Quadraphonics - Yesterday and Today

Here’s how the original analogue SQ pressing of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon compares to the brand new digital multichannel SACD mix!

The amount of surround sound information on LP isn’t huge, but very much there nonetheless. The analogue quad mix provides gentle ambient detailing and cues, with the odd strong lunge to the back left or right when the producer demands.

By contrast, the digital 5.1 mix gives far stronger discrete soundstaging, pushing instruments out of the back channels more explicitly. The SACD mix is quite breathtaking at times.

The matrixed analogue LP sounds softer, warmer and more woolly but is actually more beguiling. While the whirling synthesisers and special effects (cash registers in Money, for example) are so much more precisely located from SACD, the guitars in Us and Them sound more plaintive and powerful on LP, giving greater emotional impact.

Both analogue 4.0 and digital 5.1 proved surprisingly good in practice.