What Song Was Your First Experience With Quadraphonic/MC?

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I was dog sitting for friends in Seattle in 1978 and the house I was staying at had a Quad 8 track player. They only had two quad tapes which were Aerosmith "Toys in the attic" and "A chorus line" That turned me into a quad lover.

What a weird contrast between the two tapes, musically speaking. That is like if you went to a friends house and he only had 2 albums......Rush 2112 and Neil Diamond ‘The Jazz Singer.’ I wonder which one I would pick 🤔.
 
That depends on what you call quadraphonic. I had playback equipment (and an encoder) a year before I had any released quadraphonic recordings.

As soon as I read about it, I set up a Dynaco Diamond in July 1970.

I am not sure which recording I played on it first, but it had to be one of these (I had gotten these records for my birthday just before I built the player):

Simon and Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme
Paul Revere and the Raiders - Revolution!
The Archies - The Archies Greatest Hits

All of them had material in the surround area.

Before I had any commercial quadraphonic recordings, I encoded material for a stage play. I monitored and played this 6 months before I had anything that was released.

The first quadraphonic record I ever had was:
The Ovation Compatible Stereo Quadraphonic Sound demonstration record

The song I remember was Rich Mountain Tower's "Uncle Bob White". -- It has a weak "you are there" effect. Most of the other songs on the album were ping-pongy.

The second quadraphonic record I ever had was:
Dynaco 4-Dimensional Stereo Demonstration Disc

I remember several songs on this record:

J J Perrey - Flight of the Bumblebee (Rimsky Korsakov) -- This used ping-pongy effects, but placed and moved instruments well around the listener.

Buffy Sainte-Marie - The Angel -- This is very spacious (some was artificial reverb) but still had a presence lacking in many quad releases.

Ian and Sylvia - Circle Game -- This is one of my favorite quad recordings. It has a very pronounced "you are there" effect I want in all quad recordings.

Country Joe and the Fish - Crystal Blues -- This was a letdown compared to the ones above. I heard very little presence or quad effects.

Handel - Hallelujah Chorus (from Messiah) -- At the beginning, you hear the difference between a mono recording, a stereo recording, and a 4-D recording. And this has a very well encoded "you are there" effect. I feel like I am in a concert hall or large church.

Berlioz - Tuba Mirum (Wonderful trumpet - from Requiem) -- This is a recording of this piece as it was intended to be played, with choirs and instrumentation all around the audience.

I consider this album to be the pinnacle of what I want in surround sound.

The original Dynaco Diamond has an attribute that later systems do not have. You can hear sounds recorded to the side without turning your head to hear the correct panning.

I also remember the first discrete recording I ever heard. It was quite disappointing. I hears sounds coming from the four speakers with nothing in between. It was a classical record, but I didn't get the details from the record. It was a showroom demo.
 
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This answer isn't really an answer to the question asked. I don't remember the song, but I remember the moment at a friend's house when I heard something played through an early Dolby Pro Logic system and experienced surround (at least in a matrix format) for the first time. My first dedicated surround disc was much later, the original Yes DVD-A of Fragile.
 
Couldn't have been. "Welcome To The Machine" wasn't released until '75.


That's correct , September 75 , I believe.

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Anyway my first quad songs were heard in stereo on a Harmon Kardon quad receiver in late 72.
The friend had only 2 front speakers. Asked him where the other two were , and he said you don't need 4 .!!??
What an Idiot.
BTW The album was Santana Caravanserai .

My first actual heard quad album was Santana Abraxis in 1973 on a cheap Metrotec amp/decoder. As well as Enoch Light's 4channel Sampler.

Slowly but surely I built up my quad record collection , replaced the Metrotec Amp/Decoder crap , and bought a good
Sony SQA 2030.

And never looked back , nor listened to stereo anymore if I could help it.
 
The first thing I heard in quad was from Enoch Light's "Spaced Out" album on quad tape. The track was "Bond Street", and when the synthesizer started going around the room, I was hooked.
I went straight for the DSOTM Immersion Parsons mix when I bought a quad receiver online, but soon afterward my first actual quad lp purchase was "Spaced Out" and I played it super loud, it's a great sounding album(except for the Ob-la-di cover which is slightly cringeworthy) :)
 
This has been really interesting reading the wide range of time that folks here discovered surround. IMO, when DTS and On Air by Parsons was launched that signaled the New Age of quad/surround. Anything before that is really old school. And that's the school I went to.

My 1st quad records I bought was Angel Clare and Mott: The Hoople in SQ. I also moved out of my parents that year in '74 and would play Golden Age of Rock and Roll as loud as I could with the front and back doors open, just to share with the neighborhood.

My only and first piece of quad gear at that time was the Sansui QS-1 Quadphonic Synthesizer. So no SQ decoder yet. I maintain to this day Angel Clare played in the Hall mode on that unit is the best I ever heard until the SACD. The Hall mode was undecoded front chs so that was good for SQ. And it used an odd sort of phase modulation in the rears that seemed to really compliment rear SQ, even if it was not decoding properly.
 
Mine was War of the worlds, many years after I bought it, I was big into movies and...
I assume you're talking about the Tom Cruise version of the film from 2005?

My first listen to quad was Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother in SQ through a Pioneer QX-949A receiver and SE-404 headphones. I recall nothing fantastic about the experience. My first listen to modern surround was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon SACD, before I could even listen to it correctly. I had bought a used Denon DVD-3910 from Ebay before I had a receiver that could handle the multi-channel output from it, so I connected one channel at a time through my Kenwood KR-V7080 receiver and thought "wow this is going to sound incredible!"
 
I assume you're talking about the Tom Cruise version of the film from 2005?

My first listen to quad was Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother in SQ through a Pioneer QX-949A receiver and SE-404 headphones. I recall nothing fantastic about the experience. My first listen to modern surround was Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon SACD, before I could even listen to it correctly. I had bought a used Denon DVD-3910 from Ebay before I had a receiver that could handle the multi-channel output from it, so I connected one channel at a time through my Kenwood KR-V7080 receiver and thought "wow this is going to sound incredible!"

No, the Jeff Wayne album version in sacd, sorry, I should have made that more obvious
 
I'd have to go back to my teens, when a friend's dad had a quadriphonic system -- this was early 70s -- but only played country music on it. I was intrigued by my brief listen, nonetheless. Fast forward to eight years ago, and when I had my new 7.2 system set up: I chose King Crimson's LIZARD as my first trial.

So, "Cirkus," and it was spectacular! I was hooked, and my wallet was doomed.
 
It was The Beatles Abbey Road 50th Anniversary that did it for me! Listening to “I Want You” full blast with organ solo…The End listening to Paul in the L, then George in the R and John in the C channel soloing blew me away. Ever since that experience, I have sold over 300 of my 180g remastered vinyl albums, and spent $ on upgrading my system to a Sony UBP-X800M2 Region Free Blu-ray player, linked to a Sony STRDN1080.CEK 7.2 CH 4K UHD AV receiver, and now sourcing as many multichannel plays recommended by QuadraphonicQuad as I can get my hands on. Now an immersive surround music enthusiast! 🎶🎸👍😎
 

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It was The Beatles Abbey Road 50th Anniversary that did it for me! Listening to “I Want You” full blast with organ solo…The End listening to Paul in the L, then George in the R and John in the C channel soloing blew me away. Ever since that experience, I have sold over 300 of my 180g remastered vinyl albums, and spent $ on upgrading my system to a Sony UBP-X800M2 Region Free Blu-ray player, linked to a Sony STRDN1080.CEK 7.2 CH 4K UHD AV receiver, and now sourcing as many multichannel plays recommended by QuadraphonicQuad as I can get my hands on. Now an immersive surround music enthusiast! 🎶🎸👍😎

You have the exact same setup as me, double Sony 👍
 
I never had the opportunity to hear any quad growing up. I got into movie surround in the early 90s and had a Yamaha Dolby Pro Logic receiver and 5 Mirage speakers. My first surround music experience was ELP’s version of Pictures at an Exhibition from the Return of the Manticore box, which I bought specifically for that song, which was encoded in Pro Logic. I occasionally still put that on, just to see how far things have come since.
 
Dudes, are you crazy asking a 70 yo burnout like me to remember something from the very early 1970s? LOL. Best I can do is remembering being at a friends house who had one of those quad 8 track cartridge players. I was impressed.
Not too long after I bought my Marantz 2270 reciever and a 2440 quad adapter. Crude attempts but I loved it just the same.
 
First surround music I ever heard was in 1973 at Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon tour in Buffalo New York. The PA system was quad, and we were more or less in the center between the two rear corner speaker stacksA
I'd have to go back to my teens, when a friend's dad had a quadriphonic system -- this was early 70s -- but only played country music on it. I was intrigued by my brief listen, nonetheless. Fast forward to eight years ago, and when I had my new 7.2 system set up: I chose King Crimson's LIZARD as my first trial.

So, "Cirkus," and it was spectacular! I was hooked, and my wallet was doomed.
King Crimson is my absolute all-time favorite group. I saw them play in Atlanta two nights ago. I have most of the 40th anniversary or 50th anniversary two disc sets that include a DVD or a Blu-ray that has a surround mix. I didn't want to spring for the $200 it cost for the lavish 20 plus disc box set for the debut album, as I am not that kind of a completist. But... I did buy the Blu-ray that has the original album mix, the updated stereo mix, the new surround mix and some alternate takes. Sadly, as I am not going to have a proper home theater set up until sometime this fall, I have not listened to any of the DVD or Blu-ray surround mixes yet!
 
First surround music I ever heard was in 1973 at Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon tour in Buffalo New York. The PA system was quad, and we were more or less in the center between the two rear corner speaker stacksA

King Crimson is my absolute all-time favorite group. I saw them play in Atlanta two nights ago. I have most of the 40th anniversary or 50th anniversary two disc sets that include a DVD or a Blu-ray that has a surround mix. I didn't want to spring for the $200 it cost for the lavish 20 plus disc box set for the debut album, as I am not that kind of a completist. But... I did buy the Blu-ray that has the original album mix, the updated stereo mix, the new surround mix and some alternate takes. Sadly, as I am not going to have a proper home theater set up until sometime this fall, I have not listened to any of the DVD or Blu-ray surround mixes yet!

Eat a lot of cat food to save money, too?

:D

Doug
 
Lots of great discussion and stories in this thread. It’s too bad the moderator changed my original title from “What song did you lose your quadraphonic/MC virginity to?” It seems to really apply.

And I didn’t know “virginity” was such a bad/inappropriate word. 🧐
 
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