Not long after entering the world of Quadraphonic sound recordings, you’d be guaranteed to hear that ‘this or that’ record was secretly released as an un-marked quadraphonic album, with no proof to actually back-up the statement.
As we enter 50 years of commercial quadraphonic sound it is a sad fact that those rumours have been continued, and even intensified, by many individuals within the community, still without a grain of proof to back them up.
To that end, it was decided to look further into these “rumoured to be quad” albums by not just listening to them via the requisite decoder, but to delve into the stereo signal to discover if there was any evidence of Phase/Amplitute Matrix encoding, thereby providing solid proof of an albums “quad” status.
Below is a list of ‘suspect’ albums that have been tested (so far) and found to contain NO evidence of Phase/Amplitude Matrix encoding, and are therefore deemed NOT to be Quadraphonic, but just standard stereo that may have enough random phase information within the mix to give a ‘hafler’ effect when played through QS/Pseudo QS decoders:
UPDATED: 14th June 2023
James Last – Voodoo
Lucifer’s Friend – Lucifer’s Friend
Original Soundtrack – Tommy
Vangelis – All releases up to, and including, “Chariots of Fire”
Jim Hall – Live [released on Horizon label]
The Matrix 