[ETL]

QUADRAPHONIC never really took off....

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Quadraphonic sound

Quadraphonic (or Quadrophonic and sometimes Quadrasonic) sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of the listening space, reproducing signals that are (wholly or in part) independent of one another.

Quadraphonic audio was the earliest consumer product in surround sound and thousands of quadraphonic recordings were made during the 1970s.

It was a commercial failure due to many technical problems and format incompatibilities.

Quadraphonic audio formats were more expensive to produce than standard two-channel stereo.

Playback required additional speakers and specially designed decoders and amplifiers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadraphonic_sound

[sparklite2]

My first experience with stereo was in the late fifties when two local radio stations each broadcast one of the two stereo tracks. You had to have two radios, one on either side of you, to get the experience.

Later in life, my favorite stereo system looked like a pair of cushioned black and white dice rolled into the living room. One die was a speaker and record storage; the other was the turntable. The cubes were maybe two feet to a side and rolled around on rollers. I used to get hammered and lie down between them and listen to Richard Burton doing Hamlet.

[Conan the Librarian]

I had a buddy who had a stereo system with 4 speakers that did quad by phase shifting the sound (do NOT remember the brand).

If you played Pink Floyd’s Money through it, you could hear the cash registers each coming out of their own speakers. It was awesome!

[The Chid]

All props to Steve Martin:

I bought a Stereo! Wow! With TWO speakers!

But then I heard the quad with the four speakers and I was like this is it, so I got rid of the stereo and got the quad.

I’m listening to this thing and I’m like, 'Hey this sounds like SH|T!'

So, I got rid of that and got the dodecaphonic with the 12 speakers.

This was more to my liking . . . for a while.

But the gear gets pretty sophisticated pretty fast and I got rid of that and got the milliphonic with the 1,000 speakers.

And I’m listening to that one and I’m like, 'Hey, this sounds like SH|T too! The other one was SH|T one, this one is SH|T too!'

So, I traded that in and got the googolphonic, which is the highest number of speakers you can have before infinity.

Sounds like SH|T!

So, then I said, 'Hey, maybe it’s the needle!'

I had the typical diamond needle. So I searched around and got the moonrock needle; cost me 3 million bucks, but what the hey?

So, now I have a googlephonic stereo with a moonrock needle.

OK for a car stereo, wouldn't want it in my house."

[GingisK]

I remember how badly I coveted an Ampex stand-up tape recorder...

[trebb]

Yep - not enough real-world applications and the material had to be produced to utilize Quadraphonic...my cousin had an old Marantz quad set up and after us getting loaded, he put on a rendition of Tubular Bells made for quad....Like wow.....man.....