Audio Evolution

It’s time to get excited about mobile surround.

I started out in car audio by installing under-dash 4-track players into the all-steel vehicles of the early 1960s. Business was so good that I took in a partner and began purchasing Muntz and Craig-Pioneer decks by the case. Installations amounted to using 1/4-inch nuts and bolts for the heavy mounts, and sweating over a hefty metal saw to cut out the rear deck for the new speaker(s). Stock decks of the day amounted to AM/FM mono radios, so our stereo 3-3/4 ips, 1/4-inch tape players were a huge advance in technology. The only problem was a lack of available software. In 1964, stereo 4-track tapes were difficult to find. To solve this problem, we “boot-legged” our own tapes and business got even better. In retrospect, we recognized the problem and found our own solution.

The problem with our bootlegging solution was that the legitimate record companies figured out that they were losing money on LP (long playing record) sales because we were recording 100+ 4-track tapes from one LP record. After a rather one-sided meeting with a couple of attorneys from LA, I decided to quit the 4-track tape business and head for college. By the time I was halfway through my undergraduate degree, another revolution in car audio had replaced 4-track tapes. The latest revolution was 8-track tapes which spaced twice the information on the same 1/4-inch-wide tape. Rewind was impossible, but a few players featured fast-forward. Proper tape head alignment was not possible and we made lots of money re-aligning and de-magnetizing tape heads.

Mobile Surround in 1970s
In the early 1970s, cassette tapes began replacing 8-tracks and customers with suitcases full of 8-track tapes often lamented, “Cassettes will never replace 8-track tapes!”

Even though cassette tapes were smaller and offered rewind and fast-forward, it took about 10 years for cassettes to overtake 8-track tapes. During this period, Ford Motor Company spearheaded a new “Quad” format based on the 8-track tape medium. Most vehicles had two front speakers and two rear speakers, and Quad sound systems used four discrete channels on the 8-track tape to “surround” the listeners with a new listening experience. During this period, my dad bought a new Lincoln Continental equipped with the Quad surround system. Besides Ford’s standard effects demonstration tape with the circular ping-pong match, I recall a Lawrence Welk all-accordion album, and something from the Harmonicats, a group of wild and crazy harmonica players. That was our entire Quad software library, and it remained in the glove box until we sold the car.

Aftermarket Quad hardware and software was non-existent. Sales were confined to car dealerships that pitched, “This mobile Quad system is just the beginning. We’re going to have thousands of tapes available soon and home systems are just around the corner.”

The lack of available Quad software, and the low-fi reproduction of the 8-track format doomed Quad in a very short time. There never really was a home audio following for the Quad concept because the quality of the 8-track tape format left much to be desired. LP Records and reel-to-reel tapes were much preferred to the cross talk, wow-and-flutter, and background noise common to 8-track tapes. So, the first mobile surround systems failed for two major reasons: 1) The lack of available software, and 2) The lack of a good format for reproduction.

Cassettes to CDs
In the early 1980s, I attended the AES convention in New York and lined up to hear my first demonstration of the Compact Disc. Some of my audio buddies thought that they could hear faults in the cold, hard, digital format. After all, “At 20 kHz and 16 digital bits, there just aren’t enough samples for serious reproduction.”

The demo was incredible, and the dynamic range approached or exceeded that of a live performance. With the new CDs, there was no wow and/or flutter, tape hiss, crosstalk, etc. The audio was the best I had ever heard. The tracks were instantly accessible and fast-forward and rewind worked perfectly. The only major problem for car audio was that a single disc player, such as the Sony CDRX-7, cost nearly $1000. Another problem was that the software was extremely limited. Only a couple of companies such as DMP and Telarc offered CDs, and the cost was around $20 per disc.

These problems were quickly overcome, and, today, in-dash AM/FM/CD players cost under $100 and we can make our own CDs for the cost of a CD-R. It has been 20 years since CDs were first introduced. In my opinion, the CD format advanced audio to the point that the medium was no longer the weakest link in the recording or reproduction system.

CDs to DVDs
As we head into 2002, we see that DVDs are fast replacing VHS videotapes as well as audio CDs. In some respects, DVDs can be considered CDs with greater storage capacity. It’s only natural that the higher capacity DVD format is accepted. As usual, DVD hardware and software prices have fallen in both the mobile and home markets.

With their expanded capacity, DVDs can easily offer surround software that can be reproduced in both home and car audio systems. The cost of the video DVDs (with surround audio formatting) is dropping by the day. Mobile DVD players that cost over $1200 a few years ago are now priced under $500. This combination of low cost players and plentiful software is the exact opposite of mobile surround 30 years ago.

DVD Surround In Our Future
For the past 40 years, aftermarket car audio has succeeded by implementing mobile stereo systems that out-performed the OEM factory sound systems. But, the latest generation of OEM stereo systems is so good that it takes thousands of aftermarket dollars to reap an improvement. This is why it’s time for the aftermarket to advance to surround car audio. Surround can only improve on stereo reproduction. After all, we can always reproduce normal stereo in a surround system by using only the front left and front right channels.

The DVD surround software is readily available, the same software can be used in both home and car audio systems, and the prices for the DVD hardware are dropping. These three items combine to lead the way for mobile surround systems in our immediate future.