Headphones and Quadraphonic LPs

onepixel

onepixel

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Woah... crazy, surreal soundstage.

I compared the regular recordings to its quad counterparts.

1st up was Jefferson Starship - Red Octopus, one of my all time favorites. Regular pressing was good as usual, then I played the Quadra. The first thing I noticed was that the vocals dropped into the back ground, didn't like that much. But soundstage doubled and nearly wrapped around my head. I got this strange aural sensation, not quite disorientation or hallucinogenic, hard to describe, just strange. All the instruments seemed more defined in sound and in placement.

Next I played Weather Report - Mysterious Traveller. This one was even more wild.

Now I'm looking for Dark Side of the Moon in SQ.

:D
 
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I used to listen to a pair of Koss Quads plugged into a Sansui 9500 quad... you wanna talk about surreal when you plopped on a quad LP... pretty insane.. I'll never forget how nice that always sounded..

Even when the LP wasn't quad, such a Machine Head.. it was Nirvana...
 
I have a pair but they're kinda cheapy ones..... so I cannot recommend them. I'd like to get some better ones but haven't researched what might be good. Yeah, as Celt mentioned, two 1/4" plugs. And 4 speakers jammed inside, two in each cup....
 
The wraparound effect is probably due to the phase relationships between what is supposed to be separate front and rear channel information. It's acting like a crossfeed circuit that some headphone amps have. It gets the apparent soundstage out of between your ears and around your head. Sound plausible?
 
Zenith "Quadular"....

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Thanks. The Zenith headphones are certainly cool looking, and as they're brand new they do work. However "high quality" doesn't apply, at least not sound wise. These would go well with a "budget" 4-channels system.
 
true quad for the head

Realistic Nova 44's purchased around 1977 or '78. Just about every part, wiring, speakers, plugs has been replaced or repaired except the actual shell. Wrap around your entire ear and even moderately loud noises don't intrude. In the summer your ears will sweat because of the vinyl wrap around cushion. When the Pioneer QX8000 went to my brother I still used them with the SX1010 as it has two headphone outputs.

Sound is quite good, especially with the newer drivers that were hot glued into place perhaps 12 years ago.

The pic isn't mine but from an online sale. Mine has hot glue all around it.
 

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I have a shelf full of quad LPs, several decoders and amps, turntables, cartridges, etc... (Not the ultimate stuff, alas, but decent)... but have yet to find a single pair of quad headphones, despite five years of looking.

Not too surprising, though, because for some reason, high-end headphones are rarely seen on the secondhand market here. I know one shop where they periodically show up on consignment, and other that gets a pair on consignment on rare occasion, but in general, they are not visible in the market. The bizzare thing is that they SELL NEW here regularly, but just never show up secondhand. So what happens to them when people trade up, etc...? It's anyone's guess. I had a discussion about this with a major long-term dealer in secondhand speakers here about 1-2 weeks back, and he couldn't explain it, either. :dunno:

It's as if either people never get rid of headphones, or always throw them away, or else there is some great black hole that sucks them out of Hong Kong when their time is up, never to be seen again. Except for that one shop that gets a few each year, decent headphones and vintage headphones are almost invisibilia here.

I've bought every pair of vintage phones (that weren't ultra-cheapie junk) that I've seen in the last five years, and the total is fewer than a dozen pairs, none of them TOTL. You see a lot of cheap, not-so-vintage cans around; the stuff people might have bought five years ago to use with their iPods, but vintage? Good ones? "Fuggedaboutit"!

That goes double for an oddity like a quad one. You can bet if I ever see one here, I will grab it, though!
 
Koss of course was another maker of Quad Headphones. I still have my original pair, I bought some 35 years ago, called the "2+2". They sound very good, and good for Stereo as well, but typical of the old Koss Phones, with the Oil Filled Ear Cushions, after 15-20 minutes your ears are a sweaty mess, and you feel like your head's been in a vise! Mark
 
I remember trying out a pair of Sansui quad headphones at a friends house back in the 70s. IIRC, they had very good sound and the 4-channel effect was pretty convincing. He also had a premo Sansui quad receiver to go along with them. Talk about a beautiful piece!
 
onepixel said:
Woah... crazy, surreal soundstage.

I compared the regular recordings to its quad counterparts.

1st up was Jefferson Starship - Red Octopus, one of my all time favorites. Regular pressing was good as usual, then I played the Quadra. The first thing I noticed was that the vocals dropped into the back ground, didn't like that much. But soundstage doubled and nearly wrapped around my head. I got this strange aural sensation, not quite disorientation or hallucinogenic, hard to describe, just strange. All the instruments seemed more defined in sound and in placement.

Next I played Weather Report - Mysterious Traveller. This one was even more wild.

Now I'm looking for Dark Side of the Moon in SQ.

:D
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That distant voice sound you're getting is probably the bleed or the reflections and not the direct voice since the actual voice track is probably in one of the missing channels.
 
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