Audio mags -Studio Sound, db, Broadcast

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Audio mags -Studio Sound, db, Broadcast

Postby triokenwood » Sat Jan 06, 2007 1:55 pm

I used to have free subscription to these mags: db, Studio Sound, Audio, Broadcasting. The issues stopped coming more than two decades ago. There is a wealth of information from these publications and they are now collectors' items. During the mid-70s up to the late 80s, these mags were already discussing digital audio and hints of the R&D of Philips and Sony on CD technology. Now these technologies are commonplace and have grown by leaps and bounds. I think the British publications like Studio Sound and Broadcast are more objective and straightforward than their American counterparts. They mince no words in their evaluations and reviews.

It is from them where I learned, among other things, that Dolby surround sound is based on the four-channel system developed by Sansui Electronics; that Sony got the top engineers of Solid State Logic to work for it, a group of engineers and mathematicians from Oxford University who brought to the market the SSL digital recording console; that the market-failure JVC CD-4 discrete four channel system using half speed mastering morphed into producing the much-sought audiophile stereo vinyl discs; that some vinyl disc albums like Santana's Caravanserai, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, and Moog synthesizer samplers were produced using the Sony quadrophonic system; that Sony subcontracted the manufacture of their VHS machines to Hitachi when Sony raised the white flag for Betamax; and that the BBC and 3M USA collaborated in developing an audio digital recorder which also flopped.

Fellow WS members, any comments on this?
Last edited by triokenwood on Sun Jan 07, 2007 2:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby qguy » Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:10 pm

none :twisted:

but i do remember my now deceased JVC 4 channel reciever, it had 110 watts per channel RMS into 4 channels, it had a 5 band equalizer for Fronts and another 5 bands for rears. It has separate Bass and treble controls for front and rears, the beast (it was a huge ) had a lot of knobs and switches. it had provisions for 4 pair of speakers.. yup.. you can hook up to 8 loud speakers ...sayang one channel burned to the ground when my dad plugged it into 220 volts, the 10 peso fuse was protected by the expensive powr transistors, resistors and capacitors :evil: ..sayang it would have been nice to use these today to bi-amp my speakers.. not to mention the use equalizers for front and rears :twisted:

Occasionally I would insert a CD on the front channel and then insert a Tape deck on the rear channel, My friends would scratch their heads when they heard 2 different songs playing using one amp.. eh wala naman mixer :twisted:


by the way.....what happend to quadrophonic sound / 4 ch audio ? why did it not take off ?
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Postby triokenwood » Sun Jan 07, 2007 2:25 pm

qguy wrote:none :twisted:

but i do remember my now deceased JVC 4 channel reciever, it had 110 watts per channel RMS into 4 channels, it had a 5 band equalizer for Fronts and another 5 bands for rears. It has separate Bass and treble controls for front and rears, the beast (it was a huge ) had a lot of knobs and switches. it had provisions for 4 pair of speakers.. yup.. you can hook up to 8 loud speakers ...sayang one channel burned to the ground when my dad plugged it into 220 volts, the 10 peso fuse was protected by the expensive powr transistors, resistors and capacitors :evil: ..sayang it would have been nice to use these today to bi-amp my speakers.. not to mention the use equalizers for front and rears :twisted:

Occasionally I would insert a CD on the front channel and then insert a Tape deck on the rear channel, My friends would scratch their heads when they heard 2 different songs playing using one amp.. eh wala naman mixer :twisted:


by the way.....what happend to quadrophonic sound / 4 ch audio ? why did it not take off ?


Wow, meron ka pa pala nito. Perhaps one of the reasons why four-channel sound did not take off is that there are three systems vying to be the standard; just like Betamax and VHS and blu-ray vs ____. Sansui was lucky enough that their system was bought by Dolby Laboratories and used in cinema sound. Essentially, the 4-channel system of Sansui and Sony are the same although Sansui's rear channels are more discernable. That of JVC and Panasonic are totally discrete channels. As you have said, you can use diferent sound sources for each channel. Also, four channel sound does not jibe with the natural biological configuration of our hearing systems. We really don't hear distinct sounds from the rear. That is why Sony's 4-channel system only throws some sound to the rear and sometimes it is mistaken as background music. Still, when you listen to the quadrophonic and stereo versions of the same album (e.g., Carlos Santana's Caravanserai, there is really a distinction between them.

As for CD-4, I was only able to hear them once. A certain audio dealer in the 70s, Manny Lim, had a CD-4 record and he played them for us using a CD-4 receiver. The sound was really "discrete" but it seems unnatural. He also played an LP which was recorded using the DBX system. Boy, it was superb. At that time, Dolby was the dominant noise reduction system.

We didn't know then that digital technology was already lurking in the shadows and that a paradigm shift in audio was already in the works.


Also, the record companies did not really support the 4-channel system.
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