Welcome
to my website honoring
Welcome
to my website honoring
(and exploring)
Quadraphonic Sound!
Well here you are folks, what can you do. My name is Tab and I am a huge fan of Quadraphonic sound. Unfortunately, I was only 5 years old (see pic.) when quad hit the scene in around 1970, so I missed out on many of the happenings from that time. My older brother was fascinated with it, so I kind of tagged along with him and picked up a few things but forgot most of it later. We grew up in Wayne, New Jersey and always seemed to end up at Willowbrook Mall. There inside was one of the town's premier record/stereo stores called Harmony Hut. From what I remember, they had a lot of quad gear and loved to show it off. In about 1975, my brother ended up in a band sponsored by the store and we spent a lot of time there. The Marantz 4400 had just debuted, and I was trying to figure out how a 10 year old kid could buy one. But wait! What's that over there? It's got a neat display on it, too! Wow...a Pioneer QX-949. I really need this stuff. Quad sound was cool, and these guys were rubbing it in my face. I just have to get one! It always seemed like they were playing The Doobie Brothers Toulouse Street and (gasp!) Enoch Light's Permissive Polyphonics. If I remember correctly, everything they demonstrated was in CD-4 which at the time gave the very best separation off of vinyl. They had some really good equipment for a "mall store" and took the time to set it up right. I really miss stores like that!
FAST FORWARD 25 YEARS
Well, the trench coat is gone, but so is quad and I landed in Kentucky! There's no more quad, my TV has 5 speakers, and what is this crap on the radio? Now some guy at Best Buy tells me that I need one of these "new" surround sound systems so I can play these "new" multi-channel audio discs. Anybody ever hear of the saying "There is nothing new under the sun?" Oh yeah, now the saying is "Been there, Done that."
SITE MAP
You Are Here
Where's the logic in that? A visual guide to decoders.
Building a Homemade SQ Encoder
You've had your fun, now get out! (Links page)
Will the last person outta here, please turn off the Enoch Light!