The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

(My apologies if this is not the correct area to post this!)

I have always been curious about this and found this simple and visual step-by-step:
http://www.vinylrecorder.com/stereo.html

In the spirit of your post, this is a very interesting look at a stylus following the groove of a lateral recording on vinyl as viewed through an electron microscope. Neat stuff!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCdsyC ... e=youtu.be

Best,
Fran

fran604g wrote:In the spirit of your post, this is a very interesting look at a stylus following the groove of a lateral recording on vinyl as viewed through an electron microscope. Neat stuff!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCdsyC ... e=youtu.be

Best,
Fran

Yes indeed. Neat stuff.

Clay

You do know that "they" packed 4 channels into a record groove at one time. Quadrophonic sound.

Phototone wrote:You do know that "they" packed 4 channels into a record groove at one time. Quadrophonic sound.

Yes, back in the 1970s. I had a Quadraphonic system back then. It never really caught on with the public, perhaps due to the increased cost over a regular stereo system and complications of setting one up in your living room with wires running everywhere. From what I've read it functioned by encoding 2 discreet signals into each of the stereo tracks on the record and then using electronics to separate them again in playback so you got 4 different channels.

Clay

FloridaClay wrote:

Phototone wrote:You do know that "they" packed 4 channels into a record groove at one time. Quadrophonic sound.

Yes, back in the 1970s. I had a Quadraphonic system back then. It never really caught on with the public, perhaps due to the increased cost over a regular stereo system and complications of setting one up in your living room with wires running everywhere. From what I've read it functioned by encoding 2 discreet signals into each of the stereo tracks on the record and then using electronics to separate them again in playback so you got 4 different channels.

Clay

You're exactly right Clay. My dad and I built a Heathkit system that used a dual stereo preamp and two stereo amplifiers, driving four matched speakers that we also constructed. Dual produced a turntable (the 1229Q) that we bought for the system, but there were so few recordings produced that after we tried a test record, we wound up only using a two channel configuration with a different headshell/cartridge combination, and listened to the system in four-channel stereo instead.

We eventually placed one pair of speakers in another room and used the system as a two zone stereo.

I believe my brother still has all of the components and one set of speakers, but the last time I saw them they were pretty much destroyed and in desperate need of a better caretaker.

Best,
Fran

Fran,

Thanks for posting! That is very interesting!

(My brain, of course, wished he had aligned the felt markers with the record surface [some how!?] so that the needle moved instead of the groove?)

A beautiful demonstration!