Home cinema audio design
Movie Soundtracks can create the sense of total immersion in a movie. From shattering glass to a realistic gun shot, there can be huge dynamic range from deep bass to high frequency treble.
With the latest Surround sound formats, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X Pro and Auro 3D, the director can place us right inside the movie in a way that has never been possible before.
This total immersion is created by sounds coming from every angle around us, if a helicopter passes over head or a bullet whizzes past, the best audio systems can place these sounds perfectly around us in 3D space.
This total immersion is created by sounds coming from every angle around us, if a helicopter passes over head or a bullet whizzes past, the best audio systems can place these sounds perfectly around us in 3D space.
Screen Speakers
In a dedicated room, where we have full control of the screen ands speaker placement, the Left, Centre and Right speaker would be placed in a baffle wall, behind the Projection Screen, exactly the same way it would be in every commercial cinema.
These speakers are the most important in the whole system, producing almost all of the movie dialogue and tying the sounds to the on-screen action.
These speakers need to provide excellent clarity across every seat, its impossible to enjoy a movie if you cant understand the words the actors are saying. The selection of these speakers will depend on the distance to the seating area and how wide the area is to be covered. When budget allows, we would usually specify speakers which are capable of playing twice as loud as they will ever be used to make sure they are never distorted and dialogue is as clear as possible.
Surround Speakers
The number of surround speakers is a balancing act of Quality and Budget.
With more speakers, we improve the positioning of special effects around the room, making the 3D effect even more pronounced and exciting.
When budget wont allow a large number of speakers of the same quality as the screen speakers, its time to reduce the total count. A 5.1 speaker layout with just 2 very high quality surround speakers can often sound much more enjoyable than 4/6/8 surround speakers of lower quality.
There are now many mainstream Surround Sound Processors able to send audio to 15 main speakers, this would provide 9 speakers at ear level and 6 over head or in the ceiling. Beyond 15 speakers, performance continues to improve, with the use of the highest quality Processors such as a Trinnov Altitude 32 or Storm ISP 2 which allow us to use up to 32 speakers fully surrounding the listening area.
Listening Volume
Movie soundtracks are generally made at the same average sound volume. This means that the audio is around 85dB with a further 20dB available for loud passages and special effects. This means that any speaker in the room could be asked to deliver 105dB single handedly to every seat, which is quite a difficult task, requiring speakers designed specifically to do it – average HiFi Speakers will distort or run out of steam way below this level.
Subwoofers have an even tougher job, required to reach 115dB at the seating position. In many rooms this requires multiple subwoofers to share the load between them.
We understand that many of our clients will never turn their system up to 11 and listen at 105dB, this is much like having a supercar but never driving it 200mph. The Supercar is much more fun at legal street speeds and 0-60mph because it has the potential to go to 200mph. In the same way, an Audio system that has the power and control to play to 105dB will have much better clarity and dynamics at 95dB than a system which is designed to only just reach 95dB and is playing at its maximum capacity.
