"Ultra Stereo" Sound Format?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

16mm stereo existed AMC had a experiment with converted Eastman 25 that played stereo with a Kintek processor. I dont think it accurate to say Ultra was the processor of choice for poor theatres. Kintek was often that choice or Eprad.

Kintek was by farthe most unreliable sound gear ever made. Just ask any UA Tech of that time period. Very little worked right out of the box. Not even the exciter supplies!

I got to see the aftermath of the AMC 16mm experiment once as it all landed at National Theater Supply in Kansas City. Was there picking up some lamphouses back then and they gave me a tour of 50+ Eastmans that had all ended up there. No idea if those were scrapped out or sold off. None were for sale when I looked at them.

RE: Ultra Stereo.... They also had a THX approved processor. Eprad and Kintok never did.

[Steve Guttag]

In the USA, I'd say the range of non-Dolby equipment was a bit varied. SMART coming in at the low-end of affordability over anything other aspects. Oddly, I found their bottom end SR-135 (I think that was the name)...just a 1U "decoder" of sorts, sounded better than most of their "higher end" ones. I don't know of many people that actually thought that the SMART stuff was good...but it was cheap and yeah, some exhibitor would claim that is all that they can afford but, honestly, if you are at that end, probably you were not presenting the move well either. The various "MOD" processors had their ups and downs. The MOD IIB and C had a decent balance of value to suitability.

Other notable brands were Eparad (at least, early on...with the Starscope and Starlet). Ultra*Stereo (of course), Kintek (started off with pseudo stereo stuff but, starting with the KT-700 made an SVA decoder). There was the Christie Sound-A-Around that used genuine Dolby CAT22 NR cards (so did the original Eprad Starscope).

I'd say that Ultra Stereo did make the best of the knock off processors but dumb things made them less reliable...things like the power supply bypass button that would be the source of the failure...even things like their booth monitor would use volume pots that were complete crap. USL's internal wiring was rather wanting too. Given that the cinema processor can last a pretty long time, it shouldn't be the first place to save on. The CP50 really could survive into digital audio but it clearly was designed before such inputs were a consideration but by '85 the CP55 was out and that definitely could have be used to the end of film...as could the later Dolby processors. The stuff by other companies...maybe not as things would be broken or not supported.

I can understand where speakers will make things expensive and really drive up the cost of the upgrades since there are so many of them but boy...Peavy? I'd take Altec with Mono over Peavy with stereo. JBL isn't esoteric and most anyone that bought things like the 4675 are STILL using them 30-40 years later. Cost/year...pretty cheap. Sound quality...pretty high.

Then again, I'm in the delima now on how to design sound systems to update failing processors and amplifiers. With supply chain issues, choices are pretty slim and without the hint of competitive brands. Most can't supply what is on their lineups and the variety are now down to QSC, Dolby, Trinnov, and the AP25 for processors. You can get analog amplifiers easier than anything with DSP in them but crossovers become an issue because the things that have crossovers built in are hard to get (either processors or amplifiers). Analog active crossovers are few and far between in offerings and often are of inadequate choices.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

[QUOTE=Steve Guttag;n22924Then again, I'm in the delima now on how to design sound systems to update failing processors and amplifiers. With supply chain issues, choices are pretty slim and without the hint of competitive brands. Most can't supply what is on their lineups and the variety are now down to QSC, Dolby, Trinnov, and the AP25 for processors. You can get analog amplifiers easier than anything with DSP in them but crossovers become an issue because the things that have crossovers built in are hard to get (either processors or amplifiers). Analog active crossovers are few and far between in offerings and often are of inadequate choices. [/QUOTE]

This time around instead of updating you may have to repair / substitute equipment instead. You DON'T have to replace power amps, and those are very easy to repair. Even with supply chain issues, parts in smaller quantities are not impossible to locate. While I like Q-sys and it's digital off springs and what it all offers, not being able to repair it is a huge disadvantage that many are learning about as I type this. Temporarily substituting some older gear till more new gear becomes available is likely to happen in lots of places as people find out the new shiny gear also has it's disadvantages. Gear designed to save money doesn't save any money when a screen or more have to be shut down.

[Steve Guttag]

Believe it or not...it is amplifiers, at the moment, that are my biggest failure items. Some are old QSC (over 20-years), while others are some not too old but old for Crown. Both had crossovers. The QSC had XC-1 while the Crowns have built in DSP. So, I need to not only deal with the amplifier but also having a suitable crossover to go with it. There are amps like the Dolby DMA...where it would solve that problem...if you don't mind putting all of your eggs in one basket...though it is well backed up. Still, you could lose 8-channels in one board failure. The QSC (original CX amps from the '90s) are old enough where a full rebuild would be in order to get them going again but they are all starting to drop of the same age. You aren't just changing a diode or a noisy pot...you are going to be looking for all of the electrolytics, zeners and, quite possibly output devices, which may be hard to find. And, when you're done, you STILL have a 20+ year old amplifier.

As for Q-SYS...it has a lot of redundancy in it. For instance, we often have dual COREs (processors) so it takes a double failure to take it down. Likewise, a spare amplifier on site could go in anywhere it is needed to restore that one screen and in the meantime, quite bypass will work around critical problems before the equipment is replaced.