Compatible stereo / quad

[mjzee]

I found an LP copy of Milt Jackson Quintet featuring Ray Brown - Just The Way It Had To Be (Impulse AS-9230).  It's in "Compatible stereo / quad."  The back cover states "This album was mixed for compatible stereo / quadraphonic reproduction, and should provide exceptional and stimulating listening when heard on any high-quality playback system."  After one listening, I can state that is not the case.  The sound is distant, muddy, and indirect.  I can hear all the instruments, but they do not have the clarity and impact they should have.  

I remember around when this came out, there were two competing technologies: one that was quad-only, and this supposedly compatible stereo / quad.  I truly think they were kidding themselves.

Does anyone remember other stereo / quad releases?  I think Impulse was big on them.  Has anyone done an a/b comparison of one of these LPs with a subsequent CD that was remastered for stereo only?  And has anyone compared the sound quality of this LP with the other LP from the same session, "That's The Way It Is" (Impulse AS-9189)?

[clifford_thornton]

Some ESPs in the later years, but never had a quad hookup to really mess with -- and quad or no, the sound was murky on ESPs quite often.

[sidewinder]

I have a ‘Bitches Brew’ quadrophonic pressing. Never tried it in quad but in stereo it can get quite annoying as some of the reverb effects and Teo’s panning gets lost (presumably to speakers 3 and 4). I’ve heard that even the engineers have stated that this one never worked on quad LP and only the reel to reel version was effective.

CBS did quite a few quad releases. The Don Ellis ‘Tears of Joy’ was another one of them.

Edited January 17, 2018 by sidewinder

[Bigshot]

Try playing it with Dolby ProLogic II decoding. It might work.

[mjzee]

2 hours ago, Bigshot said:

Try playing it with Dolby ProLogic II decoding. It might work.

How would you do that?

[Bigshot]

Through a multichannel AV receiver with DSPs. Most of them have several different flavors of matrixed decoding.

Edited January 19, 2018 by Bigshot

[JSngry]

Atlantic offered some titles that might make for interesting listening in quad, might.

Quad in your car, logical enough.

[Daniel A]

I have a quad Impulse title from about the same time (Ahmad Jamal 'Tranquility', AS-9238), a four-channel "remastered" release of the original ABC album. FWIW it plays back fine in stereo. 

[Clunky]

I've the Gil Evans Svengali LP in quad and stereo editions. I can't tell the difference on playback on my stereo.