I do not really have to propose anything, it has already been define for music via THX PM3 standards. For movies THX general standards
Well, they have it already in theaters, and it has been around since 1983. See THX once again if you are willing to pay for their certification criteria. For music PM3, for HT, THX in general.
Any calibrated microphone, the old fashion PC based RTA, or you can skip this approach and use TacT, ARC, or audyssey multiEQ XT32 pro room correction along with acoustical treatment. Personally I use Sim3 for analysis, and Audussey MultiEQ XT32 pro to do the corrections. I use the microphones that came with the system since they have been calibrated specifically for the system.
SIM 3 : Audio Analyzer
Technology FAQ | Audyssey
First, it cannot happen in your living room, it has to be a dedicated room. Living rooms require too many compromises because it is a multipurpose room.
Well, the solutions are there, you just have to find them. I did, and so have many folks.
You are right, no two movies theaters are alike, and yet they can still pass THX standards. And you are right about no two rooms in homes as well, but if you know the standards out there, you can still get a remarkably consistent results from room to room(as long as it is a dedicated room).
You are being cynical here. Anyone who has used a high quality high resolution RTA knows their measurements are pretty consistent sans human error. I have been using them for 25 years, and while I have run into miscalibrated microphones, I have yet to run into a system that yields widely different results from the next. I work in Hollywood where there are a lot of studio techs who know how to interpret a measurement, and fix it as well. Personally, I learned from Bob Hodas, who has tuned every dubbing stage in Hollywood at least once(and many several times), many thousands of music mixing and control rooms as well as hometheaters(minel) for the rich and famous all over the world.
The problem here is not the tools. It is the fact that many do not want to go through the time and energy to learn anything about small room acoustical problems and room correction tools, or the expense of learning how to apply them. They would much rather buy or build new stuff(which accomplishes nothing to solve an acoustical problem) because quite frankly it is easier to do.
No need to. I am not that much lower than reference. Maybe 5db at the most, and my listening room is uber quiet at NC-15. Keep in mind, I also sit closer to my speakers than I can in the theater.
It's nobodies preference because loudness calibration with noise signals - which are part of SMPTE standards - don't translate between small and large rooms. It does sound louder in small rooms. That's exactly what I was talking about. No "subjective value of importance". Existing standards aren't good enough. Room curves aren't good enough. It's just a crude approximation. It's better than music production though:
And here is the reality Markus. As good or bad(or inadequate) as you think it is, it is a defined standard. It is a road map, something the music industry does not have. SMPTE also recommends that you use not only noise signals, but program material as well.
Personally, I have a lot of experience with THX. Please excuse me if I value their recommendation and opinions over yours. No harm, but I have had consistently excellent result with their standards.
Lastly, there is a reason that THX separates their theatrical calibration techniques from the home theater ones.
If I don't use Genelec's, how would these curves apply to me? They wouldn't.
Soundtrack,
I would have to say that I would expect that the majority of people even on this site do not have a dedicated listening room. I am glad you do but I don't expect that is the norm. If THX standards are so highly regarded by you why do so many theaters sound so poorly? I like that last statement about how the rich and famous can have all this done for them in their homes. It really gives your perspective on things. Most of use are not the rich or the famous and don't have an outside consultant come into our homes to correct our million dollar rooms.
I would have to say that I would expect that the majority of people even on this site do not have a dedicated listening room. I am glad you do but I don't expect that is the norm. If THX standards are so highly regarded by you why do so many theaters sound so poorly? I like that last statement about how the rich and famous can have all this done for them in their homes. It really gives your perspective on things. Most of use are not the rich or the famous and don't have an outside consultant come into our homes to correct our million dollar rooms.
I think Marcus' point was that there is (apparently) no "standard" in "professional control rooms" since the same speaker generates such dramatically different response curves (depending on the room it's in). And of course it's worse still in the "home environment". Of course THX attempts to address that . . . to considerable success in the "production" environment(s), but, as you note, not so much on the "home front". Still, at least with movie sound tracks there is a "standard" somewhere, and some degree of consistency from one production to the next. Would that it were so for music recordings . . .
THX is willing to give it a try.
THX Home Theater Made Easy – Modern Challenges THX.com
It's an interesting room with that glass wall.
It is called lack of maintenance and yearly calibration. Have you noticed lately how many theaters still have their THX compliance badges? Not many any more because you have to actually spend money yearly to maintain the system to keep it. Theaters don't upgrade their equipment much, so you can still find first generation 2 way THX speaker systems and electronics in theaters today - even though the dynamics(and quality) of soundtracks have gotten a lot wider(and better) than when Return of the Jedi came out.
Well, Bob also tuned my $10,000 7.1 music system, and it sounds terrific. I am not so sure equipment cost is as important as getting the proper synergy between the speakers and the room. You can choose the last statement as my perspective, but you would be majoring in minors if you do.
I would beg to disagree ... I have achieved sound of fidelity, naturalness and pleasantness all occurring at once; mainly because the key one, naturalness, stands out. All the sounds you hear resonate in your hearing system as being the "real deal", so the mind fills in to say that that it's accurate, and pleasant.It should remind us that accuracy is only one of the goals that are wishable and achieveable. None of the three is excluding all aspects of the other two, but you can't have all of them 100 % at the same time.
Me for instance is pleasantly in the third camp.
I recently heard an all-TAD system in an audio show, room filled with an enthusiastic crowd. Well, it may have been terribly "accurate", but it sounded very tedious and boring to me, Politically Correct audio. It held my interest as much as a kitchen radio, not the reason I'm in this hobby ...
Frank
The problem I have with his example is we know nothing acoustically about the control rooms. There are over a thousand "control rooms" in Hollywood alone, and taking a sample from 164 all over the world just ain't going to cut it for me. Factory calibrated? What about studio calibrated since that is the room they are in.
Secondly, were these two channel control rooms, or multichannel control rooms? Not specified. It also does not mention which model of Genelec speaker they measuring, and Genelec has a full line of speakers. Where were the speakers placed during measurements? On top of the console unisolated? That is not a very good idea, but that is what the measurement tell me. Not many studio use this practice anymore, stand mounting your monitor system is the current way. So much is missing to make this a very good example.
From where I sit, I don't know many studios that use Genelec's as a primary monitoring source. They are used as alternate speaker just to give the mixer an idea of how his mixes would sound in the field, but not as a primary monitor. Studios today are much more sophisticated in terms of room acoustics, system set up, and room/speaker synergy. Most studios built these days are acoustically modeled first, before a single nail or other building materials are purchased. I am not talking about amateur home set ups, but professional studios. The best studios once built call in people like Bob Hodas to tune and calibrate them. Bob is not cheap, but the end result is worth every dime spent.
Actually, the most work THX has done in the last 15 years has been in the home theater side. They now have a total room and system certification established to ensure a more accurate translation of a movie soundtrack from the dubbing stage to home theater. Obviously that translation isn't 1:1, but it is close enough to have similar spatial characteristics.
Soundtrackmixer,
Finally we agree about the myriad numbers of studios just in the LA area. Some great, some good and many not a lot better than some home studios. The Genelec's are not something that I would think that any audiophile or here in this forum an educated listener is going to like. The powered monitors are nothing to write home about. at least the smaller monitors you see sitting on top of the consoles in many studios. Not a lot different than the ubiquitous NS-10's that have been out there for years. Just to get an idea of what something will sound like on an inexpensive consumer hifi product. Finally we agree about something!
Finally we agree about the myriad numbers of studios just in the LA area. Some great, some good and many not a lot better than some home studios. The Genelec's are not something that I would think that any audiophile or here in this forum an educated listener is going to like. The powered monitors are nothing to write home about. at least the smaller monitors you see sitting on top of the consoles in many studios. Not a lot different than the ubiquitous NS-10's that have been out there for years. Just to get an idea of what something will sound like on an inexpensive consumer hifi product. Finally we agree about something!
This was clearly heard in 2 theatres I went to, when their sound systems were nice and "fresh". One was an IMAX, the impact of the sound was superb on the first visit, then each succeeding time the sound was getting flatter, greyer, more dreary - degenerated into conventional, drab cinema sound.
The other was a cosy, "village" cinema that had its sound system completely redone by the local, highly motivated hifi retailer and "guru". Saw "Saving Private Ryan" following installation, and the initial sequence was acoustically mesmerising. The rifle shots had the true impact of the real thing, you inwardly twitched each time, I was "exhausted" after 5 minutes from the beginning of the movie as my system absorbed the impact of the intense sound. That sound system's qualities started to fade too over time but more slowly, but certainly showed what was possible with the right application of knowledge and effort ...
Frank
Pano,
I would consider with a soffit speaker to do that end as the live end and the back wall as the dead end, reproducing the conditions of the studio where most music is recorded. Why should we do the opposite in a home, to try and reproduce the event as the engineer recorded it? I do understand both ways of doing it, but who's to say that one method is superior to the other?
I would consider with a soffit speaker to do that end as the live end and the back wall as the dead end, reproducing the conditions of the studio where most music is recorded. Why should we do the opposite in a home, to try and reproduce the event as the engineer recorded it? I do understand both ways of doing it, but who's to say that one method is superior to the other?
Yep . . . I also have heard (and tried) it both ways . . . putting the "dead" wall behind the speakers can be the best solution with speakers with severe woofer bloom . . . Earl's example (did he really say 4 feet of foam behind his speakers?) is almost classic in that regard. If you cannot maintain directional control in any other way then absorb the bloom.
With dipoles a dead front wall is absolutely wrong . . . you lose one of the major benefits and turn the speaker into essentially just another forward firing box.
I think this depends quite a lot on where you sit relative to the walls and the speakers (..and where they are relative to the walls).
If you are particularly close to the rear wall - then you've made the right choice IMO.
Frankly I think the worse setup is the most typical: pushing speakers (almost "omni" speakers), near a front wall and sitting close to the center of the room. Under that condition it makes a bit more sense to use absorption on the front wall and leave the rear wall "live".
You probably misunderstood my posts. I don't have any recommendations. I simply noted that fundamental knowledge is missing to create meaningful standards. The calibration process for a dubbing stage or home theater doesn't have the same quality as calibrating a TV screen.
You misinterpret the reason why I had posted the Genelec slide. It's not about which speaker is used, it's about what room acoustics does to the response. Furthermore it was an example for music production, not movie production.
Exactly my point. "Synergy". What does that even mean in technical terms? You won't be able to define it in a psychoacoustically meaningful way. That's not because you're lacking knowledge, it's because psychoacoustics doesn't have proper answers (yet).