Seeburg's Quadraphonic First Edition
An information for Quadraphonic collectors written by Klaus Hoenemann, Dec. 2011
Here is a report of quadraphonic jukeboxes of the company Seeburg. According to my knowledge jukeboxes haven't yet been considered in the quad-scene. However there have been a lot of remarkable developments.
In the summer of 2011 I received the accompanying prospectus relating to the quadraphonic jukebox called "Quadraphonic First Edition" of the company Seeburg. To my surprise I discovered that there were four-channel jukeboxes.
There after quad fellow Wolfgang Nehles and I contacted several jukebox-collectors in Germany and the Netherlands in order to listen to the quad-box, but none of them had any knowledge of its existence. In a forum for jukeboxes the local experts even claim that Seeburg didn't do more than a marketing gimmick or advertising trick and the box wasn't really quadraphonic.
These experts told me, in reality it was just a simple phase-shifter which has created a "quasi-quad-image".
Fortunately, I was able to see a patent number on one of the many photos I've collected about this topic. Therefore I found out that this number was registered to an employee of Dynaco Electronic Company. Most likely an EV-4 decoder (SQ compatible) was installed in the "Quadraphonic First Edition".
We quad-fans know of course, that wonders can't be expected from the EV-4 system. However the decoder inside the "First Edition" with the type designation SQD1 is a real quadraphonic decoder and not just a trick. Later there was a decoder with the type designation SQD2, which was also suitable for retrofitting in stereo-boxes.
Here is the full brochure from 1974. The left button activates the full screen mode. To view the individual pages press the play button (with the triangle-symbol).
(Thanks to Grace A., who helped me with the translation)
