The worse your sound system the lower you have to set the volume to please your patrons. My sound system consists of a CP65 & a DA20. I have three QSC1400 amps and some old Altec Lansing, Voice of the Theatre speakers with the segmented horns. There are 8 Boston Acustic surrounds on the wall. I can only set my volume at 5 for my audience. When I worked a a theatre with a much better sound set up, I was able to play louder, cleaner.
 

Sound shouldn't be harsh and screechy. I don't like my action movies to sound like 1000 police sirens going off at once (perfect example of this from bad mixing..."The Mummy"). Unfortunately, sound is subjective and many people mistake harsh sound for "wow, listen to how clean and crisp that is!"
 

The auditorium is large, with 713 seats and a heigh ceiling.
 

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"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

 

I just think people aren't used to hearing movies being played in surround sound. Cinemark's the first place in town to offer it.

After 4 years, I still get people telling me that they were sitting RIGHT UNDER the speaker and there was nothing comming out.
 

On the day we opened Portrait Of A Lady, Jane Campion had put a letter in with the print instructing (demanding) that this film MUST be played at 7 no matter what. Anything less would seriously damage the enjoyment factor of the film for the patron.

OK, I thought. Obviously this is a quiet mix and she's trying to make it heard. Up to 7 it goes at the feature. I go out to check the sound and am almost plastered up against the back wall! Ended up playing this at 4.5 from memory.

Bottom line? There is no real level you MUST go to. Use common sense and check the auditorium yourself to find out if it's a soft or loud track and adjust volumes accordingly. If it's the latest 'Rambo' (oh, no!) you're running the audience will most likely want it loud, if you're running the latest Jane Campion film, Jane will want it loud but ignore her and run it at a proper level.
 

For what it's worth, I hear about 20 comments praising our sound for every one "that's loud!" comment I hear.

We're running DTS and an Ultra Stereo processor with all Peavey amps and stage speakers, and 10 EV surrounds.

As others have said, the movie can make a difference. And if we have a crowd of teenagers or kids, I always turn it up a half-notch to compensate for their talking, fidgeting, floor stomping, candy-wrapper rustling, etc.
 

Wow, with that equipment, you should be able to have excellent sound. (no joke). What do you mean by "segmented horns"? Are they A-5s with "Multi-cell" or A-7s with "Sectorial" horns? If they are A-7s then you have to be careful since it only has a 1" compression driver. I generally limit the use of those to rooms under 45' in length. When ever possible, I dump the older horns and mount the driver(s) on Altec Mantarays.

In any event, you should be able to get exceptionally good sound out of them with the CP-65/DA-20 using QSC 1400s...try bi-amping.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

 

One of the more interesting letters I got was from that one guy who directed Magnolia. He basically demanded and pleaded the movie be played at 7. The sound in that movie was so harsh and overdriven throughout the entire thing that we could only turn it up to 5. What a dumbass. We normally play most of our movies around 7-ish and they sound great. The majority of our EQ's are similar to what Brad does --- soften out the harshness without making it "dull" sounding, while boosting the lows in the stage channels which give more bass and also help to blend the subwoofer in better to the main channels. We will get the occasional complaint on a weekday during the first show, but that's about it.
 

I remeber running the special edition Star Wars movies and we got a bunch of complaints about it being toooo loud at 6. When we ran Phantom Menace it was run at 7 for the whole run with maybe 3 complaints. We did close the theatre for two weeks proir to retrofit it for THX certification and put in the suround EX. Got the best sound going in the county.

 

How many other theaters are there in your county and what sound systems do they have? You never said what fader setting you run your SDDS films at.

 

7 is just a "magic" number . . . The level that you play a film dependent on many factors, most of which have been covered above.

The question is, what other chnages were made when you upgraded to "Digital"? One important thing to remember is what level was it at before the upgrade. One way to check is to switch to "SR" or "A-type" and set it at the level you heard before the upgrade. Note that level, now switch to the digital playback and again check the level.

1) it shouldn't change except that the surrounds will split
2) it sould sound cleaner, a little more high end frequency response, but not louder! If the volume level does change then there is something wrong in the set-up! (However, a properly set-up "SR" system will be barely noticable in HF response change)

Now that you've got that refrence level and you digital level to match that and everybody is happy (ha,ha) then that is your "7"
 

There are 11 theatres total with 49 screens. Through out the 49 screens there are some of every format I would think that the most comon is Dolby Digital. We have the only Souround EX. There are only 8 THX screen in the whole county though.
Our SDDS fader is set to 0.0 and our CP200 is ususlly set to 6 for SDDS movies. They seem to be a bit lowder. I remeber running Starship troopers SDDS. Big Booms!!
If we played that film now, after our retrofit!! It would be intence. We doubled our sub-woofers from 4 to 8!!!!!!! <hehehehe>
 

Does your SDDS run through the CP200 or independently?
 

Probubly more confusing that informative. =)