ok I'll ask: What is the best surround synthesizer?

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So after all these years my QSD-1 is sick. Sounds like one of the band passes, as though the midrange quit in the Rt channel. Only low bass and upper treble. I have no QS records to use with it, always used it in the surround mode. Thinking about replacing with a different surround processor that will do really good Dolby Pro Logic. I use this mode on my living room surround receiver when listening to stereo music and to me synthesizes quad from stereo as well or better than the old QSD-1 did when it was in its prime. Any suggestions for a standalone surround unit with excellent audio characteristics that's maybe a few years obsolete i.e., fairly cheap?

It sounds like a cap to me, I recently repaired the phono section of a Marantz SC-80 preamp, a bad capacitor was the culprit and that unit was from the mid eighties. In any case the QSD-1 is built like a battleship any competent repair shop should be able to change out capacitors if you can't do it yourself. It's a good idea to use film types instead (provided you can make them fit). Even the lowly Mylar is a better capacitor than any electrolytic and film types should last forever.
If electrolytics are used get quality brand name devices such as Panasonic FC available from Digi-Key, never use cheap Chinese caps or the unit will be back in the shop within six months! I'm sure that you could sell it in the condition that it's in and make enough to get one of Rusty's Reality-Technologies decoders with plenty of money leftover. Myself I would just re-cap.
 
Just to say again
It is not my decoder
It was made by Reality Tec.
Charlie let me play with it to see how it stood up
against the QSD1 witch I have been using for about 35 years
I have no money invested in it
Just thought that any other Quad collectors may be interested
Ron
 
I am completely unfamiliar with whatever a QSD-1 is, though I suspect it's a Sansui-made product. In my own experience, and this was a long time ago, my preference - by a long shot - was the "Composer A" circuitry in the Lafayette units. Newer Lafayette receivers (the LR-5000 in particular) abandoned the Composer -A circuitry for "RM," or "Regular Matrix" designed for the Sansui QS system, which did a lousy job of simulating quad from regular stereo.

The Composer A did wonders with many recordings, and most of us in the Lafayette stores, while told repeatedly to use only SQ records for demo, regularly played 2-channel stereo recordings through the Composer A circuit, since it often sounded much better, even though the results were entirely accidental. It was also a very effective means of explaining to potential customers that their existing libraries of regular stereo records and/or tapes could produce some really interesting and fun effects - often more exciting and with better instrument localization than the best SQ-W circuitry. But that's now all just memories...
 
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