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Quadraphonic... what's old is new again but not the same

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  • #1

    Quadraphonic... what's old is new again but not the same

    An interesting evening here. Did something i've had on the back burner for ages. And what fun it was, really. It made me think...

    While many people in the hacker community tend to have pretty nice toys in the "home theater" wing of their home, complete with subwoofer madness and full 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound for our DVDs, many of us don't have a lot of memories of older 4-channel releases of music albums.

    I was growing up just as quad was falling out of fashion. LPs were being pushed out of the market by cassettes and soon after CDs. On everything from portable stereos to radio broadcasts to TV shows, 2-channel stereo was the hallmark of awesome, and there was nothing more.

    When DVDs and later Blu-Ray discs started making regular folk interested in serious home theater setups, people again started to hear sounds from "behind" them but these were often audio editing after-thoughts... the hum of a car as it whizzes past or the footsteps of a person fleeing off-camera.

    It's really something else to truly hear and experience whole music albums that were conceived and mastered and edited with four-channels of surrounding audio in mind.

    Tonight some friends and i experienced Dark Side of the Moon in full quad using a home theater surround sound setup. It's not difficult... die hard music enthusiasts have been converting this album from master tapes or old LPs for a while now and spreading it across the internet in various formats. DVD-A and segmented tracks of .DTS or .FLAC are common.

    If, however, you have the means to easily find either a pre-compiled DVD-video ISO image or an .MKV file that your media PC or TiVo can understand... by all means download this. You might get lucky and be able to just throw it at your home theater equipment and make the file play... no stringing together of separate tracks.

    I highly encourage it. Sit right in the middle of the room, lower the lights, lean back in your chair... and experience something that has all but died out from our current-day menu of aural delights.

    Just my $0.02... technologies fall from favor (like 4-channel music) sort of "vanish" from society's memory unless people play with them from time to time.
    "I'll admit I had an OiNK account and frequented it quite often… What made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store… iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc... OiNK it existed because it filled a void of what people want."
    - Trent Reznor
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  • #2
    Re: Quadraphonic... what's old is new again but not the same

    Dev, what you may not remember at all is that in many cities during the 1970's quadraphonic stereo was broadcast using all four audio channels on some of the higher-end FM stations. Since there was a limited number number of receivers capable of getting the signal and decoding properly, it was an audio phenomena that didn't last long.
    Thorn
    "If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." - Catherine Aird

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    • #3
      Re: Quadraphonic... what's old is new again but not the same

      Originally posted by Thorn View Post
      Dev, what you may not remember at all is that in many cities during the 1970's quadraphonic stereo was broadcast using all four audio channels on some of the higher-end FM stations. Since there was a limited number number of receivers capable of getting the signal and decoding properly, it was an audio phenomena that didn't last long.
      Didn't you have a quadraphonic 8-track deck in your bright yellow van with deep pile orange shag carpet? :)
      A third party security audit is the IT equivalent of a colonoscopy. It's long, intrusive, very uncomfortable, and when it's done, you'll have seen things you really didn't want to see, and you'll never forget that you've had one.

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      • #4
        Re: Quadraphonic... what's old is new again but not the same

        Originally posted by streaker69 View Post
        Didn't you have a quadraphonic 8-track deck in your bright yellow van with deep pile orange shag carpet? :)
        No, no 8-track, quad or 2-channel. It had an AM/FM/cassette. Besides, who told you about the van? All the pictures were destroyed a long time ago.
        Thorn
        "If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." - Catherine Aird

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        • #5
          Re: Quadraphonic... what's old is new again but not the same

          Originally posted by Thorn View Post
          No, no 8-track, quad or 2-channel. It had an AM/FM/cassette. Besides, who told you about the van? All the pictures were destroyed a long time ago.
          Or so you thought. I have it with that picture of you in your hip hugger/bell bottom police uniform with the gold chains and fro.
          A third party security audit is the IT equivalent of a colonoscopy. It's long, intrusive, very uncomfortable, and when it's done, you'll have seen things you really didn't want to see, and you'll never forget that you've had one.

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: Quadraphonic... what's old is new again but not the same

            just as an aside, there are two distinct quadraphonic mixes of the Dark Side of the Moon. The original 1973 mix by studio legend Alan Parsons and a totally new mix done for the 30-year anniversary re-release which was engineered by James Guthrie.

            This later release was made for the awful SACD platform. Done in 5.1, it includes a center-speaker channel and has a much more "blended" sound overall.

            The original quad channel (properly designated as just 4.0 sound) has a lot more "around the room" sort of feel to it. It's a bit obvious at times, with certain elements sort of thrown in just for the fun of the surround effect (footsteps running around the room, etc) but i think it really captures that period in music history.

            Incidentally, if you are trying to search around the 'tubes for a version of this that you can play, forget the SACD 2003 releases. Ignoring the fact that it's a re-worked 5.1, they are in a format that nothing will play... even the Sony Playstation dropped support for it in the latest generation of that gaming platform.

            One of the best releases you might be able to seek is a user-authored DVD release that was created from the original 4.0 Alan Parsons master tapes. (not ripped from an LP or 8-track as many WAV/FLAC releases are these days) A fellow by the name of vector_x did a full workup of the audio (adding in a subwoofer channel in the process... making this a release in 4.1, technically) and someone named Supo authored an "Ultimate DVD" which features the following...
            a DVD-Audio track in 96K with MLP surround sound
            a DVD-Video session with 48K DTS surround sound
            a DVD-Video session with 48K Dolby Digital surround sound

            ... the full DVD sessions (included for greater compatibility, because surprisingly many home theater devices can't play DVD-A reliably) display simple slideshow images (they usually only change with each track, so it's not too distracting when listening) for the video stream.

            all in all, a really great release and one that you'll have the best chance of getting to play, on whatever equipment you might have at your place. if you search torrent sites, your best bet is to seek out something like "Dark Side of the Moon Ultimate DVD"

            you'll know it's the correct release if you see the following four files in the archive...
            DSOTMlabel .jpg 300.1 KB
            DVDcoverDSOTM.jpg 900.4 KB
            Pink Floyd - Ultimate DSOTM 4_1.iso 3.4 GB
            and an info text file of some kind

            ... give it a try yourselves, you might get a real kick out of it. and remember, kids, for the full whacky college experience, start the music playing on the third roar of the MGM lion. (wonder how many folk here are too young to even get that reference)
            "I'll admit I had an OiNK account and frequented it quite often… What made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store… iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc... OiNK it existed because it filled a void of what people want."
            - Trent Reznor

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: Quadraphonic... what's old is new again but not the same

              Originally posted by Deviant Ollam View Post

              ... give it a try yourselves, you might get a real kick out of it. and remember, kids, for the full whacky college experience, start the music playing on the third roar of the MGM lion. (wonder how many folk here are too young to even get that reference)
              "Ignore the man behind the curtain!"

              Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm older than dirt.
              Thorn
              "If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." - Catherine Aird

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: Quadraphonic... what's old is new again but not the same

                One of my first DEFCON experiences (DC17) was walking into the nostalgia room and they had DSoTM playing on a turntable through a really nice quadrophonic setup...

                Brought back some great memories.
                'jazz

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