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BILLW · 08-12-2006, 01:50 AM

Jesse-Jo,
There are a lot of records where the thickness of the vinyl is small enough to let some light thru. The thickness in and of itself really does not effect the sound quality, it's the quality of the plastic (vinyl) itself. Is it made with stablizers that help keep the grooves in their proper shape? Are there tiny air bubbles that formed into open pits when the vinyl cooled that lead to lots of ticks and pops. Thicker records, known as having a higher gram weight tend to be made with a slurry of much better quality plastics and additives. With most thinner records it is never proper to play a track more than once in a 24 hour period. Why? Did you know that the friction of a stylus passing thru a groove can be the equivalent of a couple hundred degrees for a few milliseconds...not long of course, but long enough to move the groove out of it's proper shape. Playing it again a few minutes keeps it from going back to it's proper shape. Now, if you read the cardboard inner sleeve of most Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab records, they actually encourage you to play the record often. The vinyl is strong enough and of enough quality to handle it...also any "burrs" left over from the stamping process are actually burnished off with repeated playings. I don't know if MFSL still is in business. But if you have a properly set up turntable and a decent quality stereo system, the finest engineered (both in the studio with the artist and by the guys at MFSL) is Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tiller Man"...just a magnificent recording.
MFSL also got into the CD manufacturing game. I have Cat's "Teaser and the Firecat" on CD by them.. the side of the disc read by the laser is not the usual aluminum, but 24 karat gold. The theory is that the laser bouncing off the gold returns a higher quality bit-rate to the processor in the player...therefore giving a higher quality data stream. I can't say I hear a difference, because I didn't buy "Teaser" in vinyl,but it is an interesting thought.
RMD,
Back in the 70's I used to know all the differences between SQ and QS, but I just don't remember anymore. Basically, they were two different ways to do the same thing. Pretty similiar, but different enough to let the owners obtain separate patent numbers. Trying not to get too technical...the surround information was not the discreet (completely separate) rear signals you hear today with Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1 or DVD-Audio or SACD. The surrounds were
the difference or out of phase information contained in the left and right channels. It's known as left minus right or L-R. It's an ambient
sound, not separate signals, therefore more of a "parlor trick" than the real thing.
If you've purchaed a DVD player recently, it just may be able to play DVD-Audio or SACD. However you need 6 cables coming out of the player into the 6 inputs in a multi channel input receiver: left, center, right, left surround, right surround, subwoofer. The sound quality is far beyond what a CD is able to deliver, since DVD-Audio and SACD is DVD based, therefore can contain far more information than a CD. I recently picked up the first 5 of the Moody Blues albums and it just blows me away.
I was hoping Gord would release some of his stuff on either format, but, alas, in this world of mp3's, iPods, etc...fewer and fewer people care about sound quality. SACD and DVD-Audio is almost dead...it was never marketed correctly and people just didn't respond. However the new DVD formats: HD-DVD and Blu-ray are capable of delevering high resolution audio, so we'll see.
Back to your question, SQ an QS were just very simple out of phase circuits that accomplished the same thing. Back then Sansui was the big quad company...where are they now?

08-12-2006, 01:50 AM	#20
BILLW Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Salisbury, MD, USA Posts: 2,558	Jesse-Jo, There are a lot of records where the thickness of the vinyl is small enough to let some light thru. The thickness in and of itself really does not effect the sound quality, it's the quality of the plastic (vinyl) itself. Is it made with stablizers that help keep the grooves in their proper shape? Are there tiny air bubbles that formed into open pits when the vinyl cooled that lead to lots of ticks and pops. Thicker records, known as having a higher gram weight tend to be made with a slurry of much better quality plastics and additives. With most thinner records it is never proper to play a track more than once in a 24 hour period. Why? Did you know that the friction of a stylus passing thru a groove can be the equivalent of a couple hundred degrees for a few milliseconds...not long of course, but long enough to move the groove out of it's proper shape. Playing it again a few minutes keeps it from going back to it's proper shape. Now, if you read the cardboard inner sleeve of most Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab records, they actually encourage you to play the record often. The vinyl is strong enough and of enough quality to handle it...also any "burrs" left over from the stamping process are actually burnished off with repeated playings. I don't know if MFSL still is in business. But if you have a properly set up turntable and a decent quality stereo system, the finest engineered (both in the studio with the artist and by the guys at MFSL) is Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tiller Man"...just a magnificent recording. MFSL also got into the CD manufacturing game. I have Cat's "Teaser and the Firecat" on CD by them.. the side of the disc read by the laser is not the usual aluminum, but 24 karat gold. The theory is that the laser bouncing off the gold returns a higher quality bit-rate to the processor in the player...therefore giving a higher quality data stream. I can't say I hear a difference, because I didn't buy "Teaser" in vinyl,but it is an interesting thought. RMD, Back in the 70's I used to know all the differences between SQ and QS, but I just don't remember anymore. Basically, they were two different ways to do the same thing. Pretty similiar, but different enough to let the owners obtain separate patent numbers. Trying not to get too technical...the surround information was not the discreet (completely separate) rear signals you hear today with Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1 or DVD-Audio or SACD. The surrounds were the difference or out of phase information contained in the left and right channels. It's known as left minus right or L-R. It's an ambient sound, not separate signals, therefore more of a "parlor trick" than the real thing. If you've purchaed a DVD player recently, it just may be able to play DVD-Audio or SACD. However you need 6 cables coming out of the player into the 6 inputs in a multi channel input receiver: left, center, right, left surround, right surround, subwoofer. The sound quality is far beyond what a CD is able to deliver, since DVD-Audio and SACD is DVD based, therefore can contain far more information than a CD. I recently picked up the first 5 of the Moody Blues albums and it just blows me away. I was hoping Gord would release some of his stuff on either format, but, alas, in this world of mp3's, iPods, etc...fewer and fewer people care about sound quality. SACD and DVD-Audio is almost dead...it was never marketed correctly and people just didn't respond. However the new DVD formats: HD-DVD and Blu-ray are capable of delevering high resolution audio, so we'll see. Back to your question, SQ an QS were just very simple out of phase circuits that accomplished the same thing. Back then Sansui was the big quad company...where are they now?