Quadraphonic Questions

[salad 419]

Not sure how many of you are old enough to remember Quadraphonic Recordings(I barely remember them), but I have a few stupid questions that go with a story.

The story is that my uncle had an old farmhouse with a quadraphonic recording that had a train that circled the room that sounded "real". My dad tells the story over and over and over again. I'd like to get a DVD-A or SACD of that recording so I can show my dad how much cooler it is with newer technology (mainly a sub).

Anyway, if any of you geezers (I just had ethics training so I can't say things like that at work) could help me out, that would rock.

[Mr Peabody]

What exactly is your question, are you hoping that some one knows what that recording might be or are you wanting to know what type of set up would be comparable to Quad?

Off the top of my head I can't think of very many 360 demos on DVD. There is one scene in Jumunji where the boys scream goes 360. In the movie American Outlaw there is a scene where a train comes and the sound goes sort of diagnol but it sounds very real, the soundtrack is DTS. I never got into SACD.

[salad 419]

OOOPS, the beer forgot to ask the question.

The questions are:

Does anyone know the name of that particular Quadraphonic recording? Or are you at least somewhat familiar with it, was it a demo, or album, or what?
Does that recording exist on any current Multi-speaker(surround) digital medium?

[PeruvianSkies]

OOOPS, the beer forgot to ask the question.

The questions are:

Does anyone know the name of that particular Quadraphonic recording? Or are you at least somewhat familiar with it, was it a demo, or album, or what?
Does that recording exist on any current Multi-speaker(surround) digital medium?

The MOODY BLUES catalog is now on SACD and a few of their albums from the 70's were in Quad format, plus there is a recording of RAVEL's BOLERO from Mobile Fidelity that is also an SACD, which was also in Quad back in the day.

[Dusty Chalk]

No, I think he's asking specifically about the train recording.

And no, I don't know if it has been updated, but there's a lot of quad afficianados over at the quadraphonicquad forums, you might see if someone over there burned it to DVD...

[Woochifer]

In going through some of the used record store bins, I remembered seeing a lot of those old quadraphonic sound effect demo discs (there were also numerous releases of that kind in the early days of stereo). Not nearly as many straight up demo discs with SACD and DVD-A. Lots of compilations, but it's mostly music.

Here's a list of old quadraphonic compilations, and the ones listed under the Soundbird label feature several with locomotive sound effects. This includes some releases done by Brad Miller and the Mystic Moods Orchestra for Mobile Fidelity (which would later evolve into the now-famous audiophile label). I checked MoFi's website, and they have not reissued any of these releases on SACD.

http://members.cox.net/surround/quaddisc/quadQVA.htm

Some of Brad Miller's locomotive recordings are available on CD, but not any 5.1 format. (If they were originally encoded for one of the matrix quad formats, you can get a surround effect by running it through a Dolby Surround processor)

http://www.5point1.com
http://www.5point1.com/Mystic_Moods_Orchestra-SONIC_BOOMS_BY_Brad_Miller.html
http://www.5point1.com/Mystic_Moods_Orchestra-SONIC_BOOMS_Volume_II.html

If you want a SACD/DVD-A high on the WOW factor, you should look for Dr. Chesky's Musical 5.1 Surround Show. It's a fun little compilation of aggressively mixed surround music and sound effects (like a basketball court, ping pong match, and New York subway). Unlike the older sound effect releases, newer surround mixes (including this one) focus more on creating a "realistic" immersive effect rather than doing front-to-back and left-to-right panning effects.

Even in the discrete quad formats, the technology was not evolved enough to totally isolate the channels from one another. And the matrix-encoded quad formats can basically be decoded by any Dolby Surround processor.

Another good demo disc is the Sound & Vision Home Theater Setup DVD, because it has a set of the Dolby Digital trailers (the Train and City trailers in particular are great demos to crank), the THX "Cavalcade" trailer, and an excellent DTS surround music track from their 'Studio Voodoo album (great surround demo material set to electronica).

Nowadays, if you want to demonstrate sound effects, movies are far more effective, especially if you're looking at bass. For your dad, I would just invite him over for a movie night featuring U-571, Saving Private Ryan, Master and Commander, and The Haunting (the DTS version) and pick his jaw off the floor when the night's done.

[hydroman]

^yeah... I remember the first time having the 'outlaws' over to watch a movie. The bass rumbled the house and they FREAKED OUT!. *wheez*- good times... They had never heard such a system. (And my current one blows THAT one a way!)