Just when I thought that my ears were going the way of my eyesight, heart and feet, along came a new musical experience that has one foot in the past and one foot in the future.  I refer to quad, and to the army of brilliant chaps who have transformed the quadraphonic output of artists from the 70’s into media playable on a modern home cinema system.

I’ve listened to Dark Side Of the Moon more times than I care to recall – I suspect ‘Us and Them’ will be played at my humanist death celebration – and I am probably note-perfect on every aspect of it. Except the drums, but they aren’t really music, are they? But, let’s not get me diverted into my rants about drummers, there is time a-plenty for that.  Playing DSotM  is a bit like having an old friend over for lunch; comfortable and easy to get along with but with no real surprises.

I’ve got a copy of DSotM converted to DTS that I can play on my living room cinema system.   It is the original 4 channel recording, encoded onto DTS and thence to the four speakers as originally intended. I am impressed, and that happens all too rarely these days.

A bit of background – most living rooms now boast a cinema sound system now, but when quad was around in the early to mid 70’s, I had absolutely no exposure to it.  I was lucky to even get a sniff of a stereo, let alone – quadraphonic – or four speaker  sound.  In many ways I am glad of that, because now I can discover it through the quad mixes of albums I knew, loved and literally played to death [1].    Being so intimate with each piece of work means that you can spot the subtle nuances of a quad mix almost straight away.  The Alan Parsons quad mix of Dark Side of the Moon is no exception.  You know the voices? Well, they are different.  I believe they are clearer – you can make out what the announcer is saying in ‘On the run’.    There are guitar parts I didn’t know existed, and it is just more involving.

It isn’t just old hippy prog rock bands that made the most of quad – Simon and Garfuunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water (I much prefer Half-man Half-Biscuit’s Trouble Over Bridgewater as a title, if I am honest) is quite glorious and…oh..that word again. Involving. I’ll shut up lest I sound like a beardie hi-fi journalist who is convinced that he can hear the difference between types of mains cables.  It always strikes me as the only qualification to write for the Hi-fi press is a ownership of a dictionary, sandals, a catweazle-like demeanour  and a diploma in peddling snake oil. [2]

So, how do you get this new loveliness?  Simple – enter ‘quad’ into the search engine of any well known torrent site – I find the green demon quite useful, and pull down the file that you require.  Once downloaded, you’ll need to burn the file onto a DVD (important this…) and then play it in your DTS surround sound system.  That is all.  Oh, a fast internet connection helps….

Try a few of them, and see what you think.  Excuse me while I nod sagely to Joni Mitchell’s Hissing of Summer Lawns.  I’m expecting to smile….the summer of 1976 is still with me, I suspect.

[1]  I did actually destroy side 4 of Quadrophenia by wearing it out.  Ironic, really, that there is no Quad mix of Quadrophenia.  And my copy of ‘Who’s Next’  is utterly devastated too….

[2] There is another blog about the perils of venturing into Sevenoaks HiFi unaccompanied (yes, let out on my own, and without idiot mittens), which has the moral – believe and trust nothing but your ears.