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

[maxmercy]

Jason Bourne (DTS-X)

 

Level - 3 Stars (107.9dB Composite)

Extension - 5 Stars (1Hz)

Dynamics - 4 Stars (26.03dB)

Execution - TBD

 

Overall - TBD

 

Notes - Haven't watched it yet, but full bandwidth effects, and very little clipping/hard limiting found, likely compressed a bit due to the dynamics score.  Only about 10 instances of clipping, only one of them outside of the center channel, in R channel.  The LFE channel is surprisingly lower in level than most films, most of the LF is in the LCRS.

 

JSS

 

[Electrodynamic]

Suicide Squad: Extended Cut  (Dolby ATMOS)

 

Level - 4 Stars (110.6dB Composite)

Extension - 2 Stars (22Hz)

Dynamics - 4 Stars (26.31dB)

Execution - TBD

 

Overall - TBD

 

Comments - No Clipping found, but 30Hz rolloff in place, like a lot of the recent crop of superhero films.  Have yet to see the film, but appears to be a relatively clean presentation with some likely compression applied to limit the dynamics.

 

 

JSS

 

Bummer about this one. I was hoping for very solid low end because I thought the movie was pretty cool. I thought it looked dumb in the previews but I actually enjoyed the movie when I watched it. 

[maxmercy]

Jason Bourne not a bad film, but pretty cookie-cutter for the franchise thus far.  My favs are the first Bourne, and Bourne Legacy.   Sound was good, not great, good use of ULF, but not very high in level, and the low dynamics score is quite evident when watching.  

 

I hope the dynamic range limitations we have been seeing on recent releases (especially Pixar films) will not be a mainstay of BD releases in the future.

 

JSS

[raynist]

Jason Bourne not a bad film, but pretty cookie-cutter for the franchise thus far. My favs are the first Bourne, and Bourne Legacy. Sound was good, not great, good use of ULF, but not very high in level, and the low dynamics score is quite evident when watching.

 

I hope the dynamic range limitations we have been seeing on recent releases (especially Pixar films) will not be a mainstay of BD releases in the future.

 

JSS

4 is a low dynamics score?

[SME]

4 is a low dynamics score?

 

Yeah.  The scoring system was devised before a large sample of titles had been measured, so almost everything out there scores at 5 stars.  I think I've only seen one or two titles in all come in with 3 stars.

 

I hope the dynamic range limitations we have been seeing on recent releases (especially Pixar films) will not be a mainstay of BD releases in the future.

 

Indeed.  Seeing multiple recent titles with "4 star" dynamics is not encouraging.  Though wasn't "Finding Dory" solidly in "5 star" territory?  Wasn't the track just low in level, easily compensated for by a boost in playback level?  I haven't watched it yet, but I'm curious to hear what was done with it.

[maxmercy]

A long time ago I thought of making 5-Star Dynamics >30dB, but it would involve changing waaaay too many posts and the rankings.  No time....and the only 5-star films would be War Horse and Star Trek 2009, both worthy soundtracks.

 

Most hi-action films will score below 30dB dynamics simply because too much of the film is loud.  But if you think back to the most impressive soundtracks, IMO, high dynamics really helps (Drive, Star Trek, Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen).   Although a film like Scott Pilgrim has an impressive soundtrack, the very loud and extended music portions decrease the dynamics score, even though I still fully enjoyed that track.  The rating scale can only tell you so much, and sound is only a part of the experience.  An engaging story really helps, and if the sound is done well with an engaging story, the result is terrific. 

 

JSS

[minnjd]

 

 

Indeed.  Seeing multiple recent titles with "4 star" dynamics is not encouraging.  Though wasn't "Finding Dory" solidly in "5 star" territory?  Wasn't the track just low in level, easily compensated for by a boost in playback level?  I haven't watched it yet, but I'm curious to hear what was done with it.

 

Yes, Dory was a 5 star for dynamics.  It's a fairly quiet movie with limited action scenes and the overall volume is pretty low.  Boosting it won't do much for the bass as it's limited in that department to start with.  It is a good sounding track, just not something anybody's going to use to demo their subwoofer.

[SME]

A long time ago I thought of making 5-Star Dynamics >30dB, but it would involve changing waaaay too many posts and the rankings.  No time....and the only 5-star films would be War Horse and Star Trek 2009, both worthy soundtracks.

 

Most hi-action films will score below 30dB dynamics simply because too much of the film is loud.  But if you think back to the most impressive soundtracks, IMO, high dynamics really helps (Drive, Star Trek, Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen).   Although a film like Scott Pilgrim has an impressive soundtrack, the very loud and extended music portions decrease the dynamics score, even though I still fully enjoyed that track.  The rating scale can only tell you so much, and sound is only a part of the experience.  An engaging story really helps, and if the sound is done well with an engaging story, the result is terrific. 

 

JSS

 

Yes, Dory was a 5 star for dynamics.  It's a fairly quiet movie with limited action scenes and the overall volume is pretty low.  Boosting it won't do much for the bass as it's limited in that department to start with.  It is a good sounding track, just not something anybody's going to use to demo their subwoofer.

 

With 5 star dynamics, there's gotta be at least a few good sub bass effects right?  But yeah, it may not be anything like Darla tapping on the fish tank.

 

As for the lower level, I'm inclined to believe that home mixes with more dynamic headroom are becoming more common these days.  In fact, many such home mixes may effectively have *more* headroom (per channel) than their theatrical cousins did.  Today I tested new EQ settings with Star Trek 2009, LOTR: FOTR extended edition, and HTTYD 2, all on BD.  ST sounded great if a bit quiet at times at "0", which is "-4" in actuality for this title due to dialnorm compensation. FOTR also sounded good at "-4", comfortable albeit notably loud during the action scenes.  "HTTYD 2", which does *not* have any dialnorm, didn't sound right without playback up at "0".

 

Given my understanding of room appropriate playback level, my system should sound about right at "-4" with a theatrical track as it did in the first two examples.  The situation with HTTYD2 suggests that it was a home / small room mix that was actually done with the monitors calibrated at theatrical reference level instead of a lower level as is more commonly the case.  This implies that this home mix actually had more DR than the theatrical mix with transient peaks of roughly 101 dB SPL instead of 96 dB SPL per channel.  This practice appears to be a lot more common with BD releases since the introduction of immersive audio formats like Atmos.  I reckon that the extra headroom is very valuable to avoid having to compress and/or limit when doing Atmos down mixes and even Atmos home release mixes where all the objects must also be mixed into the 7.1 tracks.

 

As a side note, these playback levels I'm using are a lot higher than I would enjoy listening to before I established a proper EQ target curve.  If I were to rely on Audyssey MultEQ XT to calibrate my system, I'd probably be watching most theatrical stuff at "-10" or lower.  With a proper curve that aims to flatten the first arrival instead of MultEQ XT's broken approach, I can turn the system up a lot more, and it's a lot more fun.

 

Edit: better wording in second paragraph

Edited December 21, 2016 by SME

[maxmercy]

Are you using the FDW REW option to eq for first arrival, or just nearfield measurement?

 

You find that much difference in the EQ curves?

 

JSS

[lilmike]

Jason Bourne not a bad film, but pretty cookie-cutter for the franchise thus far.  My favs are the first Bourne, and Bourne Legacy.   Sound was good, not great, good use of ULF, but not very high in level, and the low dynamics score is quite evident when watching.  

 

I hope the dynamic range limitations we have been seeing on recent releases (especially Pixar films) will not be a mainstay of BD releases in the future.

 

JSS

 

Watched this the other night. I agree, not bad, but not great. Couple physics fails that just didn't need to be there. Nowhere near my favorite of the franchise. 

 

Audio-wise? Even with the new LCRs, I turned this one up a lot louder than typical, after a peek at the SpecLab plot, I understand why. Bass was there when called on, certainly not overpowering. 

Nothing all that objectionable, but not a fantastic soundtrack either. 

 

Regarding dynamic range? I can't understand why they see the need for such limits, there's no limitation inherent in the format or the media. Sorta sad.

[SME]

Are you using the FDW REW option to eq for first arrival, or just nearfield measurement?

 

You find that much difference in the EQ curves?

 

I'm using FDW in REW.  As my approach evolves, I will probably return to custom software.  AFAICT, REW does not make it easy to simulate application of filters applied to multiple measurements (i.e., multiple seat locations).  Also, its FDW capability requires one to choose a fixed number of cycles, and I believe a better analysis would vary the number of cycles used with respect to frequency to be more consistent with how we hear.  It'd also be nice to automate filter calculations so that I can experiment with different settings more rapidly.

 

The definition of "first arrival" is really a bit fuzzy because it depends on the length of window(s) used in the time/frequency analysis.  In this application, we care about the ear/brain's own analytical capability.  Presumably, the ear/brain use some kind of time/frequency analysis to isolate direct sound from room reflections in order to be able to accurately characterize the source.  The question that arises when doing any kind of time/frequency analysis is what kind of window (shape and length) to use and how it varies with frequency.  Critical band theory and associated research suggests that the window length is only a few cycles long at any frequency and that the number of cycles used likely decreases with frequency.  I'm not yet certain what parameters are necessarily optimal, but I know I got very good results (going by ear) using an FDW of "1/3 octave" in REW, which sounds far better than anything I ever got out of Audyssey or any other technique that targets continuous response.

 

There's also a question of what target to EQ the "first arrival" to, if not flat.  At least some high frequency roll-off still seems warranted, possibly due to precedence set by early monitors that tended to be a bit rolled off, especially in the top octave.  A lot of monitors and many speakers have "high frequency trim" controls, and I imagine these are frequently adjusted by mixers to add this slight roll-off.  As an example of what might work well: about 1 dB roll-off in the 1-4 kHz range, 1 dB in the 4-10 kHz range, and 3-4 dB in the 10-20 kHz range, but experimentation is warranted.  Very small adjustments can have a big impact on the apparent loudness and tonal balance of the sound.

 

Likewise, I believe there is a lot of justification for boosting bass below 100 Hz.  The idea is that many mixes are created on monitors that are anechoically flat down to the lowest frequencies, but the "first arrival" from said monitors, if not EQed by the mix engineer, will tend to be hotter than flat in the bass due to room gain effects.  For example, consider speakers placed 4 feet from the front wall and side-walls.  Depending on seat location, the side wall reflections will be largely constructive below 120 Hz or so.  The front wall reflection will be largely constructive below 50 Hz or so.  It's clear that "first arrival" level will rise markedly within the sub bass range.  This is also likely true in pre-Atmos theatrical mix stages where mains typically play down to 40 Hz with no bass management in use.

 

Things get even screwier when LFE and/or subs are considered.  Subs are usually matched to the mains channels using pink noise, which is a rather poor proxy for first arrival level.  As such, "first arrival" level in the sub bass is likely to vary a lot depending on how the subs are set up and what kind of bass management / crossover settings are used.  If I match my subs to my mains using pink noise, my "first arrival" is about 2 dB hot due at least in part to the fact that my MBMs are placed close to the listening area instead of on the front stage.  After observing this, I opted to boost my deep bass subs (located along the front stage) by 2 dB to keep the first arrival flat, and I decided this configuration sounds better.  Perhaps it will sound even better if I further ramp up the low end below 40 Hz to account for uncompensated room gain effects on the "first arrival" sub response in real world mix stages?  It would not surprise me.

 

As for whether I find such a big difference in EQ curves?  Absolutely yes!  It has to do with both the absolute level of the upper mids and treble at the chosen playback level and the relative level of upper mids and treble to the lower mids and bass which is relevant due to masking effects.  Suppose I calibrate my own system and room to the theatrical standard (85 dBC for 500-2000 Hz -20 dBFS pink noise) regardless of EQ target curve.  If I choose an EQ target with "first arrival flat", I get upper mids and treble that measure at around 80 dBC.  If I choose a "steady response flat" EQ target, I get upper mids and treble at 85 dBC.  That's a 5 dB change in absolute level of that content, right there.  At the same time, the "steady response flat" curve has a tonal balance that's subjectively way too thin and bright.  By bringing up the level of the upper bass / low mids relative to a level that is subjectively in balance with the upper mids and treble, masking effects reduce the harshness of the latter substantially, shaving a few more dB off the perceived loudness of the sound.  That let's me turn up the master volume even more and delivers a bigger, more powerful, more tactile sound.  That's how I go from playing at "-10" or less with a "steady response flat" scheme to "-4" with a "first arrival flat" scheme.  And yes, what I have now sounds worlds better than anything I ever got with MultEQ XT, including dialog intelligibility  I don't even think it would be debated among listeners.

[3ll3d00d]

I don't think anyone debates multeq xt is basically a bit rubbish do they?

 

I use a frequency dependent cycle length, I can't say it is a critical feature though. Perhaps I have been doing this too long but I am quicker to cut to the quick these days. I would like to think this is a nice benefit of spending a good few years doing this so that I can get to a good outcome fairly rapidly. I imagine I am lazier too though

 

Anyway I would say the issue with rew fdw is that it tends to produce a V spiky response when you go past a few cycles which makes it harder to use.

[maxmercy]

I took some measurements with FDW at 1/3 octave, I will give the FDW EQ a try and report back.  It may need its own thread.  My new room is way too reverberant to go with the longer windows that I used in the past in my very dead room.

 

BTW, The EQ solution is much simpler with the FDW at 1/3 octave; no high-Q notches needed.  I hope this works well.

 

JSS

[SME]

I don't think anyone debates multeq xt is basically a bit rubbish do they?

 

I use a frequency dependent cycle length, I can't say it is a critical feature though. Perhaps I have been doing this too long but I am quicker to cut to the quick these days. I would like to think this is a nice benefit of spending a good few years doing this so that I can get to a good outcome fairly rapidly. I imagine I am lazier too though

 

Anyway I would say the issue with rew fdw is that it tends to produce a V spiky response when you go past a few cycles which makes it harder to use.

 

I assume XT32 suffers the same faults that XT does, and you may be right that people around here and in other DIY places are less likely to rely on MultEQ * for EQ.  Of course, if I went to the right (the wrong?) forum on AVS, I could surely find people to debate, but I've got better things to do with my time. 

 

As for REW FDW producing a spiky response, isn't that because it's not applying additional smoothing?  I recall a discussion on HTS about this where Accourate applies some kind of "psychoacoustic smoothing", whatever that means.  It likely involves some kind of weighting approach that maybe emphasizes peaks more than nulls or something.  That's OK and may be useful to its filter calculation approach, but is it really psychoacoustically relevant?  I don't think so.  I think that only the frequency response of the first-arrival is really psycho-acoustically valid.  Once the time windows get longer than a few cycles, the frequency response is not the best tool for understanding what we hear, whether smoothing is used or not.  Instead, some kind of a time-frequency analysis is more appropriate, IMO, because the brain will generally hear the first arrival and later arrivals as distinct (albeit related) events in time.

 

I took some measurements with FDW at 1/3 octave, I will give the FDW EQ a try and report back.  It may need its own thread.  My new room is way too reverberant to go with the longer windows that I used in the past in my very dead room.

 

BTW, The EQ solution is much simpler with the FDW at 1/3 octave; no high-Q notches needed.  I hope this works well.

 

JSS

 

I'm excited to hear how well it works for you.  And yes, the lack of need for high-Q filters is a real nice benefit.

 

With that said, you'll probably still want some high Q filters to deal with room modes and other resonances, where they appear.  Resonances of any kind are likely to be very audible and should be treated separately using higher Q filters.  These include room modes and electrical or mechanical resonances of the speaker's transducers or passive crossover.  I believe it's important to differentiate between peaks caused by resonances as opposed to early reflections.  To do this requires measurements at multiple locations.  Resonant peaks will appear at approximately the same frequency regardless of location.  These are much safer to correct than peaks caused by early reflections which will usually shift in frequency with measurement location.  In my room, I don't really see modal behavior until I'm well into the subwoofer frequencies.

 

For subs, I have no qualms about analyzing using longer windows and EQing things quite aggressively.

[3ll3d00d]

As for REW FDW producing a spiky response, isn't that because it's not applying additional smoothing?  I recall a discussion on HTS about this where Accourate applies some kind of "psychoacoustic smoothing", whatever that means.  It likely involves some kind of weighting approach that maybe emphasizes peaks more than nulls or something.  That's OK and may be useful to its filter calculation approach, but is it really psychoacoustically relevant?  I don't think so.  I think that only the frequency response of the first-arrival is really psycho-acoustically valid.  Once the time windows get longer than a few cycles, the frequency response is not the best tool for understanding what we hear, whether smoothing is used or not.  Instead, some kind of a time-frequency analysis is more appropriate, IMO, because the brain will generally hear the first arrival and later arrivals as distinct (albeit related) events in time.

 

 

acourate does do something that looks like a form of dip limiting along with some sort of perceptual weighting, no idea how it is implemented. The REW version is done via the application of a cubic mean. I don't think it is an unreasonable approach psychoacoustically because we are less sensitive to dips, particularly the extremely high q high(er) frequency dips that can result from an FDW.

 

IIRC the typical filters used to a model the response of the basilar membrane looks more like a 4-6 cycle long window so 2.2 cycles seems a bit short to me if first arrival perception is the target but there aren't fixed rules here, if it works then great. Certainly using a shorter window should result in more robust (less position sensitive) results. The time between first and later arrival needs to be extremely large (relative to reflection times in a typical room) for it to be heard as separate events though.

[SME]

acourate does do something that looks like a form of dip limiting along with some sort of perceptual weighting, no idea how it is implemented. The REW version is done via the application of a cubic mean. I don't think it is an unreasonable approach psychoacoustically because we are less sensitive to dips, particularly the extremely high q high(er) frequency dips that can result from an FDW.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that, as long as high Q peaks and dips arise due to later reflections, it's not really meaningful to say that the dips are less audible than the peaks because what the ear/brain are really "hearing" is not a frequency response with peaks and dips but rather a direct sound arrival and a later arriving reflection, each with its own frequency response.  Of course, the listener may not consciously hear the later arrival as such due to Haas effect type processing in the brain.  Instead, one might hear image broadening or increased sense of space, depending the timing and level of the later reflection.  Of course, one might wish to use DSP to scrub out as much of that reflection as possible, in which case, inversion of the frequency response with a sufficiently long FDW is a useful approach (with the usual caveat that the "correction" may be localized to a narrow region of space).  But of course, inverting deep narrow dips requires high Q boosts, which are obviously undesirable, so having a smoothing filter that removes that dips is necessary for sanity if nothing else.

 

IIRC the typical filters used to a model the response of the basilar membrane looks more like a 4-6 cycle long window so 2.2 cycles seems a bit short to me if first arrival perception is the target but there aren't fixed rules here, if it works then great. Certainly using a shorter window should result in more robust (less position sensitive) results. The time between first and later arrival needs to be extremely large (relative to reflection times in a typical room) for it to be heard as separate events though.

 

The reading I've been doing is consistent with your statement here, that a 4-6 cycle window is closer to the basilar membrane response, at least for mids and highs.  For low frequencies, however (at least down to 100 Hz), the window length may indeed be closer to 2 cycles.  With that said, my room and system presents a kind of natural experiment to test this hypothesis.  I have a ceiling reflection that arrives about 4 ms after the direct sound for the frequencies that are part of that reflection or about 4.5 ms after the high frequency part of the impulse.  As a consequence of the speaker radiation pattern, the reflection contains mostly energy in the 500-1000 Hz range where theoretically, the basilar membrane response window is about 3.5-4 cycles.  At 500 Hz, the reflection arrives 2 cycles into the response.  At 1000 Hz, the reflection arrives 4 cycles into the response.

 

Nevertheless, I find the sound much more satisfactory when I EQ using a 2 cycle window than something like a 4 cycle window.  (Just to clarify, the filters I'm using currently don't have the resolution to EQ out all the higher Q ripples that appear when using the 4 cycle window.  If I used more powerful filters, it'd probably work fine, but then I definitely am sacrificing spatial robustness of the correction.)  The reflection contributes about +1 dB (on average) to the 500-1000 Hz range on average, so if I EQ the response including all of that reflection, I end up EQing the 500-1000 Hz range 1 dB lower than I would otherwise, and the consequence is that it sounds too bright on instruments whose fundamentals fall in that range.  I realize this is a single anecdotal case, but I find it intriguing that my brain apparently ignores the contribution of that reflection even though it arrives so soon compared to the direct sound.  It's possible that this occurs because my brain is also using information from side wall reflections to characterize the sound, but I really don't know.  It also may be the case that the hearing system is a lot more flexible than we realize.  In REW, one can do time-frequency analysis using different window sizes (or FDW sizes in the case of the "Wavelet mode").  At least in principle, the ear/brain system ought to be able to do the same thing.  For example, it might rely on 4-6 cycle windows for greater frequency resolution by default but fall back to 2 cycles when early reflections would otherwise interfere with accurate perception.

[000000000]

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[Snoopy575]

Hey everyone,

 

I haven't had time to log-in for a while now but I was hoping someone could help me out.

 

My nearest iMAX cinema has recently closed down and I was wondering if there is a half-decent cinema around the Midlands. Oh what the heck... I'd be willing to travel a fair distance north/south to get a good AV experience as long as some of you guys approve.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

snoop

[((_Y_))]

Merry xmax bassheads.

[lukeamdman]

Merry xmax bassheads.

 

Bass.......

 

 

[MemX]

Bass.......

 

 

 

150dB peak?!

[MemX]

Oh, I was going to say - I watched Star Wars: Rogue One at a new cinema at the weekend

 

Presentation was very good, not cranked up too loud but with strong yet balanced bass throughout - I'm hopeful that this will measure the same as The Force Awakens, with the usual 30Hz hump but decent amounts of content below it.  If it does, certain scenes have the potential for much epicness

[lukeamdman]

150dB peak?!

 

Yeah man, and that was at the MLP about 15ft back.  Room gain!

 

Also, the mic is only rated for 146db, so it may been a little louder than that.  I have a new mic on the way that's good for about 170db.  

[SME]

Forgive my ranting.

 

I saw "Rogue One" today at the Alamo Drafthouse, my first time at one of these.  The Regal RPX that I usually go to only offered the movie in 3D, and I wanted 2D.  The Alamo claims that it gives "attention to detail in film presentation and programming", but my experience does not support that statement at all.  For starters, there seemed to be no LFE or subwoofers at all.  OK, so maybe it's trying for more of an "art house" vibe.  We forget that lack of subwoofers is a relatively minor offense as far as cinema presentations go.  The major offenses were the lighting and the playback level.

 

They never dimmed the lights which were part of wall sconces that were not shielded from the screen or from the viewers eyes.  They cast shadows on the screen and caused blinding glare behind my wife's glasses.  The screen also appeared to be mounted on the wall a lot higher than necessary, forcing us to strain our necks more despite being a fair way back from the front.

 

My biggest complaint was that the playback level was so low that I struggled to make out the dialog amidst the sounds of chairs squeaking among other things.  I'd guess it was at least -15 from reference.  An audience member quietly laughing sounded louder than the actors in the moving shouting.  I kind of wondered if the noise floor contributed more to LEQ than the movie did.  I liked the movie, but felt like I missed most of it and was glad when it was over as the over 2 hours of listening to people make noise had finally come to an end.

 

I'm gonna write them a detailed complaint to see how they respond, but if this is what "attention to detail in presentation" looks like in a cinema, the industry is pretty well screwed.  I mean, I actually have decent hearing even if I have more trouble hearing dialog (both in movies in real life, something about how my brain processes it) than most.  Someone like my Dad who has significant hearing loss would probably have missed the entire movie.  I told my wife that I could have heard the dialog better if I watched it on a phone or a tablet, and I'm completely serious.

 

Edit: I got a reply from Alamo Drafthouse, and they explained that the showing I attended was one of a few specifically targeting viewers with small children and those with hypersensitivity to sight or sound.  This explains a lot about the experience, even though it wasn't obvious to me when I purchased the tickets that that was the kind of show I would be getting.  Anyway, I'll have to visit this one again before exercising ultimate judgment.

Edited January 2, 2017 by SME

[SME]

On another note, I finally watched Skyfall tonight.  Tonal balance sounded good without any HF roll-off, and the mix seemed rather hot.  Any higher than "-7" and dialog was unnatural, whereas I'd expect "-5" or even higher to work for a theatrical track.  The mix also seemed to be very aggressive, and I heard a lot of harshness that sounded like clipping or limiting at SPL peaks, including several involving just the score.  This bothered me a lot more than the clipping in "Star Wars: TFA", which only seemed to be bad in one place.

 

I also didn't really notice much bass below 30 Hz.  It was there, but it seemed to be mostly drowned out by higher stuff.  This is in total contrast to TFA where ULF seemed to be everywhere despite what the PvA looked like.  Skyfall did have a few good bass moments.  The "gas explosion" near the beginning pounded the body very hard and made us both jump.  The subway crash scene also had tremendous slam, but the sound also seemed heavily distorted.  My signal chain should be good for 127 dB to the subs and 120 dB to each sub.  It's possible one or more of my subs was overloaded, yet the sound from the mains sounded very overdriven and distorted too.  Mind you, my mains are very capable and weren't remotely challenged by that scene at "-7".  My wife described the effect as "realistic", so maybe it did what it was supposed to.

 

All the same, I think the mix would have worked even better with a few more dB of headroom and if they didn't mix every big effect into the limiter.  It reminded me of a lot of other BD mixes from that time.  I think more recent BDs have sounded a lot cleaner, even if they are still compressed or limited in some way.  I heard rumors recently that "home mixes" are becoming a lot less common on BDs.  That statement is supported by the paltry selection of Atmos BD titles, being that Atmos on BD actually *requires* a separate mix.  Studios just aren't doing them any more.