[ToneLux]

Originally Posted by Orphan Audio

This is my first post here, although I have been reading for years.
I am amused and gratified to find the industy is still filled with engineers of such passion and conviction.

This thread has provided the most entertainment I have had in years.

I have to disagree slightly with Pauls statement (quite some way back in this thread) that the Quad Eight gear did not compare in quality to its competition and as such was discarded by the industry.

More likely is that QE was engaged so strongly and successfully in the film and tv post business, and was so outnumbered by API and others in the music business, that the few custom music consoles that QE built did not make the same impression that the far more prevalent API,s did.
Lets face it, API did a hell of a job selling their product to their market and they deserve their reputation because the gear performed as advertised. If QE had been more agressive and courted the music market as strongly, with a comparable product to the API line, the balance of power might be somewhat different today and we might be valuing the QE stuff as highly as API.
Add to this, the fact that the preferred mode of disposal of a retired post production console is tipping it into a dumpster, and most of those consoles were 15 to 27 feet in length, there was little opportunity to pass those classics on the the next generation and educate them about how cool they were. Classic API and similar desks are still passed down from person to person to this day. But every once in a while I see API gear being pushed onto the scrap heap by a local tv station or film studio, and I grab it as fast as any QE, ADM, WBS, Neve, Langevin, Electrodyne or Sphere gear suffering the same fate.

The QE gear did,nt suck, it just missed the opportunity to outlast the passing of time in the same manner as others who targeted the same market as API.
Does Sphere or Helios suck just because they did'nt sell as many consoles or last as long as API? Probably not.
The music industry is geared to produce hero,s and consoles are no exception. API has rock star status.
But ask anyone who owns one of the QE consoles specifically marketed to the music industry (Coronado, Ventura, Pacifica) about how much they like their classic? You will find they value and rave about it as much as anyone who might be lucky enough to own an equivalent API or Neve. Or talk to one of the many film mixers who has posted hundreds of box office busting films on a QE film console about their fond memories.


Understand I am not looking to start another "Spirited Discussion" or faulting Paul for anything he has stated, just putting forth the opinion that placing a good product in front of a majority of people will simply make it more popular and respected than another equally qualified one with far less exposure.

Ken Hirsch / Orphan Audio , Quad Eight Electronics LLC
www.orphanaudio.com
www.quadeightelectronics.com


"Knowledge is free,.... It,s what you do with it that gets expensive"

The Quad Eight very early consoles sounded OK to almost very good. The later ones had no sound that people went after. They went into post and film because they wanted to stay in business and were not accepted by the record makers.

I have used many different models and never liked any of them. For the market that they were in, they did fine. The success of API and Neve was 100% the tone, which is why they sold so well. Neither company had the money to do anything like "placing a good product in front of a majority of people". They grew because they sounded so good. Period. QE was built with a fairly high degree of quality, but even the later ones (corinodo or something like that) sounded fair and had logic problems all the time.

I think your defence is because of your relationship with the company, which is fine, but I stand by my statement, QE did not ever sound as good. If it did, people would be restoring them instead of dumping them in the Demptsy Dempster. Sphere or Helios are very cool sounding and this has nothing to do with how many they sold. People still are trying to find them and restor them. You sound defensive, not objective. It's all over now, so it really doesn't matter.