So many folks choose to ignore this fact, or just are unaware

Yes, Philips GP 422

My father had a reel to reel quad setup when I was a kid. I used to love listening to the Good the Bad and the Ugly soundtrack, it sounded amazing!

Dark side of the moon recorded this way

Back in the early '80s I had a quad system but, since it was hard to find quad albums I never bothered with the special cartridge, but I loved the four-speaker setup and so did all my friends and neighbors who partied in the back yard waiting for the special MTV show, simulcast on the FM station (since I didn't have a stereo tv), where everyone congregated around the tv and we were enthralled. Best times of my life.

I do this. It works out great, and you cna put in quite granular separation. Ive even got a plugin for good old winamp, a DSP that does great results from PC to DAC + HT Amp

3 channels would be the most accurate if only they had found an audience..

To say "Stereo was originally going to be 3 channels" is only at best half true and certainly robs us of some history if we only think this. What you are likely referring to were the competing stereo capture and repro initiatives being led 1930s by British engineer Alan Blumlein @ EMI and by Harvey Fletcher at Bell Labs. Blumlein was a 2 channel proponent, Fletcher was multi-channel. Im rather sure Blumlein was first to the party, and either way, his way won out. That said, 3 channel summation from a 2 channel signal is something folks in the mid to late fifties were indeed playing around with, Mr. Klipsch has some papers from the time that talk about how to derive an LCR playback from a 2 channel source, mentions of it online are easy to find. Experiments like that (and likely some 3 channel releases of some type) meant stuff like that Citation amp was probably a fun bit of kit for its time.

@@ksukhia RCA and Mercury used three channels to record their classical repertoire. Many of those recordings are available on SACD. They used left center, and right microphones, strategically placed to capture the orchestra, and hall ambience.

@@JayRudko neat!

"Ambisonic" makes me think of Sennheiser's AMBEO eco-system of immersive sound. Neat!

CD-1 records? Can you be more specific? I'm guessing you mean CD-4, which do require a special cartridge ans stylus to play in quad. The matrix formats (SQ, QS, EV) only need a stereo cartridge to play in quad. If you do build that SQ decoder, I'd be interested in how well it works.

You can still do the Hafler method, but you need an amplifier that can handle the load. The hot wire from the left channel goes to the hot input on the left rear speaker, hot right output goes to the hot input on the right rear speaker, and you connect the ground terminals of the rear speakers with a wire. At least theoretically, you could use switchable resistors to lower the rear volume in the line between the speakers. It's going to put an irregular load on your amplifier and I suggest that you don't crank your system too high. Using a second amplifier for this might be a good choice, rather than your pride and joy system.

I'm using the Hafler method right now. Except the matrix is done at the input. It's an old 4.1 channel PC speaker system and PC's don't have read outs anymore! So I Y'd the line out and fed the rear amps a differenced combo. Rear is pure ambiance. It can get deep at times.

in the 80s there were systems (I still have mine), even the cheap ones, all in 1, with output for 2 small rear speakers that did just that, reproduce sounds out of phase, and it worked very well, even with movies.

As i said above, I have a DIY Hafler matrix line level circuit feeding a mono amp for the rears which I use. I like it for most material but yes, on some recordings it doesn't work very well. So I simply turn it off

The hafler circuit Is super fun, even if you're just put one extra speaker

More misinformation than even usual for Paul

Most here don't remember the King Bisquit Flower Hour. Awesome concerts!!

I have Atom Heart Mother and Wish You Were Here in Quad. It really is how they were meant to be heard.

Agree 100%

Pink Floyd had at least three albums mixed for Quad , but they were the exception. Atom Heart Mother in Quad is wild.

Music is generally recorded using multiple tracks, often as many as 24, more or less. This is then mixed down into whatever number of channels are needed, be it 2, 4, 5.1, or more. To say that all music is recorded in 2 channel is highly incorrect.

@@JayRudko I appreciate that but of the more than 26,000 songs have on my server and on vinyl, I have one album that I know of that is recorded in 5.1 and that is Dark Side of the Moon on the SACD. I am sure there are some others but to say that most if not all audio is recorded in 2 channel, is a true statement.

@@bradesq9422 Brad, not to argue, but you might want to read some articles about how modern recordings are actually recorded, and how the recording engineers mix the multitrack recordings down for Atmos, 5.1, 4.0, and stereo. It's really quite interesting. If all that they did was two-channel, then that's all we'd be listening to. As for recordings in 5.1 (for example), there are many, many SACD's, Blu-ray Audio discs, and DVD-Audio discs that are quite readily available. They're discrete surround, meaning each channel is completely separate from the others. This means absolute channel separation. The SACD you have of DSOTM is a perfect example. Rhino Records have their QUADIO series blu-ray discs that will blow your mind. They just released four new (to Quadio) titles, from Black Sabbath, Jefferson Starship, J. Geils Band, and Alice Cooper, all in Dolby Atmos. Atmos also mixes down to 5.1 on non- Atmos systems. They also have a box set of the Doobie Brothers, with all four of their quadraphonic albums. I highly recommend them all.

Thinking of LaserDisc?

@@dtemp132 That’s..👍 I couldn’t remember the name.

All CD-4 capable cartridges used diamond styli, not steel. There was never a steel Shibata stylus.

@@clickbeetle2720 Do you have any info about that? What was it used for?

@@JayRudko Read what I wrote. Instead of arguing for the sake of arguing.

@@clickbeetle2720 Good call! 🙂

@@glenncurry3041 The subject here was phono styli. What you were referring to was completely unrelated. Thank you for the education, but I wasn't arguing with you. I had simply never heard of the blade you were referring to.

People keep forgetting Paul is selling, it’s his number one goal for creating his KZfaq channel in the first place. It’s called “Marketing” and Subliminal marketing techniques. 😀You wasted all your time on a useless long rant. I did not read your ranting.😀

@@davidfromamerica1871 Yes, but one should stick to the facts, instead of making them up as you go. Besides, if high-end enthusiasts are interested in surround for more than movies, don't you think Paul would jump at the chance to sell more product to accommodate them?

Well said

Thanks for pointing that out.

Beta was a superior technology but VHS won the marketplace. For decades, TV stations used Betamax equipment for taping remote segments for their news programs.

@@jpatrickmoore5158 indeed I suggested that in a format war better tech doesn’t necessarily win. Sony had very different ideas than did JVC and it was the JVC model that proved far more successful - that was to align with studios and not just build a time shifting device.

Realism is so important, the amount of surround remixes I have heard where they are just waggling the faders 🤢

You are thinking in a very Limited perspective. There are many ways that one can create fantastic Holographic audio.. that blows ones mind. A better example, is a song like "Dream Weaver" which has very unique FM Synth sounds.. that have crazy panning and atmospheric effects. These types of effects could be even more amazing, with pans and sounds spread between all 4 speakers. Then you have New Age (no vocals) music from someone like David Arkenstone.. like the Album "A Wake In The Wind"... which is full of instruments, and is very much like a movie soundtrack. On one of the tracks, you can tell that you are sitting in some village... watching some belly dancers.. with cracking fire in the background, and indian-esc instrumentation. That experience, can only be more amplified in its effect of "Being There" , with more speakers. Just like a movies multi-tracks... can make you feel more like you are "There" (sadly, its often just not done well enough for most to really notice). Then you have special case music.. in which you can get even more clarity out of music, by putting some of the instruments on different speakers. Van Halen seems to do this often... putting most of the guitar sounds on one side.. and most of the drums on the other side (if memory serves correct... Im not going to fire things up at the moment, to make sure). With 4 speakers, you could create an even greater level of musical Detail. Ive personally noticed that when I used my amp on 3 channels.. that the left and right speakers became even more dynamic and detailed. This is because the center was taking on a certain amount of the work load... and it was reducing the work load on the left and right. This made for less distortions overall... and thus, much greater details + dynamics. Of course, I was using full sized speakers for every channel.. Not some garbage-tier, tiny driver'ed.. center channel speaker. While typical concerts, might have members walking around the stage... the actual music is always fixed from the speakers that it comes out of. But in most albums, you are not trying to replicate a Concert sound. You are getting a sort of faked 3D sonic soundstage, and 3d effects. Meaning, that there is no limitations to how you can experience the musical sounds and effects. If you want the guitars to pan from left to right.. or in the case of 4 speakers.. maybe you have dual guitarists playing at the same time... with one guitarists on the front speakers.. and the other on the rears. Heck... maybe you are in a virtual "Bill and Teds excellent adventure" concert.. where there are electric guitars playing on all sides of you... in some sort of epic Church like atmosphere. Steve Vai could probably make some really wild creations, with quad channel sound... Heck, theres a song by Bon Jovi, called "Homebound Train", where actual sounds from a steam train chugging.. are used. Something like that would sound even better, with surround sound. I can certainly tell you, that "The Polar Express" scene, where the train first comes to a stop at the house.. is flippin fantastic with a good surround sound system. Literally sounds like an actual train is rolling through your living room. The main problem, is the CD format, rather than using DVD/Bluray for High Definition Music. The next issue, is the fact that the studios are not going to re-release anything of value.. without compressing the original source material... to hell. Then there is the fact that virtually nobody is putting out new music worthy of listening to.. let alone, purchasing. And then there is ultra greed. The studios at once time... were charging like $20 for a CD. Its just way too much... especially for todays lousy quality. Back in the 70s to the 80s, you could buy a CD / Record.. and 8 out of 10 songs, were all bangin. These days, you are lucky if two songs are good... as the rest are total garbage that you never want to listen to.

​@@johndough8115spot on!