Sansui QRS5500 quadrophonic receiver

[pfjw@aol.com]

On Monday, July 2, 2018 at 9:24:03 AM UTC-4, jurb...@gmail.com wrote:
> Wanna buy a Marantz CD-400B CD-4 disk demodulator ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G0EDV07HwU

Or, this.

I actually own one of these, in working condition. Kinda-sorta like cotton candy or foot-long hot dogs - not something one does every day, but nice on occasion.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

 

[Chuck]

On Sun, 1 Jul 2018 00:17:08 -0700 (PDT), captainvideo462009@gmail.com
wrote:

On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 4:35:46 PM UTC-4, captainvi...@gmail.com wrote:
This is my own receiver. Last year it started taking longer and longer for the protection relay to activate and turn on the speakers I finally took it out of service. I recall that it had no other problems that were evident. I had posted this problem at that time and I think that it was Chuck up in Canada who nailed it immediately. He recommended changing C6 on the protection board and .that resolved the protect relay problem. Now however there is another problem that I never had before. Most of the dial lights including the signal meter light are out and that meter also seems to be inoperative as well. I never had any trouble with any lighting or the signal meter on this receiver. This is a big quadrophonic receiver. The switching is done through the main selector switch and it's a nightmare to get to. A real rats nest. Does anyone who has worked on these recall any common problems with lighting on one of these? I suspect a ground problem because so many of these lamps are in
parallel but it's so crowded in that area you can't see anything. I Really appreciate any help. Lenny

Chuck
I took a leap of faith assuming that if the second 4 channel board fit mechanically it would work electronically. And to my great luck and surprise it did! I'm not sure if I now have two earlier or later versions of the quad boards in there now but they were apparently compatible. And the retrofit worked quite well too. The very slight "popping" noise that I had previously heard out of the rear speakers was gone, the dead rear channel is restored, and in fact the sound was clean through all the speakers. I have never heard "4 channel" out of this unit so this is going to be thrilling uncharted waters.

Now I do realize that no one broadcasts 4 channel analog any more and I also know that sources to reproduce it including any records, or tapes, etc are probably few and far between anyway. But I was wondering if you might have any information on that?

The guy that I bought the organ donor from included a large plasticized sheet with it showing all possible hookups. It also had brief explanations of all controls and their positions and there seems to be a couple of "synthesized" positions that according to this hookup sheet can apparently simulate 4 channel sound. I think that those look like "hall" and "surround". I do feel like When listening in some of these positions, perhaps I may be imagining it but the sound does seem to take on a whole new spaciousness to it.

I recall hearing years ago when I first contacted Sansui for a service manual that the 5500 sold for over 900.00 back in it's hey day. In 1974 I was living in a small apartment over a restaurant with my cat. I wouldn't have been able to afford the carton to pack this in.

So now after all these years I that finally own that has the capability to be used in ways that were not available to me before I don't really know what to expect from it. And so I was wondering if you might be willing to comment on that experience and maybe 4 channel analog in general. Thanks again. Lenny
Lenny,

The Sansui surround system was called QS. It wasn't very successful.
I noticed a few QS records on EBay including one by a Chicago folk
singer Bonnie Koloc on Ovation records. I bought this album in the
early 70s and, if you like poppy folk music, it would make an ideal
test record to experience the QS quad experience. Chuck

 

[Chuck]

On Sun, 1 Jul 2018 00:17:08 -0700 (PDT), captainvideo462009@gmail.com
wrote:

On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 4:35:46 PM UTC-4, captainvi...@gmail.com wrote:
This is my own receiver. Last year it started taking longer and longer for the protection relay to activate and turn on the speakers I finally took it out of service. I recall that it had no other problems that were evident. I had posted this problem at that time and I think that it was Chuck up in Canada who nailed it immediately. He recommended changing C6 on the protection board and .that resolved the protect relay problem. Now however there is another problem that I never had before. Most of the dial lights including the signal meter light are out and that meter also seems to be inoperative as well. I never had any trouble with any lighting or the signal meter on this receiver. This is a big quadrophonic receiver. The switching is done through the main selector switch and it's a nightmare to get to. A real rats nest. Does anyone who has worked on these recall any common problems with lighting on one of these? I suspect a ground problem because so many of these lamps are in
parallel but it's so crowded in that area you can't see anything. I Really appreciate any help. Lenny

Chuck
I took a leap of faith assuming that if the second 4 channel board fit mechanically it would work electronically. And to my great luck and surprise it did! I'm not sure if I now have two earlier or later versions of the quad boards in there now but they were apparently compatible. And the retrofit worked quite well too. The very slight "popping" noise that I had previously heard out of the rear speakers was gone, the dead rear channel is restored, and in fact the sound was clean through all the speakers. I have never heard "4 channel" out of this unit so this is going to be thrilling uncharted waters.

Now I do realize that no one broadcasts 4 channel analog any more and I also know that sources to reproduce it including any records, or tapes, etc are probably few and far between anyway. But I was wondering if you might have any information on that?

The guy that I bought the organ donor from included a large plasticized sheet with it showing all possible hookups. It also had brief explanations of all controls and their positions and there seems to be a couple of "synthesized" positions that according to this hookup sheet can apparently simulate 4 channel sound. I think that those look like "hall" and "surround". I do feel like When listening in some of these positions, perhaps I may be imagining it but the sound does seem to take on a whole new spaciousness to it.

I recall hearing years ago when I first contacted Sansui for a service manual that the 5500 sold for over 900.00 back in it's hey day. In 1974 I was living in a small apartment over a restaurant with my cat. I wouldn't have been able to afford the carton to pack this in.

So now after all these years I that finally own that has the capability to be used in ways that were not available to me before I don't really know what to expect from it. And so I was wondering if you might be willing to comment on that experience and maybe 4 channel analog in general. Thanks again. Lenny
Lenny,

The Sansui surround system was called QS. It wasn't very successful.
I noticed a few QS records on EBay including one by a Chicago folk
singer Bonnie Koloc on Ovation records. I bought this album in the
early 70s and, if you like poppy folk music, it would make an ideal
test record to experience QS quad . Chuck

 

[Chuck]

On Sun, 1 Jul 2018 00:17:08 -0700 (PDT), captainvideo462009@gmail.com
wrote:

On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 4:35:46 PM UTC-4, captainvi...@gmail.com wrote:
This is my own receiver. Last year it started taking longer and longer for the protection relay to activate and turn on the speakers I finally took it out of service. I recall that it had no other problems that were evident. I had posted this problem at that time and I think that it was Chuck up in Canada who nailed it immediately. He recommended changing C6 on the protection board and .that resolved the protect relay problem. Now however there is another problem that I never had before. Most of the dial lights including the signal meter light are out and that meter also seems to be inoperative as well. I never had any trouble with any lighting or the signal meter on this receiver. This is a big quadrophonic receiver. The switching is done through the main selector switch and it's a nightmare to get to. A real rats nest. Does anyone who has worked on these recall any common problems with lighting on one of these? I suspect a ground problem because so many of these lamps are in
parallel but it's so crowded in that area you can't see anything. I Really appreciate any help. Lenny

Chuck
I took a leap of faith assuming that if the second 4 channel board fit mechanically it would work electronically. And to my great luck and surprise it did! I'm not sure if I now have two earlier or later versions of the quad boards in there now but they were apparently compatible. And the retrofit worked quite well too. The very slight "popping" noise that I had previously heard out of the rear speakers was gone, the dead rear channel is restored, and in fact the sound was clean through all the speakers. I have never heard "4 channel" out of this unit so this is going to be thrilling uncharted waters.

Now I do realize that no one broadcasts 4 channel analog any more and I also know that sources to reproduce it including any records, or tapes, etc are probably few and far between anyway. But I was wondering if you might have any information on that?

The guy that I bought the organ donor from included a large plasticized sheet with it showing all possible hookups. It also had brief explanations of all controls and their positions and there seems to be a couple of "synthesized" positions that according to this hookup sheet can apparently simulate 4 channel sound. I think that those look like "hall" and "surround". I do feel like When listening in some of these positions, perhaps I may be imagining it but the sound does seem to take on a whole new spaciousness to it.

I recall hearing years ago when I first contacted Sansui for a service manual that the 5500 sold for over 900.00 back in it's hey day. In 1974 I was living in a small apartment over a restaurant with my cat. I wouldn't have been able to afford the carton to pack this in.

So now after all these years I that finally own that has the capability to be used in ways that were not available to me before I don't really know what to expect from it. And so I was wondering if you might be willing to comment on that experience and maybe 4 channel analog in general. Thanks again. Lenny
Lenny,

The Sansui surround system was called QS. It wasn't very successful.
I noticed a few QS records on EBay including one by a Chicago folk
singer Bonnie Koloc on Ovation records. I bought this album in the
early 70s and, if you like poppy folk music, it would make an ideal
test record to experience the QS quad experience. Chuck

 

>"The Sansui surround system was called QS."

the QS and SQ systems were pretty much the same. they cancelled the L+R out of the rear speakers but usually had a filter to not cancel the bass so you get it from all speakers, which were usually matched back them. Some may have suppressed some of the L-R in the front pair for a better sound image.

Still, it was all derived from 2 channels. they just took care to mix it right. not like Beatles - Taxman, CCR - Suzie Q, Swinging Medallion - Double Shot Of My Baby's Love. none of them work well on either system because of the way they're mixed.

They tried to sell this 90 degree phase shift as a buzzword but yes, there was but only at a certain frequency because of the high pass filter applied to the signal used to ull the L+R in the rear.

Most schemes of this type did not completely hull out the L+R in the rear to maintain some separation between LR and RR. this is where the mixing came in. they had digital delay and some of them, for directionality of the source in the front used that instead of a normal pan pot. This made it appear i the rear, if they chose, at the same level as in the front but with a certain aberration in the frequency response.

Adit was no use having 4 channel discrete unless it was recorded in 4 channel discrete. I had a 4 channel 8 track and a player and found that a Grand Funk tape had noting but mono in the front and L-R in the rear. I could have done that easily. Just a few transistors or maybe OP AMPs. In act I did more than that :

http://usr.audioasylum.com/images/7/71823/cheaps.jpg

And that is with not one active component. Some had elfakeo quad that just lifted the common from the rears, or did it with a resistor, this is just a enhancement of that. And i have done it and it sounds good. Pure 5.1 Dolby surround with no effects does exactly the same thing but hides it in an IC.. Dolby does not even deserve to have their name on it. All their modes n shit, none of which I or any audiophile can stand, are a different story. Digital delay, that is not high fidelity because it does not put out the same waveforms as put into it. Adding and subtracting components still leaves the original intact, an effect like delay does not.

What other 4 channels were there ? Dynaquad comes to mind, I don't remember who did that. Marantz had SQ you could add at the bottom of their receivers, and also varimatrix that gives the user control over just how much L+R is removed from the rear channels. But no high pass. what I did was to just use it, remove not quite all of the L+R which was at about the 2:00 position on the control, and then boost the living shit out of the bass in the Rear. Any and all bass that was out of phase was highly boosted and it produced a quite pleasing effect. You should have heard Days Of Thunder on it. And all scifi with space ships, they went over your head on the screen that is where the sound went. And Days Of Thunder, when they went around the track, that is how the sound reproduced it.

Anyway, I prefer these old schemes to the ew ones. I don't like the one woofer idea, people say bass is non-directional but I CAN PROVE OTHERWISE, and those stupid balsa wood speakers, they sound like shit. The only little speakers in a subsat system i ever liked the sound of were Bose Acoustimass early system. Even they lacked a bit in the crossover point. Keep the speaker systems together. A subwoofer only augments, not supplies all the bass. Just that bottom octave. Now THAT is nearly non-directional.

Needless to say I will not be buying any of this new shit. If I have no choice, I will have no stereo. The last time that happened was when I was homeless, and that was over 4 decades ago. I do not want this new shit.

 

On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 4:35:46 PMl UTC-4, captainvi...@gmail.com wrote:
> This is my own receiver. Last year it started taking longer and longer for the protection relay to activate and turn on the speakers I finally took it out of service. I recall that it had no other problems that were evident. I had posted this problem at that time and I think that it was Chuck up in Canada who nailed it immediately. He recommended changing C6 on the protection board and .that resolved the protect relay problem. Now however there is another problem that I never had before. Most of the dial lights including the signal meter light are out and that meter also seems to be inoperative as well. I never had any trouble with any lighting or the signal meter on this receiver. This is a big quadrophonic receiver. The switching is done through the main selector switch and it's a nightmare to get to. A real rats nest. Does anyone who has worked on these recall any common problems with lighting on one of these? I suspect a ground problem because so many of these lamps are in parallel but it's so crowded in that area you can't see anything. I Really appreciate any help. Lenny

Thanks for the interesting write up on 4 channel Jurb. It seems like my receiver, being built around 1974 was at the pinnacle of the 4 channel craze. I never really got involved in 4 channel at the time but it's nice to know that I now have a working remnant of that era. And it really sounds good too. And my profound thanks to Chuck, who as a former Sansui technician really offered some good tips along the way. I couldn't have done this without all your help. Lenny