4 channel FAILURE - The Quadraphonic Story

Quadraphonic sound promised so much in 1970 but by the end of the decade it had been and gone. Surely it was the next great thing after high fidelity stereo records just a few years earlier? Why did it fail despite being available on three different recording mediums and over the air, how did the whole thing play out, and how can you enjoy those 1970s quadraphonic recordings today with equipment you likely already have at home?

Link to my other channel - Big Car:

Sources:

#littlecar

[Desaved]

I still have my father's Quad Stereo by Fisher. It was very exuberating when you could hear the extra speakers. Changed the orientation of a lot of songs for the better.

[davidlane]

'Ole Audiophile to LC: You pretty much nailed the story I lived. I was inspired to purchase a full Quadrophonc setup after attending a concert, you nailed it, Pink Floyd in 1973, the dark side of the moon tour. I bought the speakers and the decoding gear built into a preamp with a rear amplifier, one tape looped it to a stereo reciever for four authentic channels. It had Matrix & SQ, this Pioneer unit with inputs for a CD-4 demodulator which I purchased. I had all three mediums, the reel to reel was the best but lacked quad sources to record from other than records. 8Tracks made dreadful source material. It actually all really worked quite well if one had it all but damn few did ( I was all alone as far as I knew.) The real problem turned out to be finding source material, recordings in Quad. Nobody and I mean ONE single record store had quad records (Recordlland mall store) & them damn few. One had to buy quad to hear quad so it slowly all got strangled by economics of the day. I went straight to Dolby Surround into every generation since. Thanx.

[patrickmaloy]

My audiophile housemate owned four Klipschhorn speakers (one in each corner of the den), a McIntosh 4 channel amp., a Thorens vinyl player, and a Studer Revox reel to reel. It was never a pleasure to listen to because I found it to be a "busy" distraction where each cut played seemed like an exaggerated demo. My personal stereo was a 2 channel Bang Olufsen Beomaster and it was good enough for me. I've owned four of them over the years and love them. When I moved out my bedroom was quickly filled with a pipe organ, hah!

[Ribeirasacra]

Ironically now we have Bluetooth speakers, which are mono. How advanced is that!

[masudashizue]

My 1972 Panasonic stereo system was actually 4 channel-ready. All you had to do was to purchase 2 extra speakers. Considering the added cost of 4 channel recordings, I opted not to pursue it. However, at one point it appeared that Quadrophonic was the future of audio.

[SockyNoob]

Stepping into Techmoan territory now, I like it.

[MrAdopado]

You are correct to point out the issues of the listening room. Most people are not sufficiently committed to home hifi to have 4 speakers around a room. This is clearly part of the reason why most people nowadays don't have a sound system that's even comparable to a 1970s stereo ... they make do with a Bluetooth box of some description, or listen via their questionable quality TV soundbar. For most people the only place nowadays where multichannel sound is feasible is in their car. The speakers are built in and have a consistent position that doesn't compromise the internal physical layout of the vehicle, unlike at home where your partner decides that the room needs a redesign ... "do we really need these big boxes in the way?" !

[christophermitchum]

Half speed delivered higher sonic articulation on all channels...big bro had a Teac reel, and a Pioneer receiver with quad and a bunch of the best support equipment!!! Helped our band in the pre-dj early days... and the BSR turntable, Teac cassette just Killed the audience at break between sets... those were the greatest days😎🎶✔️👆✌️🔥💥

[volvo]

A famous quadraphonic album was Tommy by The Who, which was encoded in SQ. The movie (1975) took it to an even higher level, being encoded in _quintaphonic_ sound, five discrete tracks. On the DVD release there is a bonus track, where it is shown how much effort they have done to retrieve the 1970s equipment needed to remaster the original multi-channel sound.

[jamietie]

The house my family moved into in the early 1980s had a quadraphonic hi-fi setup installed in the sunken family room (the two most 70s home items I can think of), and there was even a set of headphones with two 1/4" plugs and four drivers so you could experience quadraphonic bliss without bothering anyone else, but we never had any quadraphonic recordings. When I was a kid, my favorite move was the switch the unit from stereo to quadraphonic when there was an 8-track in there, because then it would play two tracks simultaneously

[cowanthegreat]

Believe the first attempt at surround sound was with Fantasia. BTW, that turntable you showed was my first turn table. Briefly had a Realistic Quad receiver in the 70s when I worked at RS, returned it when my boss fired me.

[adamlemons]

In the late 80s I purchased a used Pioneer quadraphonic receiver/amplifier from a pawn shop for around $50. On its front display it had a circular screen about the diameter of a soda can that had printed markings that resembled the site from a fighter planes machine gun. Just in front of that was a small joystick that controlled a green dot that appeared on the screen you could use to maneuver the sound to any position where you placed the dot. It had a few different switchable options that allowed you to use it in quadraphonic mode, stereo mode or a mode that allowed you to place different channels in different areas and then mix the whole thing around with the joystick. It was one of the most awesome sounding receivers that I have ever owned but sadly sometime in the mid 90s our young son spilled his cup of milk on the top of it and it never turned on again :-(
That thing was heavy and huge and the speakers in each corner, which I believe were 2 pairs of zenith 3-ways consisting of a 15 inch woofer, a 8 inch mid-driver and horn tweeter was absolutely amazing, though it did take up most of the living room at the time, lol!
I love the sound, convenience and size of my newer equipment, but I don’t think it would be too hard to convince me to trade it out for that 80s set up…

[BeefyMon]

FYI, the Dark Side Atmos mix is its own thing, unrelated to the 70s quad mix by Alan Parsons (I just caught myself typing Alan Partridge 🤦‍♂️, now THAT would be an experience!). The recent Atmos version was mixed by James Guthrie who also created the 5.1 SACD mix in the early 2000s. I haven’t closely compared the two, but I suspect the 5.1 at least served as a starting point for the Atmos mix. Incidentally, the “Immersion” boxed set of Dark Side contains a discrete high resolution version of the 70s quad mix AND the 2000s 5.1– perfect for comparison. The quad mix is more “discrete” in the sense that the sounds are separated more clearly in space, and the panning and other effects are more primitive. However, I prefer it in many ways over the more diffuse and sophisticated 5.1 mix, which sounds significantly better overall, but does get a bit swirly and cloudy at times.

[jbflores]

my best experience with quadraphonic sound was listening to Iron Butterfly's "In a Godda da Vida" with four-channel headphones! The drum solo in 3D is the best musical experience in my life!

[michaelbyrne]

Great video and information! I was a Marine stationed at Okinawa in "73". I was a quad guy but really didn't understand the whole concept of stereo vs quadrophonic! But I bought a Toshiba Quad System, PT-884 reel to reel, SB-404s Amp, SB-400 Turner, Frt SS-47'S and Rear SS-37'S speakers Akai 1721W reel to reel with built-in speakers! We used the shit out of that Akai, but it was only after I was out of the Service "76" that I really started to learn how to use the Quad System! No quad stations, so it was mostly reel to reel tapes and quad records, later bought a Panasonic Technics SA-8000x that had more technology built into it, than the Toshiba SB-404s but just on power I still think the Toshiba sounded better! Now all the 5.1, 7.2 Ect especially with movies but Rock music the systems just sound lame! I'll take a quad or especially an older quality Stereo System with a passive or active subwoofer hook into the "B" speakers so I can feel the Bass in my balls! With a good pair of speakers with at least 12" woofers on "A" speakers! I still have my equipment I purchased on the Rock! Good, Bad or indifferent they still work after 50 years! Now the Quadrophonic concept seems so yesterday? But a good Stereo System still kicks ass! Go figure?

[jswift]

When CD-4, which was the "new" system of Quad hit RCA, I was a recording engineer at RCA recording
studios in Hollywood. .One of the other engineers said that CD-4 was "a great system of Quad as long
as you had two engineers to setup and maintain it." Which was a very true statement.It was very difficult
to get it to work in the average home by the average person. At RCA Hollywood we were tasked with
remixing just a few albums into Quad and it was a very minor priority.Finally, we were told to "put the
most in important things in front and the minor elements in back." When remixing in Quad it was
done by the engineer alone with no producer input. I remember a friend of mine, who was familiar
with both the stereo and the Quad versions of a "Jefferson Airplane" album, say that both versions
sounded very different from each other.

[sonarand]

I had a Motorola 4 channel 8 track player in my car before most people had anything more than a radio. It was amazing, I fitted 2 speakers in the front doors and 2 in the rear parcel shelf. Most people I knew then were simply blown away by the experience.

[garysmith]

Thanks for your presentation! I jumped on the quad bus early on. Lafayette store in town at the time carried Sony and Marantz. I TOOK A LOAN to buy the Sony TC 338 deck, a Marantz 4140 integrated (with those four Mac type BLUE meters), and FOUR Keff speakers = ($1300 in 1974)! I STILL have the deck and the 4140 to this day, although, only in storage. I now have dedicated theater with 7.2.4 Atmos, but do enjoy SACD audio in there as well.

[snich]

We had a Quadraphonic system at home growing in the 70s, using LPs and a Sony amp. The only album I specifically remember having identifiable four channel sound was “Switched on Bach” by Wendy Carlos. The sound whizzed around all corners of the room.

Most of the Columbia albums had the original cover art shrunken down and surrounded by a broad gold band, to indicate they were Quadrophonic versions - an example is included in the Big Car video. The only variation we had - and I still have it - was the Carpenters “Now & Then”. It has a gatefold cover that unfolds into a triptych image, and has a very narrow Quadrophonic band only in the front cover, presumably so it didn’t disrupt the triptych.

[keithrushforth]

Considering that the way stereo works was totally lost on most people I'm not surprised quadraphonic failed to catch on. People would do things like placing one speaker in a corner and the other up on shelve, sometimes even behind other furniture so any chance of a stereo image was completely lost anyway.