enochlight.com

[surteess]

Here in New Zealand - I own approx 350 quad albums of which approx 40 are Enoch Light (or other Project 3 types) in Quad, the only issue is how would I go about figuring out what Quad formats were used during recording of the albums - some have same covers (with suffix SD) even though the LP itself has QD on the LP ?

Any help would be great - that way I can sort them out (and play them with the correct decoder settings in place).

thanks

Steve in New Zealand

[zquadboy]

Hi Steve and all,

I've got about 15 Project3 quads here, and in trying to answer this question I've come to the conclusion that it's a bit more complicated than I thought it was!

First off, let me point out the Project3 label page at the Quadraphonic Quad forums, a superb reference on these:
http://www.quadraphonicquad.com/Project3.htm

This is what I've come up with: The jacket may indicate a record is quad, but the label seems to be the only positive way to tell which format. I have Project3 LPs in each of the quad formats with a "QD" as part of the number on the jacket. The only jacket I have seen with just a "Q" as part of the number, rather than "QD", was in SQ format -- but I don't know if that's an indicator of anything.

If the LABEL has "SQ" as part of the number, it's an SQ pressing.
If the LABEL has "CD4" as part of the number, it's an CD-4 pressing.
If the LABEL has "QD" as part of the number, it's an QS (late) or EV-4 (early) pressing (some EV-4 pressings have a "Stereo-4" logo on the jacket)
If the LABEL has no such indicator but the jacket states the LP is quad or "4 channel", it's probably an EV-4 pressing. Note that EV-4 is generally considered to be best processed as if it were QS.

While we're on the subject of quad, the Enoch Light (etc.) quad discs issued by ABC under their "Command Quadraphonic" banner are all in QS format.

Finally, for those of you without vintage quad equipment... if you have a home theater system with surround speakers in the rear (preferably equal to your front speakers), try the following out with any QS or EV-4 encoded record: run your turntable's stereo output into your receiver and set processing to "Pro Logic II Music", then sit back and enjoy QUAD!

Mark Z