little or no involvement from the BBC).

I still take New Scientist but frankly these days they are really much biased towards cosmological stories which tend to be very speculative! I still miss the wonderful Bill Tidy's Grimbledon Down though (the episode in the issue above is brilliant)-

View attachment 79657

Do you remember the Science Journal? - it was sort of the UK's answer to Scientific American and unlike NS had colour printing. But it was expensive and only lasted a year or so before being taken over by NS.

Don't remember the Science Journal (might if I saw a cover, but couldn't find one on line), but I do remember Bill Tidy's Grimbledon Down! His cartoons and cartoon strips were excellent.

 

[Soundfield]

Don't remember the Science Journal (might if I saw a cover, but couldn't find one on line), but I do remember Bill Tidy's Grimbledon Down! His cartoons and cartoon strips were excellent.

No I couldn't find any covers either. The only source of copies I could find was in the Library of Australia (but you have to pay for them). Their listing however does give the chronology of the merger-

 

[fizzywiggs41]

Sliding OT...however...did the BBC ever promote the use of the DynaQuad/passive speaker matrix decoding method as an easy way to get (a partial) surround decode of Matrix H broadcasts?


Kirk Bayne

Not necessarily promoted by the BEEB but some members of the British audio press did promote the use of The "Neal Resolver" which was similar in effect to a good Dynaquad decoder . And they used the terms Hafler and sometimes Haas in place of Dynaquad.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Not necessarily promoted by the BEEB but some members of the British audio press did promote the use of The "Neal Resolver" which was similar in effect to a good Dynaquad decoder . And they used the terms Hafler and sometimes Haas in place of Dynaquad.

Holy Moly! I learn something new just about every time I log on to QQ. I've never heard of the Neal Resolver, but it is/was a real thing:

https://www.petervis.com/record_pla...channel-resolver/neil-4-channel-resolver.html
And it even looked kinda cool. When I honeymooned in the UK a 100 years ago, I was fortunate to visit Alan Turner & his wife in Romsey. Alan was a dedicated music lover, and fan of quad surround. He was a sometimes contributor to the MCS Review. In his house he had only one form of surround sound, that from a Hafler/Dynaquad set up. In the US of A everyone was focused on the latest greatest quad tech. I'm under the impression that UK fans found a lot of satisfaction in simpler set ups.

 

[kfbkfb]

IMHO, another missed opportunity, L-R decoding becoming widely used might have influenced the QS/SQ/H mixes so that they sounded good with the correct decoder and also sounded good with a simple L-R decoder.

Anyone have any matrix H test signals - I'm interested in where the sounds end up w/DPL2 music and L-R decoding.

The Neal device User Manual claims that a single setting is fine for both QS and SQ, seems too good to be true.


Kirk Bayne

 

[Soundfield]

I'm under the impression that UK fans found a lot of satisfaction in simpler set ups.

Very much so. I would imagine that far more people used (or still use!) a simple L-R speaker connection to create a surround sound effect than used dedicated matrix decoders. Most of the hobby and HiFi magazines had regularly showed you how to connect up the additional speakers necessary since the early seventies.

Within a year or so lots of adapter boxes appeared in order to make it slightly easier for the average listener. The Neal “Resolver” was fairly expensive I seem to remember (and had those nasty DIN speaker sockets), but one of the most common alternatives was the Napolex QA-10 Quadraphonic Adapter-

(I got one from my local radio & TV repair shop - in the dim distant days when there were such places!).

They still frequently pop up on eBay and at car boot sales for a few quid-

so they must have been made in vast numbers.

To the extent that any specific terminology was used for the circuitry of such things it would mostly have been “Hafler”. with purists recognising the use of the front-rear blend being the "Hafler-Gerzon" variant, but I don’t think the term “DynaQuad” was known here. I had certainly never heard it until joining QQ!

But of course, whatever the name, they worked pretty well. So well in fact, that I think many people were hugely disappointed when they thought they’d upgrade to a proper expensive matrix decoder. I would imagine that many would have gone to a HiFi dealer to audition a matrix decoding system, expecting there to be a further quantum leap in performance over the extra bit of wire and two speakers they’d been rather pleased with, only to find that, even with the outlay of huge amounts of cash there was not!

 

[MidiMagic]

Dynaquad was a product sold by Dynaco as a kit or assembled. I have one.

I am trying to figure out the Neil Resolver. One position for both QS and SQ??? And what does the inductor do? Does anyone have a schematic?

I built a Dynaquad type decoder that actually decodes all sum and difference matrix systems and QS. Here is the schematic:

Width adjusts the front decode parameters. Depth adjusts the back decode parameters.

It can poorly fake an SQ decode by putting the back speakers to L-R and R-L (full depth - same as Dolby Surround setting). It doesn't get the back corners right, but it gets anything else encoded in the back.

 

[MidiMagic]

IMHO, another missed opportunity, L-R decoding becoming widely used might have influenced the QS/SQ/H mixes so that they sounded good with the correct decoder and also sounded good with a simple L-R decoder.

Anyone have any matrix H test signals - I'm interested in where the sounds end up w/DPL2 music and L-R decoding.

The Neal device User Manual claims that a single setting is fine for both QS and SQ, seems too good to be true.

Kirk Bayne

Using the Poincare sphere and the H encoding equations, I know that QS, DPL2, and Dynaquad should all decide H similar to RM/QS except that the front-to-back separation is lower.

 

[fizzywiggs41]

Holy Moly! I learn something new just about every time I log on to QQ. I've never heard of the Neal Resolver, but it is/was a real thing:

https://www.petervis.com/record_pla...channel-resolver/neil-4-channel-resolver.html
And it even looked kinda cool. When I honeymooned in the UK a 100 years ago, I was fortunate to visit Alan Turner & his wife in Romsey. Alan was a dedicated music lover, and fan of quad surround. He was a sometimes contributor to the MCS Review. In his house he had only one form of surround sound, that from a Hafler/Dynaquad set up. In the US of A everyone was focused on the latest greatest quad tech. I'm under the impression that UK fans found a lot of satisfaction in simpler set ups.

Yes ,I was in regular communication with Alan Turner (late) . He actually mentioned your visit (RSV) and said he enjoyed it.
He (of course) supplied me with all my Matrix H and HJ music requests from his 23 Reels. But on cassette and mostly Rock,pop,and Radio plays ,and for filler he would put in some Classical or an MOR artist . I in turn supplied him with jazz and including some RM encodings of MOR artists he did not have in his quad collection .
Also he sent me a wack of copies of articles on Quad mainly H , HJ and UHJ .
I even have a bit of him vocal on one or two cassettes. Around about 85 or 86 he informed me he was having heart problems (he was in his early 70s).
So I told him to quit with me and enjoy life ,and from time to time I would send him a letter ,perhaps once a year.

Anyways he sadly stopped replying sometime in 86 or 87 , so I figured that he was no longer able or capable or the worst ,that he was now on the other side of the grass.

He is missed ,because of his contributions to MCS Review , and other articles, and his generous nature.

It's through him I learned a great deal about the BBC Broadcasts in quad.

 

[Soundfield]

I am trying to figure out the Neil Resolver. One position for both QS and SQ??? And what does the inductor do? Does anyone have a schematic?

All of the speaker level 2-4ch adapter boxes I’ve ever seen had pretty much the same circuit. There’s only so many ways to skin a cat after all. Most didn’t bother with any means of blending the front channels as I guess most people didn’t want any reduced front channel separation. So that omission aside, I doubt the Neal Resolver could be fundamentally different to yours (although noting that the Neal and most other commercial adapters used switched, fixed WW resistors for level controls rather than expensive and unusual value ganged rheostats). I should imagine that the inductor in the Neal circuit is some form of crude tailoring of the rear channel frequency response. I doubt it had much effect.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Yes ,I was in regular communication with Alan Turner (late) . He actually mentioned your visit (RSV) and said he enjoyed it.
He (of course) supplied me with all my Matrix H and HJ music requests from his 23 Reels. But on cassette and mostly Rock,pop,and Radio plays ,and for filler he would put in some Classical or an MOR artist . I in turn supplied him with jazz and including some RM encodings of MOR artists he did not have in his quad collection .
Also he sent me a wack of copies of articles on Quad mainly H , HJ and UHJ .
I even have a bit of him vocal on one or two cassettes. Around about 85 or 86 he informed me he was having heart problems (he was in his early 70s).
So I told him to quit with me and enjoy life ,and from time to time I would send him a letter ,perhaps once a year.

Anyways he sadly stopped replying sometime in 86 or 87 , so I figured that he was no longer able or capable or the worst ,that he was now on the other side of the grass.

He is missed ,because of his contributions to MCS Review , and other articles, and his generous nature.

It's through him I learned a great deal about the BBC Broadcasts in quad.

Alan Turner, circa 1982:

Not great quality wise. Available light late afternoon. Agfa color 100. But I love the feel of it. And Cor! Blimey! Look at all those R2R tapes!

Oddly I don't remember discussing Matrix H or Ambisonics at all. From what you said it could have been quite lively! He did give me a cassette of BBC binaural recording of Gilgamesh. Interesting headphone effects but I never made it all the way through. I have no idea what it is about.

 

[kfbkfb]

Passive surround sound decoding was last mentioned here in High Fidelity mag in 1984:
https://worldradiohistory.com/Archi...lity-Video-and-Sound-1984-Edition.pdf#page=63

I'm amazed that L-R decoding of Matrix H wasn't heavily promoted by the BBC directly, is seems like the decoding "infrastructure" was there, anyone know if the passive L-R decoding system was widely used elsewhere in Europe?


Kirk Bayne

 

[fizzywiggs41]

Alan Turner, circa 1982:

View attachment 79946

Not great quality wise. Available light late afternoon. Agfa color 100. But I love the feel of it. And Cor! Blimey! Look at all those R2R tapes!

Oddly I don't remember discussing Matrix H or Ambisonics at all. From what you said it could have been quite lively! He did give me a cassette of BBC binaural recording of Gilgamesh. Interesting headphone effects but I never made it all the way through. I have no idea what it is about.

Yes look at all those wonderful Reels of tunes. Thanks for the picture . Is that Dynaquad unit on top of everything? Looks like a Lafayette unit, but so many manufacturers made them.

Also he was just getting involved with taping some digital? , Jazz artists that were processed in stereo from mono and sent me a copy. Actually sounded pretty good too.

Gilgamesh was one of the last tapes he sent me , and it's Ambisonics UHJ broadcast by the BEEB. It originally was to be full UHJ with height information but that was scuttled last I believe so 2channel UHJ surround .

Here is the article he sent from BBC Radio Times .(and HiFi For Pleasure).

 

[fizzywiggs41]

I should mention that Alan wrote an excellent BBC matrix H article in The MCS Review chock full of information.

What I did not know at the time was that they broadcast so many noteworthy artists , at least not until I started corresponding with Alan.
He looks pretty happy with his quad corner ,thanks again Sonic.

 

[Soundfield]

I'm amazed that L-R decoding of Matrix H wasn't heavily promoted by the BBC directly

You should understand that no aspect of Matrix H was promoted! That really was not what the year of experimental transmissions was about. In fact it was deliberately all very low key. Other than the occasional pre-programme announcement there was no mention of what quad was on the radio itself or how to receive it. Most people will have gone through the whole year without even knowing the experiment had taken place. In that sense it was very much like the initial trials of colour TV.

It was not about selling a new service but fundamentally about the BBC feeling its way with the practicalities of quadraphonic production, suitability of distribution networks and of judging the compatibility of matrix transmissions for mono and stereo listeners. It was interested to get feedback from audio professionals, but it knew there wouldn’t be many Matrix H decoders around in the public domain so to heavily promote it would have been largely pointless. It actually didn’t want lots of people to invest in decoders for fear that quad wouldn’t take off and they would be accused of burdening people with the expense of a useless purchase. Muddying the waters by suggesting a non-optimal means of listening was of no interest to them at that time.

After six months of the test I believe the BBC had received less than 100 letters about the transmissions and those were apparently evenly divided for and against. If the experiment had have been deemed to be a success, and the BBC had proved that they could have established a technically robust and genuinely useful service in the long term, then like after the colour TV tests, a period of active promotion would doubtless have followed.

 

[stevendive]

Gilgamesh was one of the last tapes he sent me , and it's Ambisonics UHJ broadcast by the BEEB. It originally was to be full UHJ with height information but that was

As far as anyone is aware, no 4 channel UHJ material has ever been released and certainly no processors were. It’s all been the 2 channel B(U)HJ, whereas 4 (and more) channel B-Format can be found here & there that can be processed with available ambisonics boxes.

 

[fizzywiggs41]

You should understand that no aspect of Matrix H was promoted! That really was not what the year of experimental transmissions was about. In fact it was deliberately all very low key. Other than the occasional pre-programme announcement there was no mention of what quad was on the radio itself or how to receive it. Most people will have gone through the whole year without even knowing the experiment had taken place. In that sense it was very much like the initial trials of colour TV.



My reply:yes
Soundfield, yes, that is pretty much true. There was a lack of promotion to the general public.


It was not about selling a new service but fundamentally about the BBC feeling its way with the practicalities of quadraphonic production, suitability of distribution networks and of judging the compatibility of matrix transmissions for mono and stereo listeners. It was interested to get feedback from audio professionals, but it knew there wouldn’t be many Matrix H decoders around in the public domain so to heavily promote it would have been largely pointless. It actually didn’t want lots of people to invest in decoders for fear that quad wouldn’t take off and they would be accused of burdening people with the expense of a useless purchase. Muddying the waters by suggesting a non-optimal means of listening was of no interest to them at that time.

My reply: I disagree ,because you should to be talking in past tense , and seem to be in future tense. Yes quad did not happen but not at that time it was still viable ,that time being 1977/78. And Decoders were available, but it took a couple months from the Commencement of the H broadcasts which started April 30th 1977.


After six months of the test I believe the BBC had received less than 100 letters about the transmissions and those were apparently evenly divided for and against. If the experiment had have been deemed to be a success, and the BBC had proved that they could have established a technically robust and genuinely useful service in the long term, then like after the colour TV tests, a period of active promotion would doubtless have followed.

My reply : You leave the impression that six months was the test time period when of course it was not.
There were broadcasts in 1978 which ran from January to August .first week of. .The last official was Genesis at Knebworth ,the July Concert broadcast in August is the last I know of.
Also of note the BBC still had their Matrix H system up for acceptance by the FCC awaiting acceptance I might add. They could have pulled it anytime if they totally caved in with quad , but did not. After all it was a BBC Investment that they claimed the rights to.

-Fizzy

edit

 

[fizzywiggs41]

As far as anyone is aware, no 4 channel UHJ material has ever been released and certainly no processors were. It’s all been the 2 channel B(U)HJ, whereas 4 (and more) channel B-Format can be found here & there that can be processed with available ambisonics boxes.

Yes.