My First Quad

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J

jrahrah

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OK, it was a pseudo quad. When I was around 14 in say about 1974 or 75, my parents broke down and got a new system for the finished basement-of course they needed my help in picking it out.

I definitely wanted quad, if only for the mere reason four speakers had to better than two. I must admit that my criteria was not that of a true audiophile. I was attracted to the systems that looked nicer, the ones that had more lights and meters. Since my parents were bank rolling this, cost was a definite factor.

We settled on a Juliette phase four unit. In my opinion, it looked cool. It was silver with a green face when powered up. It had an AM/FM receiver and an 8-track player recorder and two VU meters. She also had a separate BSR turntable and four matching Juliette speakers.

As I remember, it really did sound nice. The phase four effect gave a nice synthesized surround sound. I spent hours sitting in the yellow plastic recliner, listening to records and tapes with one of the rear speakers over my head. I was in of the sound. It somehow managed to produce certain sounds distinct to the rear, while the main soundstage was from the front.

I lost that Juliette unit when I left it at a house we rented for the winter in the Poconos. As far as I know, one of my old friends has it but I always remember the sound it made. Of course today I have 5.1 and recently I got a Sansui QRX 7001 that I can't wait to get set up.

Let's here some of your stories, Murph
 
Although I am old enough to have been around during quad's "first phase" I was never exposed to it way back when. None of my friends were into quad, and although I'm sure I heard of it, it never really captured my attention. Hell, I was just a poor kid in junior high, struggling to maintain even a simple stereo. My first stereo system was actually an 8-track tape deck for a car. I hooked it up to the power transformer for my train set so I could play it in my bedroom. Yeah, real audiophile quality stuff! :p

If you're really interested (or just plain bored) you can read about my long, dark descent into the world of quadraphonics <a href="http://www.greatgig.com/quad/Initiation.htm" target="top">here</a>.

The short version of the story is that I didn't get into quad until well after quad's first demise and slightly before it's current resurgence. It was like 1994 when I bought my first piece of quad gear, which was a Panasonice SE-405H CD-4 demodulator. Five years later in 1999 I got serious about surround-sound and totally went off the deep end. I'm still in therapy and probably will be for the rest of my life. :p


 
My first "quad" was a Heathkit (remember those) "AR-something or other" receiver/tuner with a no-logic SQ decoder and a JVC CD-4 demodulator. Obviously, this put me in the CD-4 camp, as SQ sucked at that point with that decoder.

I added a Q8 player. When I was sent to Europe (by the USN) I spent all of my $$ at the Naples Audio Exchange, and got a QRX-999, an AKAI GX-630D-SS (over the TEAC because the AKAI did 3 3/4 ips and the TEAC did not) and basically upgraded speakers, etc.

Then quad went away, but the mighty QRX-999 still lived on.

The rest, is history............

:-jon
 
I first heard quad sometime in the mid seventies. I went to a hifi store in the local mall with several of my friends. Our mission was to seek out quad and hear it. I was not disappointed. The lady put an eight track tape in a player that was true quad and I was mesmerized! But it was to be a long time before I was to own a piece of quad gear. I was a school boy and had no money for such things. However, I had heard quad, and I knew it was good. Later in tech school, I built a matrix decoder based on the "dynaco" quad system. It was tube gear, and it worked as far as passing signals go. I never got to hear it, for the next piece of equipment I bought was a Pioneer quad receiver. I reasoned that the Pioneer's decoder had to be better than the one I built, of my own design, so I never tried the little homade tube decoder. I should have, It might have been an improvement over the junky SQ decoder in the Pioneer. I was disappointed to say the least. But I had heard real quad, did I not? I knew there was better yet, so my search for discrete quad began. I was able to get my hands on the last CR80DSS that Akai had, and quickly ponied up the money for it. By this time I had a job at the same World Hifi store where I had originally had heard quad the first time. I was flipping through a hifi magazine and I saw a small advertisement in the back with "hippie" fonts, advertising a SQ decoder that would "make my SQ records come alive". It was pricey as hell, and I put my car up to get the money to purchase a black box from a little company called Audionics of Oregon. My boss was laughing at me for paying $750.00 for snake oil. He quit laughing when he heard it, saying "Damn! that thing IS rubbed with magic snake oil!" The rest is history.

The Quadfather
 
I missed out the first time around (born in 1975) but reading outdated books my library had got me interested in the mid 80s. I never thought I'd find any of this stuff, but at a garage sale that summer I found a Heathkit reciever with Q8 built in, SQ decoding, and 4 speakers for the princely sum of $12! As luck would have it, I found a Best of the Guess Who Q8 that same summer, but it was a while before I got my first SQ record (Mott the Hoople).

Anyhow, the Heathkit was a POS pretty much, the SQ decoding was terrible. About all I really remember is distortion and "wait! I think I hear seperation!" Eventually I went back to my stereo set and the Heathkit magically dissapeared during a summer cleaning (thanks mom! :rollin: )
 
I was thumbing through the Radio Shack flyer that came every month. There is was - QUADRAPHONIC! There were three systems: Good, Better and Best. I settled for good. It was an integrated amp with a no logic sq, no qs or cd4 at all. I had an old BSR changer and ran to the store to buy a quad record - the best of the doors. (Reverse on Cai). Got it home put it on - sounds good, but doesn't really seem to be doing anything. Back to the books - Crap! Ran back to the store; need an SQ record. Bought Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles Live! Put it on - sounds good, but not really doing anything either. Back to Radio Shack - hear a Q8 - now we're talking! Got a deck. Those sq decoders will get better, so I am going to keep buying sq records. Quad is the wave of the future, right? Don't want to be left behind. Got the Space and Image Composer in college, about seven years after that Radio Shack venture. So my persistence was rewarded at last. Ahhh, I knew those decoders would get better. And the Audionics guys loved to sit and talk on the phone about quad and audio! Like the guy down the street. What could be better? Where are you today Steve Kennedy?
Marc
 
Hey Captainwrong I was born in '75 as well, October the 1st to be precise! (hence the SQDave1975).
My first Quad purchase was a second hand Mike Oldfield "Boxed" LP set. I didn't have any internet connection at that stage, and I wanted to know what this "SQ" quadraphonic system that the booklet proclaimed, was all about. A visit to a local "Cash Converters" store was met with the purchase of a Sony SQ-D2020 SQ decoder for the equivalent of about $40. After touching up the cold solder joints, I was able to enjoy TB/Hergest Ridge/Ommadawn with a reasonable amount of separation!
On a quest for more, the hunt for more records and better equipment continued....the rest is, as they say, history.......
 
My first quad experience was around 1970 when a Toyo Quadio Car Quad 8 player in the Sears mail order catalog caught my eye. After reading about it I just had to have it. So, I sent for it and replaced my Craig floor mount stereo 8-track player with the underdash quad unit. There was definitely not an abundance of quad 8 material for sale in my hometown, population 5,000. So, I joined the Columbia Quadraphonic Tape Club and ordered Janis Joplin Pearl, Sly Greatest Hits, Edgar Winter TOCOAN, Loggins and Messina, Mama Lion and Jeff Beck Rough and Ready.
I can say with certainty that I was probably the only person in Eastern Oregon at the time who had any quad equipment.
I was a big hit with all my friends when we went cruising in my 67 Camaro listening to quad tunes. Edgar Winter's Frankenstein was a big favorite.
 
1st unit Heathkit EV universal Decoder, 2nd Unit BSR/Metrotec SQW-D, 3rd unit Lafayette CD4 Demod(yrs 72,73,76) 1984 Tetrasound 101(A) sn TS-049(op amps have been replaced by AD713's and P/S repaired and unit recapped by self,then got Akai CRS=80 2 Teac 1/2340s, 1/2340R, and Pioneer QD=249, I own approx 1050 quad lp's various formats, and have friend with about 600 Quad 8trks
 
I thoroughly enjoyed reading about everyone's first quad setup in the Quad Yahoo group we used to use. I was working on my MBA back then, so I was under a lot of stress and didn’t have time to put in my own story. But now with another opportunity to give you my story, here it is…

I bet none of you would ever think of buying a console stereo, let alone quad. :rollin: Yes I said “console”, you know the furniture type? There were so many thin-sounding console stereos made with their ceramic 20-gram or so tonearms, that any audiophile would just cringe on playing their cherished albums on them.

Well it was my junior year in high school and I wanted a decent stereo system. I always collected and dreamed over all those brochures of high end component manufacturers. I had a very limited budget and had do a lot of wise shopping, considering I was only making $2.10 per hour and had to take out a loan from my mother’s credit union to purchase a system. :rolleyes: I didn’t know much about quad but the idea intrigued me. However, I knew I didn’t want anything that sounded like a Superscope, Capehardt, Electrophonic (those lights!), Panasonic (they were a popular brand for trash portable quad units back then—some with sphere speakers even!) or anything else that sounded like AM radio x 4.

I ended up buying the top-of-the-line Zenith F947P in 1974. :D It was the first and I believe only year that Zenith made four discrete quad console models. Most of all console stereos are usually crap, except in a few cases, the performance gap between the top-of-the-lines and their less expensive siblings were considerable. It was the last year that Zenith made any decent sounding stereos, console or portable.

The turntable sucked :mad: (came with one of those mass-produced BSR-manufactured turntables outfitted with a cheapo Zenith tonearm with an equally matched dull-sounding ceramic cartridge). However, what was lacking in its turntable was more than made up for in its receiver, quad 8-track deck and speakers. They were surprisingly decent! Zenith used the same technology to display the tuner dial as in my Sansui QRX-7001’s 2/4 channel indicator. I’ve played my 8-tracks in many players, but none would play them with the “crispness” as my Zenith 8-track player did. Each channel was outfitted with 3½ inch horns, 10-inch woofer and a computer-tuned vented port. The bass was so efficient in this system that I remember scaring my nephew one evening as the living room drapes shook when I played the thunder sequence in Walter (Wendy) Carlos’ Sonic Seasonings Spring track.

I loved (and still do!) this system. It looks like an expensive piece of furniture. The only things I did not like about this system was that darn turntable, two matrix settings that did squat for decoding SQ (you can imagine my surprise what SQ was intended to sound like after all these years when I got the Tate 2 years ago!) and the front speakers being fixed close together in the main console unit. At least the rear speakers where separate and I could place them anywhere in the room! Consequently, I used to always listen to this system in the living room “sweet spot”.

I eventually overcame the turntable dilemma by adding a BIC 920/AT magnetic cartridge combo, later replacing it with a Technics SL-1650 direct drive automatic changer/Grado F1+/AT15sa CD-4 magnetic cartridges combo. WOW what an improvement a magnetic cartridge made! Now the Zenith shone! Still later as I got more money I added a Teac 3440 4-channel 10½ reel to reel, Teac 4-channel Dolby B AN-300 encoder/decoder (for those Columbia Quad 8s encoded with Dolby B), dbxII 124, and top-of-the line JVC KD3030 cassette deck. I don't know why I never got a CD-4 decoder back then, probably due to my disappointment with SQ and quad was on its way out. (But you'll be happy to know that within the last year and a half I more than made up for the loss of time by acquiring five CD-4 decoders--2 JVC 4DD-5s, Marantz CD-400 and CD-400B, and the one in the QRX-7001). By now my Zenith sound system was sweet sounding, confidently readily able to compete with separate component/speaker systems costing tens of hundreds more. But then you’ll probably ask, “This Zenith couldn’t sound this well” :lol: but then I challenge you to ask yourself, why would I spend all this money on the other components I bought if the Zenith couldn’t live up to it. :| You've got to realize that when I bought those high-end components I had to listen to the high-end amps and speakers in the store! Believe me, the Zenith did sound this good!

I still have the Zenith and everything I bought after it. As far as I can tell with my naked ears, it still sounds as good as it did when new. I eventually moved up to my dream audiophile system, with speakers costing $10K back in the early 90s. And although I won’t admit the Zenith will ever sound as good as my audiophile system, it will always hold a “quad” spot in my heart for starting all. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/grin.gif ALT=" >D">

Ed
 
Wow! There are some really interesting stories here!

My first quad was in 1972 with my AKAI GX280D-SS while on active duty in Okinawa where I purchased it. That particular quad was homemade using the sound on sound feature of the AKAI. My friend and I listened to Steely Dan through the front channels while we recorded his bongos and my Yamaha acoustic guitar on the rear channels.

BTW, he happened to have purchased one of the most interesting, and overkill mechanical devices AKAI ever produced. I don't remember the model number, but this stereo cassette deck had a mechanism that actually retracted the cassette, raised it, flipped it 180 degrees, lowered it and then reinserted into playing position. Why they (AKAI) did not consider just just reversing the tape I'll never know, unless someone here knows.

Fun topic!
QM
 
Hey QM - I remember that cassette deck. It was amazing to watch the cassette filp around!!

AS far as the Zenith goes, I am not suprised that the sound was so good. Those "console" stereos were actually pretty good pieces of equipment, with hearty amps and good speakers. As I recall, they were not exactly cheap, either.

Great stories, guys!
 
I think the decks you are talking about are what my friends used to call the 'bay window' cassettes decks. They had that window to allow room for the tape to flip. The reason is that when you reverse the direction of the cassette the azimuth gets off as the tape is now going the other direction. The theory was that it would be better to have it always going the same way. To this day, when my car deck reaches an end I pop the tape and turn it over rather than let the auto reverse do its thing, as the highs sound off in reverse.
Marc
 
Teac made a few decks with quick reverse heads, where the head rotated and kept the azmuit correct. They had Dolby b,c,HX-pro, and dbx. I own 2 such decks!
Rob
 
Wow! and I haven't been on much of late. Working on some conversions and really need to get into some of the other subjects but "time is tight " good song and no pun intended
:cool: 0] Rob
 
Just got in from a "record collectors show", looking for quad stuff of course, nothing new there.
Came to this site to see what was of interest here. Saw the "postings" about different ones 1st quad experiences. It dawned on me that I might be the oldest one checking this sight out! Sounds as if some here were pretty young when quad was first coming out.
Me and some "stereo" friends had first got the idea for "surround" back in the mid to late 60's. We used to build Heath & Scott & LaFayette kits that had "center channel presence" controls on them. We used to build "ping pong boxes" that used this "center" control and then part of the left right signal and combine it all to get a "modern surround effect." Basically it took the signal and made a "X" pattern with out of phase stereo from each of the 4 corner speakers and the center in the middle of the "X" where a person set. In it's day it was pretty awesome "surround". If nothing else, plenty of "volume", considering that each of the 4 speakers was usually the size of a modern day refrigerator and the "sub woofer" was usually in the basement, made out of a cement block enclosure about 7 foot square.
In the late 60's early 70 I heard a Pioneer "new quad" and got it. Then heard the Marantz demonstrated with "newer" surround components. Traded of course! Then heard a Sansui QRX "pro" model, used at a radio station for broadcasting, called "simulcast", on Sat. evenings only. Usually a 1 or 2 hour program that was shown on a TV channel and played on the radio at the same time. The "heyday" of quad! As the ads said, "live music in your living room!", better then being there! By then had two kids and they had to "eat lean" so I could put out the over thousand dollars to have the Sansui QRX-6001 and 4 matching speakers. Even had to sell the "phonograph/turntable" and "reverberation" unit in my vehicle to afford it. The things we did for Quad!!
A great sounding system.(the QRX-6001)
But alas, some of my stereophiles friends talked me into "getting sensible" and going the audiophile route. Traded in the 6001 and went to class-A monoblocks, 100 lb. turntables(with bamboo arms) etc. etc. Sure do miss my 6001!
 
I'm really enjoying reading the stories this post has generated. I just hooked up my newly acquired Sansui QRX 7001 and took it for a spin. I have set up a retro room, upstairs on the third floor where I have the QRX, my turntable and LPs and the Superscope QRT 440 8 track. I'm now in the process of getting the turntable quadtrofitted and purchasing Q-8s' and CD-4s'.

In my retro room I have the same vinyl yellow recliner that was in my parents basement that I sat in twenty some years ago. It is positioned, as then, in the sweet spot. What a nice rich sound that Sansui produces. The QS & SQ synthesizers do a nice job on my classic vinyl. I have one Q-8 by America and had a great time sitting there being enveloped in the sound-can't wait for the quad LPs'.

I have a Yamaha DSP-A1, that reintroduced me to the world of surround, when I started to play the DTS CDs. The Yamaha is great in its' own right but I must admit that the Sansui does a nicer job of decoding my LPs' in surround.

That's it for now; I hope to read more of your stories. Murph
 
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