April 28, 2022
#446
Gentle reader,
It has been two months since my last confess.., my last ARTICLE. Mainly because I have not had anything going on which I felt was blog-worthy.
That is until now. I have been buying and trying LOTS of audio equipment and speakers since getting into this hobby back in 1976 when I was almost twenty years old. I have been buying record music since the 1960's and have a large collection of many formats. As a result, I have learned a few things and looked through countless LPs and CDs!
This is the living room "home theater". It is FAR from the latest and greatest. Which is something that has never appealed to me. Rarely do I buy anything new, well socks and underwear sure. But rarely anything more complicated than that.
While the front and rear speakers appear to be the same, the rears (above) are stock 1980's Radio Shack Minimus 7W speakers. They are facing AWAY from the room because they are facing a split-foyer stairwell and the sounds bounce back towards us.
The front speakers are highly modified 7Ws (like the left one). The only parts which remain stock as shipped from the factory are: The cabinets and grilles.
For some reason, the stick-on label's are hard to photograph. They read: Limited Edition and they truly are. Perhaps the only ones just like them in the world.
I will link the series of articles at the bottom of this episode if you are interested in what exactly makes them so unique.
Since I have not written about the living room system at all, a brief look at the receiver is appearing herein. I am wearing a orange and white striped rugby shirt today which you can see in my reflection in the LCD screen on the receiver.
Above is an official photo of the product which Crutchfield still has on their web site even though the receiver came out in 2001.
I found it in a thrift store, complete with manual, remote control and the power cable. It was missing the speaker switch knob and marked: "$14.99 As-Is" There WAS no sound coming out of it until I noticed the speakers were switched off. I later found a replacement switch knob to replace the missing one. It turns out that sale price was one per cent (1%) of the original $1,499.00 retail price. As it weighs almost forty pounds and has many cables and such attached to it, I was not going to disconnect everything and pull it out just to photograph the back side, so...
The following three photos are from an eBay auction of the same receiver, the Crutchfield photos were small due to 2001 camera's low pixel counts, so I borrowed these images from the auction.
Note that it has TWO sets of analog multichannel RCA inputs as well as multichannel outputs so that a separate seven channel power amp could be used.
Because it is twenty-one-years old, there are no HDMI inputs which bothers me not in the least. Our 2021 43" LG HDTV has digital audio output, so off-the-air (yes, we DO use an outside TV antenna!) and streamed audio is sent to the SONY and decoded for enhanced audio, although the TV's speakers/audio do sound quite good.
BUT, none of the above is what I am writing about today. I am here to tell you about a set of very early Surround Sound Audio Compact Discs which were put out in 1990 and later by Intersound, Inc. under their ProArte Audio+ label. Almost all of them are Classical music, which is one of my favorites.
While I have a number of ProArte Audio CDs and LPs, these are the only four which are StereoSurround® sound. And they sound fantastic.
Above is a scan of the back page of the liner notes of the Peter Nero Classic Connections CD, which explains how they recorded their many performer's music in StereoSurround® sound using Shure® HTS™ equipment ( which can be decoded by Shure® AcraVector™ Logic OR Dolby® Surround Pro-Logic™) equipment.
Here's something you may not know, George Lucas' first film, which he made in film school was called, THX 1138 and it was a strange science fiction film which won him a Cannes Film festival award. He later made a theatrical version of it starring Robert Duval. AND, his next film, American Graffiti which in itself was revolutionary*, the license plate of John Milner's 1932 Ford Coupe hot rod reads: THX-138. I must have seen it ten times in the theater. *American Graffiti was THE first film to tell multiple stories as the same time. It was also THE first film to use only popular songs and music from the era which it depicts. BOTH of these things are used ALL the time now, but George Lucas thought of it first. He made SO much money from American Graffiti that he was able to finally begin making STAR WARS and the rest made cinematic history.
And as noted in the ProArte scan above, Lucas' film sound people invented THE standard for movie theater and home theater surround sound which he named: THX® and no doubt you have heard the iconic sound made for the logo shown before every film made with it.
These are two further scans from liner notes listing LABEL numbers of various ProArte Surround Sound CDs you can look for to add to your collection.
Aside from photographing the four CDs I own, I did a lot of research on various web sites in order to find cover/back label photographs and LABEL NUMBERS in order to ease your search for the ones I am about to show you.
NOTE: IF I was able to find photographs of the BACK of the CD cases, you will find the label number there in the photos. If no back cover photo was found, I will caption those photos with the label number centered beneath. The StereoSurround CDs are listed by label letters alphabetically.
CDS-531 or CDS-578
CDS-522
CDS-551
CDS-577
CDS-579
CDS-3445
CDS-3473
CDS-3502
Alternative Covers for the same CD.
I used to have TWO separate systems crammed into my small listening room. The main stereo and a separate SIX-channel receiver, universal player and five speakers plus a subwoofer. I realized that was just too much equipment. Below is a fisheye photo from the back of the listening room today.
Oh, before you get upset! I am not nor have I ever been a hunter. The skin is from an Asian Fishing Cat which a dear-departed friend bought in Thailand many years before I knew him. And of course Jackalopes do not exist. The cowboy rifle and pistol are just for décor. Also, the black tower speakers used to sit up front where my vintage Dynaco A25XLs speakers are now residing. I decided to swap them yesterday to see how they sound up front. They live up to their reputation.
SO, the question is, HOW do the ProArte Audio+ StereoSurround® CDs SOUND? I played them in the living room, checking all six speakers for output and WHAT they were outputting. Interestingly, the majority of music was coming out of the large center channel speaker, which is what happens with surround sound TV and movie soundtracks. The front speakers were acting like side channel speakers adding ambiance as were the rear channel speakers. Intersound specifically indicated the rear speakers be behind where you sit, as mine are.
My little Minimus speakers REALLY sound terrific for TV and movies and are perfectly balanced and efficient for the room's size. We use a Samsung Blu-ray player which does not play SACDs or DVD-Audio discs or decode HDCD discs either. So, I'd like to get an OPPO Blu-ray player and see how the "home theater" would do with those formats.
Speaking of those wee speakers, here are the links I told you about:
and, just for fun, an article I wrote in 2017 showing the many steps which brought a sparsely decorated room we called "the den" which we initially setup for our first (32 inch) HDTV and "home theater" and brought it to where it nearly was today:
Thank you SO much for taking the time to read my humble blog. Now don't buy up all those ProArte surround CDs before I get a chance to get some!
Scott
April 28, 2022
#446
