Re: THX and other matters

[Jerome O'Donohoe <jerome@xxxxxxx>]

On Saturday, November 9, 2002, at 06:43  pm, Timothy Morris wrote:

>  none of the (six) power amps have a THX badge on them nor do the=
> speakers, nor does the DVD player or screen. I HAVE to have a hybrid > system, and I wouldn't buy THX speakers (because they do sound pants > with music). I wouldn't out of choice buy anything else with a THX > badge
> on it per-se (the Meridian was a different matter when I bought it, > because anything comparable had a THX badge on it), purely because it<= BR> > adds several hundred quid to the price, and I trust my own ears more > than a set of arbitrary specs!
>
I wonder if I might chip in here, just to offer another view.  I don't=
have any high-end or THX approved HC kit at home, but my job is as a
dubbing mixer (a re-recording mixer on US films) , which makes me
responsible for the soundtracks that go to the flicks and end up on TV
& DVDs. My lowly position in a UK sound house means you won't see my name on any credit rolls in your DVD collection (save for something i'm pretty sure you won't have or want to have, though if you've seen the
Mummy Returns, Rugrats in Paris or Jimmy Neutron in a language other
than english, you'll have heard my work, such as it is on foreign
versions :-) ).  What I can comment on is the kit and the nature of listening rooms, as we have 2 dubbing theatres kitted out with
THX-grade amps & speakers and jolly nice AMS Neve mixers feeding them, =
and another two smaller rooms with the same mixers but non-thx
monitoring.

I can guarantee that any of you would prefer the sound of the non-thx
Genelec speakers in the smaller rooms over the THX approved (for
cinemas, the most stringent spec) JBL systems in the bigger theatres,
which would maybe be about the same size as a seriously well off
uber-celeb might have for his home cinema.  Genelec could well have sought, and got, THX-approval for their speakers but the $15,000 cost
of approval per model gives them pause for thought, as would the cost
of additional THX approval on the mixing room itself for the mixing
house.  For sure the specs in the THX approval are high, but many
products meet & exceed them and sell without the expense of the THX badge.  Cinema-derived specs apply to dispersion & throw
characteristics that are inappropriate for home use, and i'm sure most
list members consider their HC setup to be better than their local
cinema, and given that some of your kit will have cost just as much, if you've a favourable acoustic environment, they almost certainly do.  <= BR> THX did a good thing in dragging the appalling standards of cinemas in
the 80s up from the depths, but Dolby have done as much if not lots
more since then for the bulk of cinemas.  THX approval has been droppe= d
as an unnecessary expense by a lot of US cinema chains as they are now
as good as the customers demand, and only a miniscule portion of their
customers will seek THX approval .

To get back to the point, most good sized (yes, size matters) music
systems should provide fabulous cinema sound reproduction  (Quad ESLs =
and valve amps excepted here!). A THX badge will not mean it sounds any better, scientifically speaking.  As long as your monitoring can cope =
with the dynamic range at a low S/N ratio, you're getting good results. Any further processing on a 5.1 signal other than delay for the rear
speakers and screen HF rolloff compensation for the front is completely unnecessary (it may occur to some that the screen HF compensation
usually applies to the centre speaker, when in any dolby-approved
cinema or mixing stage, all three (or five, in SDDS rarities) front
speakers are behind the screen).

I suppose i'm trying to say don't get hung up on approval.  High end <= BR> music systems are incredibly different from decent HC, and require a
higher standard in the production chain, which you need to carry on to
some degree in the home if you want the ultimate reproduction.  By thi= s
I do NOT mean cabling, by the way.  The listening room is 1000% more <= BR> important than the electrical connections.  Most audiophiles would hav= e
a heart attack if they saw how recording studios & mixing facilities are wired - analogue & digital audio passes through telephone grade single-core wiring, punched into krone frames that will be very
familiar to those of you with telecoms backgrounds.  The Dolby
equipment used for monitoring in cinema mixing rooms & theatres
themselves is connected, *unbalanced*, to solder tags with bog standard screened copper. And yet we still produce CDs & film mixes that
consumers are tricked into reproducing with silver speaker cable and
=A3100 interconnects, which I think is a scandal.  Money would be way =
better spent on soundproofing & tuning the listening environment, which=
is where we spend it in the construction of mixing facilities.

Not sure if that helped anyone, but I felt like a bit of a rant about
how consumers (and I am one...and I was a perpetrator, having worked in a hifi shop many years ago flogging interconnects & speaker cable, with=
their enormous margins compared to the kit) get fleeced.  Why not thro= w
up a few layers of plasterboard, float the floor and bolt down anything that'll vibrate to improve your listening rather than line the pockets
of the cable con-artists?!

If you like it, it's in all likelihood probably pretty good.

Cheers,

Jerome.

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk 
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