Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Which would you buy DTS-6D or DTS-6AD?

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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 02-02-2004, 04:08 PM:

Without causing a battle over formats [Big Grin]

I would like to know which DTS unit everyone prefers.
It seems on the surface the DTS-6AD is the better buy. Since it contains both the processor and the booth monitor.
But I'm sure there are many other opinions and gotchas. Please let'm fly. [beer]

Thanks!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-02-2004, 04:18 PM:

Oh God no don't buy the 6AD! It's analog handling is unbelieveably bad. If you specifically want the dts format over Dolby Digital, just get yourself a dts6-D (or an XD-10) and a quality processor.

Personally, I would recommend you look into a Dolby CP-650 as an all-in-one combo. Had I reviewed the 6AD, it would've probably scored something along the lines of a D rating. You can do so much better, and even cheaper if you need elsewhere.

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 02-02-2004, 05:54 PM:

I'll second the DTS-6D. team it up with a CP-65 and you'll have one good setup.

Josh

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 02-02-2004, 05:59 PM:

I'll 3rd it! Brad is on target about the analog section of the 6AD.

Also, the Booth Monitor section is soooo underpowered it's basically useless if a projetor is running.

>>> Phil

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 02-02-2004, 06:47 PM:

Why aren't you considering Dolby?

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 02-02-2004, 08:32 PM:

I'd actually lean towards the XD-10. SMART right now has a deals going on the Panastereo CSP-1200 packaged with either a DTS-6D or the XD-10.

Steve

Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 02-02-2004, 10:35 PM:

I just knew Steve would chime in [Big Grin]

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 02-03-2004, 12:18 PM:

Ok, I'll play the devils advocate and ask, why should I care about the DTS-6ad's poor analog processing, when I plan to only use analog for rare backup? I'm just asking. [Smile]

Manny, because of budget. Dolby would cost me about $16,000 more for 3 screens of digital. These are relatively small house's in a relatively small town. Budget is limited. And with my limited experience, to me DTS provides just as good or better "dynamic" sound experience.

Steve, Brad, anyone else, please educate me as to why the XD-10 is a better choice over the 6d. I've read the manual for the XD-10, sounds like a neat toy. But I'm not keen on adding the hard drive into the failure equation. We don't do a lot of film swapping from auditorium to auditorium, so that limits the plus of storing sound tracks on the HD. Or am I missing the bigger picture here?

And as far as it's video capabilities, DTS lacks in explaining why I want or need this? What is the price dif over the 6d? Does the price of it put it into Dolby territory?

My experience with hard drives over the years has not given me a warm fuzzy feeling about relying on them for sound presentation. They give me enough fits just selling tickets. [Big Grin]

Thank you to everyone replying to this thread.
I really (always) appreciate the opinions.

Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 02-03-2004, 12:37 PM:

Well Why should you care about DTS poor analog backup. Lets see we had 4 released movies at my theatre this past summer that were Dolby Digital only so that would be a good starting point. If all you have is DTS and the AD players at that and you ended up with 3 movies that are Dolby Digital only then you will have 3 houses with really crappy analog sound.

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 02-03-2004, 12:43 PM:

William
Point taken.
I had not run into prints without DTS.
Hey, I've got lots to learn. [Smile]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-03-2004, 03:38 PM:

Having a good sounding analog backup is extremely important. There will be times you don't get discs, or they won't track properly or got crushed in those new joke DVD style cases (close to half of the ones I've seen have come in broken).

You could buy a dts6-d player and pick up an older sound processor used (or new) and save a lot of money over the 6-AD and have a far better sounding end result.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 02-03-2004, 07:08 PM:

The 6AD is up there with the Sony DFP1000 and 3000. Its really a piece of junk to say the least. Go the 6D or better yet buy a used DTS 6 cheaply as its the best of the stand alone DTS players.

The analog backup should be almost as good in sound quality as your digital playback is(yes, this is easy to accomplish) so that when there is a reversion to analog there is hardly any discernable difference. Today that means going with a Panastereo CSP-1200 and BACP reader...which is about the finest analog playback you can get. The CSP-1200 also has facilities for 3 digital sources!!

Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-03-2004, 08:08 PM:

The original DTS-6 model seems to be the best built of the bunch. Our Carmike theater here still has their original two DTS-6 units from when the placed opened in 1994. Both have operated for over 9 years now without any problems.

The XD-10 is a pretty cool piece of hardware. But a lot of its capability is sadly going unused. I haven't heard a word about any future films using the 8 or 10 channel capability of the system. The thing is even extensible; you could play a lot more than 10 channels of sound with the upgrades that are possible. My guess is the real muscle of the XD-10 may eventually be seen in special venue theaters.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 02-04-2004, 10:01 PM:

The XD-10's real merit and computing power lies in the fact that as it sits is can playback 96 khz/24 bit DTS discs. This will most likely be the next evolution that film sound will go in the not to distant future. Of course the big "d" will have to scurry to counter this ability. I wonder how they would fit that in between sprocket holes.
The XD-10 does not need any internal modification as did the 6 and the 6D to playback Special Venue disks.
Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-04-2004, 10:35 PM:

quote:
Today that means going with a Panastereo CSP-1200

Somehow I knew you would say that.
Unfortunately, I haven`t had the opportunity yet to hear one of these processors except for once in Buffalo, but it was playing an older movie with dialog only. I would really like to check a system based on this processor. Does anyone know where they are installed in the San Diego or Los Angeles area?

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 02-08-2004, 09:30 PM:

Brad Allen...

The XD-10 is a hard drive based DTS player. As such, you only use your DVD-ROM drives to load in your discs once...after that the unit runs off the hard drive. From a reliability standpoint, this going to be more reliable and less costly to upkeep as compared to changing out CD-ROMs (or DVD-ROMs nowadays).

The XD-10 is clearly the way DTS is leaning for the future as well. I wouldn't be surprised to see the 6D go the way of the 6 and loose support.

I agree with the others on the orginal DTS-6 contruction though. They used truely industrial CD-ROM drive and the build quality of eveything inside was top notch. They also used Jesen audio transformers on the outputs which also was very smart...no noise problems there. I believe the original DTS-6 though did have some headroom problems as compared to the 6D.

For a DTS digital system...I'd pair a XD-10 to the Panastereo CSP-1200. That is a pretty darn flexible and good sounding system. With the current SMART deal, it is even more cost effective too.

Steve

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 02-09-2004, 12:43 AM:

We have 1 DTS-6 unit, 2 DTS-6D's and one Dolby, all running through (loaded) CP-65's. I'm very happy with all of them in that configuration.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-09-2004, 09:50 PM:

I agree that its pretty cool how the DTS XD-10 can play a wide variety of formats, including 24-bit/96kHz audio.

Concerning the question of how Dolby would counter, it certainly would not make any sense to answer with a sound-on-film based system. There's only so many pixels you can get printed reliably on a film strip, and Dolby chose a pretty low number from the outset. To get much higher bit levels, you need much faster CCD cameras to "see" the high rez bitmap. And then you may have to laser record it to film. Overall it just seems pretty unfeasible. Dual systems are the way to go.

Of course, it should be said with all the hype surrounding "digital projection" things like next generation surround sound formats have taken a back seat. Right now, does anyone care if the standard improves above lossy compresed DD, DTS and SDDS?

If anything, DTS needs to work hard on getting its XD-10 units into the field as a "simple" way of eventually doing fully uncompressed movie surround audio. That's the future. These current lossy-compressed formats are mere interim steps. We're already seeing some steps into the future given the fact many special venue theaters and "D-Cinema" shows use uncompressed 5.1 channel Linear PCM.

If I were running things at either DTS or Panastereo, I would get on the stick about getting some kind of simple, affordable, next generation audio system together that both includes something like the XD-10 processor and a top-quality cinema processor to be able to handle a wide variety of uncompressed LPCM surround configurations at anywhere from 16-bit 44.1kHz to 24-bit/96kHz.

The way many of the D-Cinema systems seem to be set up is the LPCM surround system is proprietary and comes with the D-Cinema system. Potentially companies like DTS could get squeezed out in the long run.