Adventures In Duophonic

[Shane]

I had a really interesting experience the other day, and I thought I’d share it here… and yes, there is a Beach Boys connection.  First off, here’s a little explanation.  In my house, I have two stereo systems.  One is a midrange component stereo with a high-end cartridge and high-end headphones.  It’s your typical rig for a record collector who wants to hear vinyl in all its glory.

The other stereo is pictured below.  It's Mom’s 1968 Magnavox Astro-Sonic console stereo that weighs two tons.  She wanted to get rid of it about as badly as I wanted it.  Yes, that is a gold-leaf painted statue of Beethoven and an 8 track player sitting on top of it.



At any rate, this monstrosity in dark walnut is fascinating because it’s a completely different animal than my other stereo.  The cartridge is NOT sensitive, and it doesn’t pick up every tiny last bit of music in the grooves.  As a matter of fact, this thing has a talent for making the most destroyed records sound decent.  That’s not to say it sounds bad… there’s a strange richness of tone in this thing that I have a hard time describing.  It also has plenty of bass, and it can shake the walls if I want it to.  It can even make music on AM radio sound “good”, as opposed to what comes out of my car’s modern radio when tuned to the same station.  

But most importantly for me, it provides a window into the past, into how records in the 1960s were originally heard by the public.  And from a technical aspect, this is the type of setup towards which 1960s records were originally engineered.  The much-maligned “wide stereo” mixes created in the 1960s were the result of these types of units- the speakers weren’t mounted very far apart from each other, so the mixes had to be wide in order for any separation to be heard.  It’s also the same idea behind the story of Brian Wilson running his mixes through cheap car speakers to see if they sounded good… recordings were engineered to sound good on the equipment people would mostly likely have.

So, I’ve been playing my Beach Boys albums on this thing lately, to get an idea of how Joe Public would have heard Brian Wilson’s latest creation as it was hot off the presses.  The other night, I decided to listen to the “Surfin’ Safari” album, and just to make things interesting, I grabbed my duophonic copy.  I’ve heard enough duophonic records on my headphones to know what to expect.  Screeching highs in one ear, booming bass in the other ear, and the whole thing is drenched in weird time delay echo.  Basically, it’s terrible.

I put the record on the Magnavox, and what I heard just about blew me away.  If I weren’t familiar with the history of this album, I would have probably insisted I was listening to a true stereo recording.  Brian’s bass was shaking the wall from the left side woofer, Dennis’ drums (mostly the cymbals and snare drum) sounded completely isolated, coming out of the left front speaker.  Most of the vocals and guitars were coming out of the right speakers, but Mike’s bass vocals were dead centered.

It took me half of the album to realize what was happening.  The Magnavox has a speaker arrangement completely different from a component stereo.  There are two speakers for each channel that are NOT in a vertical row.  Rather, on the front of the unit are two tweeter horns.  Then, on each end of the “box” there are 12 inch woofers, pointed at a right angle away from the tweeters.  The crossovers in each channel send the highs to the tweeters and lows to the woofers… combine that with the frequency separation already in the duophonic recording, and you have this strange, electronically reprocessed quadraphonic effect going on.

So, the moral of the story is this: Unlike what I previously thought, Duophonic isn’t the worst thing in the world after all.  It actually works under the right conditions.

The only thing I didn’t like was Capitol’s use of time delay echo in these recordings.  It sounds weird and pretty much muddles everything.  Smiley Smile and Wild Honey are available in reprocessed versions, but they lack the echo.  It might be interesting to try playing those.

And one last note.  In an attempt to experience an alternate universe where Smile did indeed come out, I tried playing the vinyl from the Smile Sessions box set on the Magnavox.  I’ll say this- that record has low frequencies in those grooves that don’t seem to be present in most 1960s vinyl pressings.  Hearing the basslines in “Cabinessence” and “Child Is Father to The Man” emanating out of the woofers and shaking the whole living room… it was one of those moments I wish all of you Beach Boys geeks could have been there with me.

Anyways, those are my recent experiences.  Thanks for reading!

[drbeachboy]

Nice review of duophonic and yes, that is exactly the type of record players most of our familes had back in the 60s. I never knew anyone with a component system until at least the mid-70s. Thank you for writing.

[LetHimRun]

That is really cool. Thanks for the information. I'd love to have one of those big boys one day.

[SMiLE Brian]

The ultimate test of this wonderful device is duophonic "summer days and summer nights", which is the worst sounding BBs album on vinyl IMO.

[drbeachboy]

The ultimate test of this wonderful device is duophonic "summer days and summer nights", which is the worst sounding BBs album on vinyl IMO.

Add The duophonic Pet Sounds to that list too. I can't remember what it sounded like on the older systems, but it sounds like sh*t on my direct drive turntable and system.

[Freddie French-Pounce]

Probably one of the most interesting posts I've read for a long while. Now I'm just envious!

[BergenWhitesMoustache]

Is this bad boy valve? (tube to Americans)

Here in the UK at least, a lot of those console type systems were actually separates built into a cabinet, if that makes sense. So you'd get a Leak stereo 20 preamp and power amp, plus a garrard 301 turntable, built into a 'lovely piece of furniture' that took up half the room.

Some of those things are still pretty much the ultimate when it comes to hifi. I'd always enjoyed 'valve' stuff, but thought the sound quality claims were pretty much snobbery, until I borrowed one of these:

http://www.hifihunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Rogers-Cadet-III-300x162.jpg

[sockittome]

My parents had a '68 Magnavox identical to the OP's except the cabinet was styled differently.  The panels were less ornate.  I don't remember specifically if it had tubes, but I'm assuming it did judging by the overall warmth of the sound.  And that bass....oh, my!  I'll never forget that! 

Interesting thing about the speaker arrangement, I can remember that even regular stereo records were a different experience than on other set ups.

Sadly, my mother got rid of the console back in the 90s after the turntable went belly up.  Otherwise I probably would have talked her out of it by now! 

[oldsurferdude]

Nice review of duophonic and yes, that is exactly the type of record players most of our familes had back in the 60s. I never knew anyone with a component system until at least the mid-70s. Thank you for writing.

I did, and it kicked ass. A big amp with plenty of wattage (for the time), 2 huge speakers that took up a big chunk of the parents living room and a turntable. It sounded like something from outer space. The guy was way ahead of his time. Fortunately, he was a big Beach Boys fan and I can remember listening to Shut Down 2 when it was released. It was effin' amazing. His brother had a 65 Mercury Comet Cyclone with "Vibrasonic" sound which sounded like the acoustics in a huge train station. Wild stuff for the times.

[Shane]

Thanks for all the responses!  I have Pet Sounds and Summer Days as well as Smiley Smile and Wild Honey in reprocessed versions.  I'll do some listening and report back on what they sound like. 

Actually, this stereo is not tube driven.  I think Magnavox switched over to transistors around 1965 or so.  It would be nice to have one of those though.

And yes, Magnavox offered this same basic setup in a TON of different cabinet variations.  Hanging right above the stereo on the wall (just out of frame in the picture) is an original mid-60s ad for this stereo that I picked up off of ebay.  It lists several different cabinet models.

[Lonely Summer]

Fascinating post. Sometimes us modern day music geeks lose site/sound of what this music sounded like to the average listener in 1960-something.

[Custom Machine]

This is an absolutely great post!  Haven't heard (or seen) one of those console units in many many years, so it was really interesting to read how Duophonic and wide stereo sounded on your 1968 Magnavox console unit.

[Micha]

I have nothing to add about the sound systems, but the duophonic pressings I have of the 1965-67 albums are all pretty much unbearable in their muddiness (and I do like a little muddiness more than total clarity!), but the duophonic pressing of Surfin' Safari sounds much, much, much better and cleaner.

On Greatest Hits Vol. 3 there is a duophonic version of TLGIOK though that works pretty good over the speakers. I don't think I tried that over headphones yet, though.

[absinthe_boy]

Very interesting.

In the UK such a device was called a "radiogram" (for fairly obvious reasons) but I get the impression they were more popular stateside. Hence quite possibly the duophonic system would have sounded OK on such a device. I recall a fairly recent interview with Steve Howe of Yes, who said that the mix on their 1971 "The Yes Album" is a bit crazy with lots of wide L-R pans and separation of instruments into L & R channels because people didn't have good stereo reproduction back then and you needed to do something wild to make a record really feel stereo.

Here I certainly saw radiograms, but more people had stereo record players with external speakers if my memory and reading are correct. The notion of wanting to have a good distance between the speakers was known to be a failing of radiograms - which were generally looked down upon by people with a real interest in music or in hi-fi.

Perhaps someone a bit older than me can confirm? My actual memory goes only as far as the mid 1970's...and I grew up in a household where my dad always strived to have a reasonable hi-fi system. Certainly the speakers were never less than 14 feet apart

[cube_monkey]

This is great.  What a rare opportunity to hear something NOW on equipment it was made for then.   I can vaguely remember hearing Revolver on my parents stereo (which awakened my interest), but to hear it NOW, fascinating.  Alot of people that bitch about the mixes sound probably don't understand this piece of it.  Thanks so much for writing this.  Brings back memories.

jay

[cube_monkey]

HOLD ON! Are those 8-tracks on the top of it?  yes??? LOL.
We got us...a [beach boys] party!!!!!!!   hahahahahahahhahahahahha

[Shane]

Yes, those are 8 tracks!!!  

Okay, an update.  I had the chance to listen to most of Summer Days (And Summer Nights), Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, and Wild Honey, all in reprocessed stereo versions, all played on the Magnavox.

First off, Summer Days and Pet Sounds.  As noted by other posters, these two albums suffer from high amounts of time delay echo.  Capitol’s album sleeves often speak of all the “advancements” they were making in the quality of their records, but this certainly is not a good example of an advancement.  They are just simply difficult to listen to.  I think the echo is more severe on “Summer Days” than on “Pet Sounds”.

However, the frequency separation here is not without its merits.  One track that really stood out for me was “Caroline, No”.  The song has such a pronounced bassline which came out prominently on the left channel.  The jangle-y harpsichord was nearly isolated in the right channel.  The different frequencies of these instruments were conducive to some very nice separation.   One of the fortunate things is that the “bass” channel on these reprocessed discs happens to be on the left side, right where the wall of the house is.  You can really feel those vibrations going through the room and the wood floors!  

As mentioned before, Smiley Smile and Wild Honey are reprocessed by frequency only, and contain no additional echo.

Smiley Smile- As you probably know, the mix of this album is very dense and muddy.  It really doesn’t lend itself to much separation.  The main separation I can hear is Brian’s Baldwin organ on the left channel on nearly every track.  It sounds like a funeral.  However, the moment on “Good Vibrations” where the bass kicks in during the “church organ” section was pure sonic bliss.

It is interesting to hear a single voice or instrument spread out over both channels.  In other words, the lower frequencies emitted by say, the drum head of a tambourine comes out the “bass” channel, while the high frequency “cymbals” of the tambourine come out the right.  I’m supposing that overtones of instruments would be separated in this way as well.

Wild Honey- This album actually sounds pretty darn good in duophonic.  There is a fair amount of separation of instruments here.  This leads me to a conclusion: the more basic in structure and instrumentation the music is, the better it translates into duophonic.  The more elaborate, dense, and wall-of-sound-ish the music is, the less separation you are going to get.  And this is regardless of the level of echo used on the disk.  

As noted by another poster, Surfin' Safari still takes the cake for best sound of the bunch, however.

Glad to hear that you guys are enjoying this thread… so am I!

[JanBerryFarm]

My best friend had almost that exact Magnavox in his bedroom and we whomped the walls with those first three or four BB albums, and that's exactly how the Duophonic discs sounded. BIG, LOUD and totally BALANCED.

I think we played those albums so much you could hear both sides at once.

So yeah, finally a really good thread that hasn't been raped by the Mike Love bashers and the Nose-in-the-air BB snobs that keep a dark cloud over this board.

[leggo of my ego]

The main separation I can hear is Brian’s Baldwin organ on the left channel on nearly every track.  It sounds like a funeral.

Yes, Brian is playing the ominious dirge that heralds the ending of Michael's "fun fun fun" era. 

[Mr. Wilson]

Oh My I grew up with my mother having a stereo like that in 60"s her pride + joy. I had a record player in my room but I had access to this stereo when I 1st came home from school.I used to put on BB 45"s 6 at a time and boogie. I used to stand in front of a mirror holding a KAY "F" hole acoustic guitar lip syncing to the records. When I"d get done with that I"d go watch "Where the action is" with Paul Revere + the Raiders..Memories..!

[Iron Horse-Apples]

The main separation I can hear is Brian’s Baldwin organ on the left channel on nearly every track.  It sounds like a funeral.

Yes, Brian is playing the ominious dirge that heralds the ending of Michael's "fun fun fun" era. 

 

[Lonely Summer]

Oh My I grew up with my mother having a stereo like that in 60"s her pride + joy. I had a record player in my room but I had access to this stereo when I 1st came home from school.I used to put on BB 45"s 6 at a time and boogie. I used to stand in front of a mirror holding a KAY "F" hole acoustic guitar lip syncing to the records. When I"d get done with that I"d go watch "Where the action is" with Paul Revere + the Raiders..Memories..!

Not to derail this thread, but there's something we should've had a dvd release of years ago - Where the Action Is shows. I know a lot of the stuff was erased, but there's enough of it still around to make a decent comp.

[Mr. Wilson]

you are   right I personally would buy those "Action DVD"S" when they come out..It was an excellent show for its time..Big Fan of the Raiders.  I used to have one of those hats they wore. Wonder why Dick Clark never released those.? Later they shortned the name to Action and the very last show had the BB playing live .! 69 or 70 was the last show and by then it was on Saturdays..By then I was in high school.

[Lonely Summer]

That was the followup show to Action, Happening. Would love to see that, too.

[Joel Goldenberg]

Speaking of woofers and tweeters in speakers, on my old stereo system (not the type mentioned in the OP), I listened to some mono recordings and could swear there were separate and distinct sounds coming from the woofer and tweeter of one speaker.
I also conducted another "stereo from mono" experiment. I plugged earphones into my stereo's headphone jack. Unless you muted the speakers, you could still hear the music from them. I placed the headphone on one ear and played a mono recording. I could swear percussive sounds were isolated on one speaker. I listened to Louis Armstrong's classic West End Blues that way. For most of the recording, it seemed to be coming from one speaker. When the clip clop percussion came in many seconds into the track, it seemed like it was separate and distinct from the rest of the recording. A nice aural illusion.