Home Theater IMAX Experience w/ A Robinson-Youtube

Criderfive,

I respect your opinion even though we disagree. You don't say otherwise, but it looks like you favor the objective more than the subjective when it comes to audio. But my main issue is this: For all the talk about science and facts, no one ever backs their position up with any. Objectives reference all kinds of tests and studies but they are never able to produce them. That's why I don't take their claims seriously.

"That's the problem with this hobby, willful ignorance. Copper can only do so much but many claim they have magic that can transcend it's limitations."

Can you show me one example of someone making the above claim? That shouldn't be too difficult if there are many of them out there. I just want to see one.

Zd542, I do think you and Andrew Robinson would make good "Woods mates", should you be lost in a forest! -just go with whatever. (or maybe instead of simply rebutting on my statements, perhaps you could point out some specifics of what's seen on the videos, and comment and recommend in regards to those, no?!)

Lemme make my position real clear... If your average AV enthusiast, hobbyist, or DIY simply picks the ball up and runs with it, after watching these video's, more often than not, the end user's results are going to be poor picture quality and low-fidelity sound quality! PERIOD! Overall experience will be nothing special, in fact, likely lack-luster, at best! ..good results are going to be more involved and knowledge/experience intensive, regardless.,

In case you need me to expound more on my position (no, I don't need to get you a colorimeter and sound meter out to show/tell you what the readings will be! - but guarantee everyone sitting in the theater can easily identify that things aren't so great looking or sounding, and that things could be overall much better, guaranteed!) -What is compromised pic quality, you ask? Um, the black levels are grey, the contrast is poor (with washed out color and contrast, loss of shadow detail), due to white colored ceilings and floors near the screen surface (untreated)! IMAX picture quality? Yes, you'll need 4K projections and processing (source material?), and sitting closer than 40% viewing angle, will require such! -although, yes, some could argue that some JVC,Sony,Panny 1080p's, with their tight pixel structure and processing are viewable at such close distances, perspectively. Still, every other 1080p projection tech will show easily discernible pixel structure, distracting during many instances from a projected image. But make no mistake, IMAX calls for 4K, not 1080p!
What is low fidelity sound quality? Hugh holes (main issue in bass response ) and peaks in the frequency response of the bass, improper reverb and tonality from any given seat in the room, dead/lifeless sound + poorly delineated sound stage, smeared imaging from the soundstage/loud speakers, one speaker booming in your ear on far end seating locations, phase issues, hole in the crossover frequency for mains vs sub from seating positions, lack of dynamics and impact due to improper loud speaker selections, locations, and settings, overall bombastic, uneven, bright in some spots/rolled off in others tonality, and so on.
Also, no, someone cannot simply put loud speakers "where they think they should go", and or chose "whatever equipment they have laying around"-implemented in a given space - and expect great results that will wow their friends, and stand as a reference against anything QUALITY! In fact, enthusiests and weekend warriors have been doing this sort - WITH POOR RESULTS - for years!,...and my experience is they fail miserably in any quality attempt. .. Might as well get a flat screen and a sound bar (in fact, they guy recommends one in the videos!!!) and forget about it! -er maybe some Bose. Whatever works, you know. after All, who's to say your Beats headphones and sitting 1 foot from your computer monitor isn't as good?! ...I always say, anyway. George Lucas would be impress, regardless, I'm sure.

You just made my point. Pretty much everything you listed above is subjective or a guess on what can or may go wrong. Not only that, you are getting actual facts wrong. Here's one example.

"Might as well get a flat screen and a sound bar (in fact, they guy recommends one in the videos!!!) and forget about it! -er maybe some Bose. Whatever works, you know."

I do know because every IMAX theater I've ever been in uses Bose speakers.

Zd542, you are correct we will have to agree to disagree and yes audio is very objective.Thank you for the mutual respect.The op has a valid point there are right and wrong ways to do things in the a/v world. Case in point, my father in-law has a 55" led lcd that he insists looks fantastic on the sports setting, every time I'm there I have to re calibrate his set because people are not orange and black is not grey.Now to be fair I do things wrong in my own set up. I have a 120" screen that I sit 12' away from and at times because my siting distance is to close ( the science of how our eyes perceive things at different distances dictates this)on a very busy action scene it can be distracting. I know it's wrong but I like my big screen and 95% of the time it works fine. The men at Dolby laboratory have spent decades figuring how to do surround the right way. They set parameters to follow if you want the best experience. Not to get to philosophical here but there are universal truths and this applies to a/v too. You also asked for evidence of my claim that company's sell magic and call it science, most commonly called snake oil in a/v circles. So here it is, and the site I linked has many great articles on various myths that many call truth with evidence to back it up. http://www.audioholics.com/audio-video-cables/top-ten-signs-an-audio-cable-vendor-is-selling-you-snake-oil

Criderfive,

Thanks for the answer. You did take the time to give me a quality response, so I just want to clarify my position on doing things the "right way". I fully understand that there may be a textbook way to do things. Maybe its something product specific like THX, or maybe its something generic, like room acoustics. What I was trying to say was simply this: Even if you do something exactly the "right" way in audio, quite often people don't like it. For example, you can show someone a system that exhibits, high quality, audiophile bass, and they still prefer crappy one note bass from something like a car stereo. Over the years, I've found that you just can't force people to like something just because you do, or because its the "right way".

As far as the Bose comment, I know that I may have throne you off on that a bit on that one. I'm pretty sure you were talking theater in the more traditional sense (THX, Dolby Digital, 5.1 etc.). The topic of this thread is to try and reproduce the IMAX experience. For IMAX audio, Bose is what they use. That, of course, leaves the door open to say that you have to use Bose speakers to do it right. I won't lie, every time I re read this quote from the OP, I start laughing: "For example: in the IMAX series, he suggests that, since you can do an "inspired" IMAX system, you can pretty much just chose any type of loud speakers you have laying around the house, and they will work just fine!.". Out with the Wilson's and in with the Bose!

As far as the link to ausioholics, we may still disagree. There's a lot of info and I didn't have a chance to read everything. I use mostly Audioquest cables in my system and read through some back and forth dialog pertaining to them, and found it very interesting. I'll pick out a few quotes and make some comments.

"Audioquest Response

A quick look at your web site gives the impression that you are on a quest to prove that the evaluation of component audio performance is something best determined with test instruments. While I agree that measured performance is important, I'm an old fuddy duddy that still believes that the ear is the best test instrument of all. Years of evaluating (blind) various metals, insulation materials and cable geometry bare this out. That you would include AudioQuest DBS cables.....cables that you've never heard... in your list of audio snake oil makes it quite clear that your mind has already been made up before doing any evaluation at all."

Without doing any type of hands on testing, scientific or not, I can't see that any comments are anything other than a guess.

"Electrical properties of cables are well known and documented from DC up to GHz (reference. Henry Ott,Dr. Howard Johnson, etc). To insist otherwise is futile. Exotic cable psuedo science only exists in consumer audio. Why is that? In our opinion it appears the exotic cable industry thrives on consumer ignorance and a lack of industry checks and balances. Audioquest and other exotic cable vendors claim all sorts of "audible distortions" from cables. Yet they offer no measurable proofs or methods for analysis. Ever hear of a device called the "Audio Precision One". This proven and industry standard audio analyzer is capable of measuring audio distortions well below human audibility. Surely if all of this distortion was present, a simple measurement would prove it. No? Have Audioquest and other exotic cable vendors discovered new types of audible distortions not currently known by proven science and engineering disciplines? If so, why not publish a paper on it at AES or IEEE and have it peer reviewed. It may even be worthy of a Nobel Prize."

That's a fair point if its true. Cable companies like AQ do provide some specs. I can't help but think, though, that if the critic thinks the results from using the Audio Precision Device is so important for an evaluation as to the quality of a cable, why leave it up to AQ to do it (or any other cable company, for that matter.)? Using the machine is his idea, and there is nothing stopping him from doing a test with it.

"Our mind has not been made up about the quality of your cables. Despite your unproven and mostly fictitious claims, if your cables measure well based on proven science (you know lumped element analysis) they may actually perform well. If we had samples to review, we would certainly confirm this. We have no issues with cables costing as much as yours do provided that the supporting claims for the products are based in reality and do not clearly violate engineering and scientific truths while being pawned off as such. Perhaps if you made the consumer aware of the fact that producing cosmetically pleasing cables does carry a considerable manufacturing and materials expense, your price justification would be vindicated."

Complete speculation. How can you say that AQ's claims are mostly fictitious without listing the claims that they think are fictitious? Not only that, I don't see how they can make any claims at all when they haven't so much laid a hand on a pair of cables. And they don't need AQ to send them cables for evaluation. They can get them from Best Buy if they want to test them so badly. Return them when they are done.

"Alternatively we can arrange a controlled DBT with your cables and say 10AWG Zip Cord with a panel of listeners and do a statistical analysis to determine correlation that your cables really do sound "better" and that your reasoning is sound. We are willing to work with you on exposing the truths about your claims to promote better understanding for our readership and the rest of the audio community. Here is your chance to educate the public about a science that is allegedly not well understood and have an independent source peer review and confirm."

Same thing again. Why ask AQ if they want to take part in a DBT and not continue if they don't? Do it anyway. Its a blind test. The results should be identical regardless of weather AQ participates in them.

To sum up, that's my main issue. Critics go on about all of this testing, but they never do it. Why? I could if I really wanted to. There seems to be agreement that well done DBT's would be a big help in determining what claims about cables are true. I agree. No doubt that claims are a mixed bag; some true and some false. But until the critics start actually testing the cables, I just can't take them seriously.