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Author Topic: AMC Sound Jason Burroughs Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 654 From: Allen, TX Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-13-2002 09:02 AM                     It was a couple of years ago, but I'm pretty sure I remember "Community" being stenciled on the crates that they were shipped in. The speaker was an odd shaped creature, about the size of a small "dorm" sized refrigerator. On their own they may not have sounded bad, but as a surround they were HORRIBLE. I remember that after they put a few in they had a professor of acoustical engineering come out from some university. He ran some tests, and he confirmed what we thought as we were installing them. They were just WRONG for this application. When EQing the auditorium, set the surrounds to 83dB in the center of the auditorium, you had close to 90dB on the row that the surrounds were placed and 73dB on the front row! Last time I was there they had removed the arrays and now had 2 puny surrounds on each side (at least they were getting closer) mounted in the corner where the ceiling meets the wall about 1/2 and 3/4 back from the screen. A noticiable improvement, but STILL not good. Also their auditoriums are very echo-y even on the non-torus screens. I attribute this as there is NO sound absorbing materials on the walls.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-13-2002 09:24 AM                    Why are they trying so hard to be stupid? Do they think everyone else does things a certain way because they like spending money cavalierly?  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-14-2002 07:15 PM                     Sure the system sounds good, sure it noe tracks better and the tracks seem to last longer, but for me its hard to believe that SDDS is even still around. Now that several studios have stopped doing any SDDS tracks at all perhaps once and for all they will disappear. The latest biggie that lacks SDDS is Star Trek Nemesis. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-14-2002 09:34 PM                    I saw that last night at an AMC house featuring The Screen that Sucks. SDDS & DTS on that screen from what I could see so saved by the disk, right? Wrong. They never got the disks, they said. Overall the SR sound was ok but the funny thing was there were a few dropout-like anomolies in the sound which was rather puzzling for analog. Not unlike what was heard during some trailers which presumably were SDDS. And a very noticable dropout when the lights up cue went by at the end. Not sure what kind of nasty cuing they're doing that would go that far in so as to affect analog. Unless perhaps this house also had SR-D in the form of a basement reader and the front desk didn't know what they were talking about.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-14-2002 09:50 PM                     So are you saying that the picture sucked, or the sound sucked? Mark  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-14-2002 11:55 PM                     The AMC I worked at had 8 screens, all with SDDS. Typical setup was SDDS processor with Ultra-Stereo analog and Component Engineering booth monitor. One auditorium was set up for 8 channels. That one was also equipped with Dolby Digital and "double system" magnetic sound for test screenings. The analog processor was a Dolby CP-65. If I remember correctly, there were about 750 seats in that room. Interesting point - due to all the summertime screenings, that "big house" would constantly get re-EQ'ed. Some were better than others. As for Torus screens. I think we had 6 of them, the remaining two houses were tiny theatres.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-15-2002 12:25 AM                    No, Mark, it was The Screen That Sucked as in the infamous Torus screen. Actually that's one of the reasons we go there. We know it sucks but we find it highly amusing. The biggest screens in the complex and they're still 1.85 max (vertical masking from the top down for Scope). Manny, was that screen with interlock mag set up for two projector / changeover or did they keep a MUT around to handle the track?  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-15-2002 10:16 AM                     In that house they had a 5-deck platter. The top two platters were reserved for mag tracks at test screenings. The mag was threaded over to a separate interlocked player.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-15-2002 01:22 PM                     Those "community" surround clusters are damned near as bad as the surrounds up in the ceiling nonsense. I watched "Desperado" at the Grand 24 in an auditorium using those things. Basically, the speaker systems would call your attention directly to the upper back corners of the ceiling.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-15-2002 05:56 PM                     Well at least they are using top movable masking on the 1:85 screens. I was just kidding you when I said did the picture or sound suck. I've been to several of the AMC locations that have that sort of installation and know darn well that both the picture and sound suck. Mark  |  IP: Logged

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