   
|
||
 November 15, 2005 Movie Sound RevisitedSome marketing types in the audio business have always been fond of touting their components as being of "professional quality." This usually includes using in the names of their product lines such phrases as studio standard or monitor or pro series. It’s perhaps natural to assume that if the pros use something it must be the best there is, but that’s often not true. True professional equipment frequently includes compromises that may sacrifice a certain degree of audio quality in the interest of ruggedness or efficiency or the need to fill a huge space with sound, or some other factor that doesn’t affect home listening. Obviously, some professional equipment is of top quality, but generally, the best home gear has offered the finest sound. That’s why, in vinyl days, many radio stations transferred their music to tape so they wouldn’t have to worry about disc jockeys flinging LPs around and smashing needles into their grooves. Taping meant you could play the record once with an audiophile cartridge, then file it and use the tape instead. Similarly, the old traditional recording-studio monitor loudspeakers were generally so inferior to even quite modest home speakers that many recording engineers used home models, even if their extended use at high levels eventually blew them up. The equivalent today is much film sound. It may be true that, for some movies, no home theater system can match the visual impact of a movie theater’s huge screen. But that’s typically not the case when it comes to audio. With rare exceptions, the sound produced by a home-theater setup of any pretensions at all can blow away the sound systems of most movie houses. Movie-theater sound is sometimes inferior because of poor design choices, sometimes because of technical neglect. I encountered an example of the former a few years ago, at a theater that offered a Dolby Digital-encoded movie not only not in surround sound, but in mono. The latter was typified by an occasion when a loud 60Hz hum was audible in one channel throughout the entire film. Experiences such as these have prompted me to mostly abandon regular theaters and enjoy films at home, in comfort and with excellent sound. Driving along a familiar stretch of road a while back, I noticed a new, barn-like building in the middle of what appeared to be a farmer’s field. When eventually it was graced with a sign, it turned out to be a high-tech theater complex that featured such things as huge, curved screens and state-of-the-art digital surround-sound systems. The soundtrack of the first film I saw there had obviously been created with sonic realism rather than gratuitous thrills in mind. In some ways, such a track tests a sound system more than the usual explosions and overhead jets. One thing I noticed immediately was that the sound in the theater itself was, uncharacteristically, not too loud. It was probably a tribute to the acoustic design of the hall that the sound didn’t have to be cranked so high for the benefit of those in the rear seats that it deafened those in front. I sat in just about the perfect seat for both picture and sound -- halfway back in the hall, in the middle of the row -- and the level seemed just right. During the (endless!) credits I walked about the auditorium and noticed no wide variations in level. Overall, the sound was excellent. Voices were natural, music was musical, and the dedicated subwoofer signal really rumbled only when it was appropriate. The experience restored my faith in theater sound. Or at least it would have restored that faith had the introductory material -- trailers, commercials, etc. -- not been at ear-splitting levels. When I complained to the manager, he claimed that the levels were set by the film’s distributor; there was no way to alter it in the theater without turning the actual soundtrack down as well. So I still mostly enjoy movies at home. At least there I have a remote control. ...Ian G. Masters
|
||
|
