Infrasonic

I caught the last 20-30mins of it. I can see the appeal but it wasn't the type of movie for me. Definitely a feature-length cutscene from a videogame...which is pretty much what it is! A movie for the die-hard Warcraft fan of which I am not. My Dad sure seems to like it.

It's my first UHD movie and it does have Atmos.... Maybe I should give it a shot in the HT room.

Did you apply the official Data-Bass +36dB bass boost?

Haha! No. Only saw it in the theaters. I think it comes out on video next week....or something. Idk. Been out-of-the-loop on video releases all year.

Aggressive surround mix. Meh bass.

People fear that which they do not understand.

Most of the cinemas close to me are Cinemark and we go a couple times a year still. The sound is usually kinda bad. The bass is pathetic. I've heard blown sounds before and or it's M.I.A. altogether. If you're lucky you'll get a few gratifying 35-60Hz booms. The surrounds and main channels are often extremely loud and shouty/harsh (especially the center channel dialog). Not very pleasant. The general impression is of 300-6Khz being hotter than everything else and the system being not quite in its comfort zone anymore, or perhaps just old and worn out.

 

Here's the thing, a whole lot of people out there really have no reference point for what a good system can sound like. To them the same system I've described above sounds amazing compared to their TV speakers, their soundbar, their factory car stereo, their ear bud headphones, or their Z-logic computer speakers. They go in the same theater I do and are thrilled with the overall volume, dynamics and BIG presentation. Matters of perspective.

In the cinema, vocal intelligibility is usually the upmost important aspect the designers go for. Unfortunately, that is not always achieved for various reasons. But that could explain some of the odd EQ you're hearing.

It's really interesting to hear about the experiences people have with their local cinemas. I must be lucky to live in an area (and state) with a lot of very, very good cinemas. Where I live (usually the butt end of a joke) has all nice theaters now. Before the 2000's they were all ssssshhhhiiiiiiitttttttt. Slowly but surely started getting nice stuff. United Artists built our first stadium seat theater with a couple THX certified rooms. That was my favorite for a few years. Had to drive all the way across town but it was worth it. Then Edwards came to town and built a 21 theater megaplex with an overall 'premium' experience. Then they added an IMAX screen. Then another chain built another megaplex with each one of their rooms THX certified. Good times. Things slowed down after all that. Now things are starting to be kinda "meh" to be me but I keep going to LA every other month and visit all the best places so maybe my standards are changing. Heheh. We just got a place with Atmos (but it's terrible!) so I guess we're catching up.

But it's interesting cuz I read here or on AVS how awful their local chains are with an array of terrible experiences ranging from obnoxious people to bad sound or picture.

How do they account for the increase in ticket price associated with these "premium" technologies?

 

But anyway as far as audio is concerned, cinemas have offered little to no improvement in sound quality since the early 90s when digital audio came into being.  Atmos is the clear exception to this, but Atmos is still only as good as the system its played on.  I suspect a fundamental issue is that cinemas do a poor job of configuring and maintain their audio systems.  People don't expect much in return.  A system might sound "really good" one night and poor the next night, so most people just don't pay attention.

Not all chains install each and every technology all at once. Trust me, they account for all ticket earnings and compare to the cost they put into their own rooms.

I think what you're basically trying to say is that the great unwashed are uninformed and uninterested  lol, but sadly the latter means the former will likely never change because people are too busy staring at their ****ing smartphones to see what pointless crap their 1000+ 'friends' have posted online in the three minutes since they last checked their phone...

 

I don't even look forward to going to the cinema now, I rarely come out thinking 'I really enjoyed that' because the sound is usually so gratingly goddam awful, sigh.  I am hopeful that a 'boutique' cinema I've found might be better, but I have a feeling it will just have sofas with no back support, scatter cushions, an 'artsy' interior and just the same crap quality sound, despite probably being double the price of an already expensive standard ticket at Cineworld or Odeon...

 

 

 

Man, I'm feeling positive today  lol

Yeah, sorta. People in general are not interested in that stuff like we are. Sure, people want it to sound good but it's a given. Most people don't got from one chain to another for the sound alone. Only crazy nuts like me do that. People want convenience, comfort and a good value. That's why most people will drive to the closest cinema to their home than the one across town that is awesome.

So when you put all this into perspective... you start to see why nobody could give a fuck about wicked subs that reach 10hz.

The only way I see a change is if it is marketed as an elite experience, like RPX, IMAX, etc.  If people are willing to pay more for it, that would be the only way I see Infrasonics making their way into cinemas and mixing stages in the future.

 

No way the cineplex at the mall is putting in 10-20Hz capability.  

 

JSS

According to the statistics released from a recent CinemaCon, these new technologies are not helping to sell tickets. 4k double projection, laser projection, HDR, Atmos surround sound, tactile transducers, 4-D/interactive, D-box...nothing.

What people like are newer style, big comfortable reclining chairs and a really big screen. Better/improved bass is never even a thought.

I have often wondered whether some of the post production and mixing stages are perhaps using transducers to help monitor the bass range, but I've never seen anything confirming it. It would make sense.

Afaik, this is not ever done on a conventional mixing stage.

What someone needs to do is arrange a visit to any one of the ultra-low-end-monster systems on here for some industry bods in high places, the ones who spec the rooms and mix the mixes and sign off the audio - I can't believe anyone with a brain and a sense of wanting to get the best from their work would walk away from a Bosso system or our friend with eight HS24s and unhappy neighbours saying "nope, I felt no difference, there's no point".

 

How much does it cost to spec a mixing room these days?

 

And how much would the monster 8x24 system cost to recreate?  Say $8k - $12k for drivers, and how much would amps and enclosures and cabling be?

 

Given the likely price of the 'pro' stuff being used, one does wonder if a drag-and-drop, plug'n'play Ricci-special quad-19 setup could be offered up for trial.  Just imagine - how awesome would that be if Ricci and DB forum single-handedly changed the mixing rooms for the better

I've actually looked into the logistics of pulling this off and....

It's not worth it. It's one thing to convince one studio to revamp one mixing stage... It's another thing convert EVERY mixing stage and EVERY movie cinema room. And I'm being realistic by thinking country-wide, not world-wide.

The thing is... these content creators, they work in a world of routine. Why bother with something different when yester-year's design works just fine from theater to theater? Sure, there are times when people push the envelope but it's very rare. I'm amazed we get such awesome bass tracks from time to time.

But... one day...one day I'll stroll into [blank] studios and bring with me a dozen MAUL's and SP amps and set up a world class bass system for some bigwigs at [blank] studios and we'll have a ball playing cool clips and "wow, couldn't you feel that more?" blah blah blah.

Well then... I impressed one room full of people. But they couldn't care less either way. It's money to be spent that doesn't have to.

And now... the world!

Yeah. This ain't happening.

Man, I wish the old BagEnd systems would be brought back to mixing stages,  Rolloff in the low teens/tweens, and dual 18" subs on the LCRs to monitor infrasound in those channels......22 18" drivers per mixing stage.....no longer, AFAIK.

 

JSS

I know...

Nope. They were gutted and replaced with higher output gear. There is very little to no interest in "that world" for more bass extension beyond 20-30hz.

There are just way too many people to convince otherwise to change out and upgrade. Ain't going to happen any time soon.

I just enjoy the good bass that we do get on home video.

I still don't know why they follow the pattern of that steep roll off.

Because ALL modern feature films have their sound mixes made in a room that is an analog to the cinema theater room that you or anybody else will see the movie at.

What kind of bass system does every movie theater on Earth have? They all have resonant alignments tuned ~30hz. That's why.

Good questions!

 

Motor power is not really what the right factor it, its a contributor to the Q and its the Q that's what matters for system design. That's a big topic...

 

In general, underhung usually has less motor force, but not always. A lot of things can effect this. Another big topic, but the primary reason underhung cuts BL is because you're reducing the coil across the effective gap so you're leaving B directly uncoupling with wire at all times to create the xmax geometry. It is true as you reduce the size of the coil you reduce the relative Re so you also gain BL^2/Re that way, and you reduce moving mass too (but only a little). Those two things sound like a big gain, but generally not as much as the BL loss you already incurred. This is all of course assuming the same motor for both coils options.

Kinda like have a RWD car with 1,000hp and an AWD of the same car also with 1,000hp.

One puts a ton of motor in a small amount of space. The other spreads it evenly across all.

Lol, I know.

 I mean, that's all they were talking about at AVS.

lol, you mean to tell me you're not caught up in how you like or dislike the front LCD panel like they are over on avs?

 

I wonder if you can dim that thing or just turn it off!

Important stuff here!!!!

Agreed.

I gotta say how much I love this place, btw. We are all bass driver nerds. Nobody gives a shit about the subwoofer as a whole. We're just interested in the important bits. Awesome.

Hey. Sex sells.

Well...it's "groundbreaking" for SVS. I mean, Apple just discovered water resistance for their phones so...

That's true.

I feel like I've asked this before but why are we still using voicecoil technology and not doing something like the old ServoDrive ContraBass system? That had a conventional looking cone but instead of a normal voicecoil it was belt driven by an electric motor system.

Would be interesting if it could be made to work as such.

I think of the cooling on some of the Sundown and Stereo Integrity drivers with lots of little holes and how those could be coolant pipes or something. I don't know how to get liquid coolant into the motor and around the voicecoil without saturating the open gap with liquid coolant and most likely preventing proper action of the system.

There is no way other people haven't thought about this sort of thing. I guess it would require some serious R&D and engineering just to test it.

Might be easier to water cool an amplifier.

That old freezer is about to become DB's top rated LLT.

Any day now.

Heheh...

Are those minutes or hours?

Yes. Both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X are 100% backwards compatible with audio systems that do not support either of their native decoding with zero loss of content.

All the content that are "objects" are folded into the 7.1ch layer upon encoding. It is then part of the 7.1ch layer as standard and anyone can playback the 7.1 layer with no loss in content. It is the Atmos/DTS:X decoder that then extracts these objects (via metadata) and then properly places them within the surround system where ever they belong. Objects are not only in heights. There are objects that will be present in any speaker location.

An "object" can be anything of any size (spill into more than one speaker location at a time) and they can even be static (not moving). They are simply content that is not bound to a "channel" in the encode/decode process.

Btw John....you dont have to go out of your way to measure the Atmos content.

It's already packaged into the 7.1 layer. It's all there, you didn't miss anything.

I'm getting burnt out on the "formula" of these MCU movies too.

Generally, I do enjoy them but they don't hold up (to me) for many repeatable viewings and just getting tired of the same low-risk movies they keep pumping out.

I won't say "reboot" but the current trend needs to be more refreshing, imo.

I never thermal ANY of my amps. I just don't push my gear that hard.

If you're one to thermal your amps then quiet fans may need to be picked with more caution.

Thanks, John.

Mind doing the Theatrical Cut for BvS too, if you have it? Wonder if the bass is different from mix to mix. Or they pull a Hobbit Extended where only the extra scenes have more ULF.

I find it amazing that such power can be got out of amps in such little boxes  

 

If I had the cash then I would probably pick one up - mainly because my heavy-iron CV5000 is driving me slowly insane with fan noise, and the fact that I'm not looking forward to having to move house with it  lol

I'm using two of these: https://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NF-F12-PWM-Cooling-Fan/dp/B00650P2ZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473874503&sr=8-1&keywords=noctua+120mm

EDIT: WHOOPS! It was actually these ones, MemX. Hope you didn't order just yet.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BEZKX8Y/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

HUUUUGGGGEEE drop is fan noise.

Will obviously not cool as well as the stock fans though.