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The Low Frequency Content Thread (films, games, music, etc)


maxmercy

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Moonfall - Dolby ATMOS

Level - 5 Stars (113.69dB composite)

Extension - 3 Stars (18Hz)

Dynamics - 4 Stars (27.28dB)

Execution - TBD

Overall - TBD

Notes - No clipping, Shelved at 20Hz, loud track.  Reminds me of Thor PvA.  More when I watch the film.

Moonfall.thumb.jpg.bdc55b1f24f53359d2dc04c5b57b05f1.jpg

JSS

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Midway - Dolby ATMOS

Level - 5 Stars (114.6dB composite)

Extension - 3 Stars (18Hz)

Dynamics - 3 Stars (24.08dB)

Execution - 4 Stars

Overall - 3.75 Stars

Notes - Shelved at 30Hz, but such a hot track that it extends into the teens.  Clips, especially in the center and even more in the LFE channel.  It appears a brick-wall limiter on the LFE kept the LFE from being even stronger than the production team wanted/could produce, with some big flat tops noted.   Some pretty significant 80-100Hz information in the beginning of the film, used to good effect on the attack at Pearl Harbor.  Good overall sound and bass, not the best, but good.  Clipping was not audibly objectionable.  I wish I could have heard what an LFE track without flat tops and even more headroom would have sounded like.

Midway.thumb.jpg.15509f8ba9aa31f9e6cebc8768bb5fd9.jpg

JSS

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13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi - ATMOS

Level - 4 Stars (112.07dB composite)

Extension - 5 Stars (9Hz)

Dynamics - 5 Stars (28.34dB)

Execution - 4 Stars

Overall - 4.5 Stars

Notes - Full bandwidth presentation, with clipping in the center channel and especially the LFE.  Terrific impact, at least the LFE clipping gets rounded off with the lowpass applied.  

13hrsTheSecretSoldiersofBenghazi.thumb.jpg.958cda7b497d7394d3749c442399e875.jpg

JSS

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On 7/22/2024 at 10:25 PM, maxmercy said:

Good deal.  Is the spectrogram created with SoX or with BEQDesigner?  It looks a little like the SoX spectrograms I played with a while back.

JSS

beqdesigner

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The Fall Guy hopefully next week.  I updated some of the more recent films with my thoughts and added them to the first post.  If any of you come across some content you want me to measure, let me know.

JSS

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Right Stuff (1983) - Dolby TrueHD 5.1

Level - 1 Star (102dB composite)

Extension - 1 Star (35Hz)

Dynamics - 4 Stars (25.98dB)

Execution - 3 Stars

Overall - 2.25 Stars

Notes - Terrific film.  No clipping, shelved at 35-40 Hz, in part due to 10-15Hz noise that is everywhere, likely inherent in analog sound production techniques (60Hz hum is there at a low level in silent passages as well).  Lots of rumble that sounds similar, typical of 80s movies before slam was really focused on in the late 2000s.   We sometimes take digital sound for granted as we have had it for years now.  Surprisingly, several effects burst through the shelf, meaning BEQ may be possible with this movie.  Given the subject matter, BEQ could make this film more sonically impactful.

TheRightStuff.thumb.jpg.c1712796fd9dae92ad37195b43551e31.jpg

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On 8/1/2024 at 2:29 PM, maxmercy said:

The Fall Guy hopefully next week.  I updated some of the more recent films with my thoughts and added them to the first post.  If any of you come across some content you want me to measure, let me know.

JSS

Just watched this recently. Decent sound track. Don't remember the sound effects digging too deep during the myriad of explosions and action sequences. 

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The Fall Guy - Dolby ATMOS

Level - 3 Stars (106.2dB composite)

Extension - 3 Stars (20Hz)

Dynamics - 4 Stars (27.2dB)

Execution - 3 Stars.  Good, not great.

Overall - 3.25 Stars

Notes - Looking at the waveforms, no clipping.  Steep filter starting at 25Hz, making it a 20Hz movie.  Very Avengers-like filter.  Good LFE, could have been great.

TheFallGuy.thumb.jpg.392c5cd1fdbaa740f1da2ee15c76f3bc.jpg

JSS

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10 hours ago, maxmercy said:

The Fall Guy - Dolby ATMOS

Level - 3 Stars (106.2dB composite)

Extension - 3 Stars (20Hz)

Dynamics - 4 Stars (27.2dB)

Execution - TBD

Overall - TBD

Notes - Looking at the waveforms, no clipping.  Steep filter starting at 25Hz, making it a 20Hz movie.  Very Avengers-like filter.  More when I view the film.

TheFallGuy.thumb.jpg.392c5cd1fdbaa740f1da2ee15c76f3bc.jpg

JSS

Seems to align with my experience. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hey ya'll! Apologies for my absence.

I must confess that I hardly ever watch movies anymore, even though the bass on my system sounds better than it ever has. I have a few newish movies I want to watch like the new Dune (which is waiting in the package), but otherwise I just don't feel especially inspired to watch new stuff. I think this fall/winter I'll maybe get some more time in watching old favorites to really get the full audio experience because I'm finally "zeroing in" my system on a most excellent configuration that properly reproduces ULF.

I'll have to make a separate post later to update on where my audio journey as taken me up till now. I still listen to my system for many hours every day. It's mostly music, but we play a lot of video games too. I don't know what the game sounds look like in terms of spectral balance, but the game sounds are often chock full of audible ULF content.

Edit:  And lest I forget, welcome back @maxmercy!

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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - Dolby ATMOS

Level - 4 Stars (111.7dB composite)

Extension - 3 Stars (18Hz)

Dynamics - 5 Stars (27.85dB)

Execution - 4 Stars

Overall - 4 Stars

Notes - Some effects extend lower than most films.  Clipping only in LFE.  Good sound, good LFE.  The movie seemed to be more of a money grab than anything else.

Furiosa.thumb.jpg.aadfe5ffa5a6e758e0f14eb13eab9a6e.jpg

JSS

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Seeing as Deadpool 3 is coming to BD soon, here are the films leading up to it:

Deadpool - DTSHD-MA 7.1

Level - 4 Stars (111.3dB composite)

Extension - 4 Stars (11Hz)

Dynamics - 5 Stars (29.58dB)

Execution - 4 Stars 

Overall - 4.25 Stars

Notes - Clipping exists, but not terrible, it appears as if a hard limiter was put in place at -1dBFS looking at the waveforms.  The sound is well balanced. Good extension, lots of Infrasonics in many places, hilarious movie.

JSS

 

 

Deadpool.jpg

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Deadpool 2 - Dolby ATMOS

Level - 3 Stars (109.09dB composite)

Extension - 5 Stars (1Hz)

Dynamics - 5 Stars (29.24dB)

Execution - 4 Stars

Overall - 4.25 Stars

Notes - Less clipping than Deadpool 1, but the 1Hz 'extension' looks like wow or flutter on some effects, in reality an 11-13Hz movie.  The 1-2Hz content is there, though, and people with tactile transducers may notice it.  Overall good sound, and a pretty funny sequel to the first film.

JSS

Deadpool2.thumb.jpg.0e8312b7b191e395d21d91d26719d4b5.jpg 

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On 7/17/2024 at 2:28 AM, maxmercy said:

Do you have a BD player that can output LPCM?  I had significant downmix problems when I had to run a 2.1 system until I found a disc player that could output LPCM instead of bitstream, as my AVR would do strange things in downmixing the bitstreams.

JSS

Sorry for being "AWOL" for a while, and thanks again for all your great movie sound measurements. 

I use the JRiver software for both music and movie playback (now version MC33), and JRSS downmixing is applied under 'Output Format' for movie playback (sans the "Subclarity™" feature). Works great, with a very few exceptions (like 'The Thin Red Line' BD clipping issues and generally lackluster LF). 

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On 7/27/2024 at 3:17 AM, maxmercy said:

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi - ATMOS

Level - 4 Stars (112.07dB composite)

Extension - 5 Stars (9Hz)

Dynamics - 5 Stars (28.34dB)

Execution - TBD

Overall - TBD

Notes - Full bandwidth presentation, with clipping in the center channel and especially the LFE.  Terrific impact, at least the LFE clipping gets rounded off with the lowpass applied.  

13hrsTheSecretSoldiersofBenghazi.thumb.jpg.958cda7b497d7394d3749c442399e875.jpg

JSS

That's just some great sound on this disc (even downconverted via JRiver with JRSS). Have you measured the 'Hacksaw Ridge' (2016) BD/4K UHD yet? Fantastic sound and LF on my setup, and the Danish Blu-ray "only" sports the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track and not the Atmos one on the US/UK discs. 

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On 7/7/2024 at 1:35 AM, maxmercy said:

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (BD DTS-HDMA 5.1)

Level -  3 Stars (109.13dB composite)

Extension - 2 Stars (22Hz)

Dynamics - 4 Stars (27.15dB)

Execution - 3 Stars

Overall - 3 Stars

Notes - Filtered, no clipping.  Sound design was 'OK'.  Sound was very reminiscent of the original film, but this movie just screamed 'bad attempt at a money grab' to me more than anything else, at nearly every turn.  I do wish this kind of sound was available for the original, as some scenes did have some punch.  More to come when I see the film and measure the ATMOS version on 4k.

 image.thumb.jpeg.1dda99d1cfa77254f8d469d249552843.jpeg

ATMOS is very similar, slightly lower in level:

GhostbustersFrozenEmpire4k.thumb.jpg.1e573322b3b0cad3f812024a4818ed08.jpg

JSS

I found the 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' (2021) BD disc to sport a great track with very powerful and deep LFE extension (at least as indicated with my pair of MW tapped horn subs, that are high-passed below 20Hz), so kinda surprised to see its sequel being shelved below ~25Hz in the LF department. Should still provide some prodigious LF, but haven't seen the BD of Frozen Empire yet.

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13 hours ago, m_ms said:

That's just some great sound on this disc (even downconverted via JRiver with JRSS). Have you measured the 'Hacksaw Ridge' (2016) BD/4K UHD yet? Fantastic sound and LF on my setup, and the Danish Blu-ray "only" sports the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track and not the Atmos one on the US/UK discs. 

Hacksaw Ridge is here:

JSS

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13 hours ago, m_ms said:

I found the 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' (2021) BD disc to sport a great track with very powerful and deep LFE extension (at least as indicated with my pair of MW tapped horn subs, that are high-passed below 20Hz), so kinda surprised to see its sequel being shelved below ~25Hz in the LF department. Should still provide some prodigious LF, but haven't seen the BD of Frozen Empire yet.

I'll take a look at it.

JSS

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