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I laugh quite hard when a customer blabs about "I have THX in my home." Hardy, har, har, whoopie shit. So far every "home THX" system I've heard is PATHETIC! Just give me the 3 inch built in tv speaker anyday. I think Mr.Norwood put it best, good mono is better than bad digital. Home systems are the same thing and it seems that few are set up properly. I just LOVE that guy who comes into the theater and complains that "the surrounds aren't working. I have THX in my home and I can hear the actors talking out of all the speakers." Yeah, right buddy. Home THX = nothing.

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Brad, I think this is a bit extreme. If someone has their home system setup so that they hear the actors talking out of their surround speakers, then they either do not have their system wired correctly, are not operating it in the current "mode", or do not have the speaker levels calibrated properly. There are excellent home systems out there, and bashing them all is a bit unfair. I agree that many people run their bass and treble up way too high and run their surrounds up to insane levels. I don't. I run my bass and treble in the "center click" positions and used a Radio Shack sound meter to calibrate my speaker levels. I do not hear actors talking out of the surrounds (unless the audio on the DVD/Laserdisc was mixed that way). In the past 10 years, I've spent more than $10000 on equipment alone (not counting DVDs and Laserdiscs). My system definitely sounds better than mono on a 3 inch TV speaker. I will not make the claim that it sounds better than a well-setup theatre, but I will say that it sounds better than many of the ones in my particular area (not "well-setup" theatres).

By the way, none of my equipment is THX-certified, nor does it need to be. I think many people buy a Dolby Digital receiver and a DVD player and see the THX logo on some of their movies and then go around telling everyone they have "THX in their home". I say that I have DTS and Dolby Digital and usually have to explain to people that THX is not a sound format as most people think.

The key to a good home system is

1. Buy high quality components capable of giving the desired functionality at the desired performance levels.

2. Install the components properly and wire them correctly.

3. Calibrate and operate those components in a manner that perserves the integrity of the material being played.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

There is no reason why DTS couldn't make use of the newer 90 minute capacity CD-Rs. At least there shouldn't be a reason.

I agree with both Brad and Evans about home theater. People usually don't realize how bad they have theirs set up. Then they go to a movie theater and they don't have the bass cranked up as high, nor do they have the low end of every speaker deligated to the subwoofer like they do in their home. And sound isn't coming out of the surround speakers 100% of the time at an insane level like it is at their home. They automatically perceive this as having better sound than a movie theater. People should have to pass tests in order to buy home theater surround equipment.

The main thing plaguing home theaters is the center channel. They all suck. The only proper way to implement a center channel is to have the exact same speaker as the left and right channels. There is no way that a dinky little speaker sitting on top of a TV (horizontally, no less) can match the huge tower speakers sitting on the floor. And syphoning the low end of the center channel to a "subwoofer" is just plain wrong. It sounds incredibly bad.

In my home theater system, I use a slightly modified version of my left and right speakers for my center channel. It doesn't quite have the same output per se, but I don't have to send the low end elsewhere. The subwoofer produces only discrete subwoofer noise. The timbre isn't perfect, but it's better than most people have their home theaters set up, I guarantee that! People need to be educated. I just wish I could get a receiver with a nice 1/3 octave EQ built in.

The problem is I am getting really tired of seeing the same Broadway logo used on just about every THX Digital Mastered DVD. They have 10 trailers total, 8 of which can be used to vary things up a bit. Not too much to ask, especially when THX is going to promote themselves to anyone with a DVD player. It is also not to much to ask for some movie companies to put some of the better DD trailers on the more aggressive sounding DVD releases. And DTS needs to get more trailers made too. I'm tired of seeing the piano trailer, especially when it is stuck on action oriented discs like the new "Die Hard" DVD and "Jurassic Park."

About the difference regarding the "Broadway" logo and that note, it is a completely different audio master and is basically a different trailer altogether. I have a VOB of the theatrical trailer and when I play it, it hits the same notes as it does in the theater.

The theatrical "Broadway" trailer lasts a lot longer than the DVD trailer. It has absolutely nothing to do with what home speakers can reproduce. I would also go so far as to say the near field environment of a home theater speaker system (at least with really good quality speakers) has more frequency reproduction capability than the large room of a commercial installation.

Home speakers dont have a better frequency reproduction necessarily....In fact I would say that a commercial set up is more apt to give you a better frequency response(better word to use). Home speakers cant necessarily produce more ferquencies. There are only so many to go around. 20hz to 20khz. A well tuned commercial site lets say a perfectly certified THX auditorium will give you a far better quality experience.
Essentially a commercial set up is probably going to EQ better and more accurately reproduce the audio for a movie overas compared to your top third tier of quality home theaters.
And that business about "near field" throws any comparison out the door between home and commercial simply because they dont EQ the same. Ever see that "ReEq" button on higher end home receivers/ processors? thats precisely cause the home system need to compensate to match the frequency response as compared to the commercial sites!!

I don't think I'm gonna agree with you here...I good home set up, speaker wise, should easily top a theatre system in just about all areas except bass. Use of compression drivers for HF in theatres all but guarantees a higher level of distortion due to their nature...they trade power efficientcy for distortion. Conversely, it isn't too hard to get a low distortion speaker for the home that needn't have the power/efficientcy requirements.

Then there is the whole subjective thing. Sound is very subjective or there would only be one brand of speaker since obviously everyone would agree that is the perfect sound...in fact we all have our own opinions on what sounds best...in the home, the purchaser decides what is best. To their mind, their system may surpass the theatre's even if everyone else on the planet disagrees. It would still remain that THEY (homeowner) think theirs is better....Now if everyone feel's their home system is tops (even if different from each other) then the perception, as a whole is that the home systems sounds better. YOU may have the benefit or experience that the theatre sounds better but you can't convince someone who subjectively feels their home system is best that the theatre is better.

I know that in my "home theatre" I got much more bang for the buck than the typical theatre owner. I don't proclaim mine to be the best nor better than a well done theatre but my cost was substantially less than a well done theatre too. I used some JBL Control 1s (mag sheilded so they can go around the monitor)...a cheesy Teac receiver with Dolby Digital and 5-100 watt chip amps (they pretty much suck but for the cost, what do you want)...the above cost less than a grand (by a fair margin). The subwoofer is a JBL B-460 (18" JBL 2245H driver in a 10cu ft. enclosure) and 500 watts behind it.

Steve

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I know that in my "home theatre" I got much more bang for the buck than the typical theatre owner. I don't proclaim mine to be the best nor better than a well done theatre but my cost was substantially less than a well done theatre too. I used some JBL Control 1s (mag sheilded so they can go around the monitor)...a cheesy Teac receiver with Dolby Digital and 5-100 watt chip amps (they pretty much suck but for the cost, what do you want)...the above cost less than a grand (by a fair margin). The subwoofer is a JBL B-460 (18" JBL 2245H driver in a 10cu ft. enclosure) and 500 watts behind it.

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The funny thing is that everyone thinks I have a subwoofer, but I don't. I'm using a Yamaha DSP-A1 receiver (DTS, DD, PCM), a pair of JPL HP520's as mains, an Infinity CC3 center speaker, and a pair of Infinity RS5's as surrounds. When I'm able to get a screen I can hang on my front wall , I'll then be able to change speakers and have 3 identical speakers across the front, but for now, I'll just use what I have. When I play certain movies, the floor vibrates and things in the room vibrate. I'm doing the opposite of many people and am sending the subwoofer output to the left and right mains. The JBL mains are a bit deceptive looking and people are always asking me where the bass is coming from. It's coming from the two 8.5 inch drivers that are mounted together inside the enclosure. When people look at the speakers, they see the tweeeter, mid, and 6.5 inch woofer and then wonder why the speakers have such a full bass response. A 35Hz test tone vibrates the room fairly well.

One friend jokingly told me that if I did get a subwoofer, he doubted that people would be able to survive the experience. I'm not one of those people that likes the overdone bass that you often hear in stores like Best Buy (bass and treble run up on everything) or that you hear from cars driving by with bass emanating from the trunk. That's not how music and movies are supposed to sound. If I can vibrate the room with some actions movies really well with my bass and treble set to the center positions with the mains the way they are, I really don't think a subwoofer is going to help much. BTW, the JBL HP520's were $768 a piece when new, and I got them for $299 each when Video Concepts went out. I've never regretted buying those. The bass seems much more accurate and controlled than from other speakers I've heard. I fear that if I got a subwoofer, the accuracy of my bass overall might go down.

I have become very sensitive to detecting music being played with too much bass or treble and I cringe every time I walk into Best Buy. They have tweeters mounted above the racks of CDs and subwoofers below them. They have treble and bass with practically no mid-bass or midrange. Ugh. Teenagers like that, though, and running bass and treble up on their receivers when demonstrating speakers makes teenagers think they sound better, and they probably sell more that way.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

I think this kind of mentality leads to home theater and even the movie theater where one punk decided that the auditoriums didn't have as much bass as his car, and therefore didn't sound as good. He found a way to crank all of the subwoofers up to maximum and apparantly blew out the majority of them.

Two disks is one thing but a one disc release that omits some sound files is just plain iresponsible, lazy, and I'm gonna end this post now before I start!

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I guess this would be a HUGE argument AGAINST a dual format, as SDDS and SRD don't have problems like this.

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