PMC Loudspeakers And Bryston Amplifiers Anchor Surround Music Supersession At 2001 Consumer Electronics Show

26-Jan-01

Wow! Just when you thought 5.1 was taking the music and home theatre worlds by storm, TMH's Tomlinson Holman and others demonstrated the 10.2 surround music concept to overflow crowds at the Alexis Park Hotel during the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show. This event captured the imagination of cutting edge technology equipment manufacturers, recording engineers, musicians, producers, the international press and a host of the surround sound enthusiasts who champion pushing the sonic envelope.The presenters covered the entire chain of creating, mastering and selling surround music to the public. Holman began the session with a brief overview citing the invention of surround for the ""Flight Of The Bumblebee"" segment in the 1940 movie ""Fantasia"" to the 1987 standardization of 5.1-channel sound as driving factors in raising consumer surround sound interest and sales. Gateway Mastering's Bob Ludwig discussed the rather complicated procedure of DVD authoring and retailer Bjorn Dybdahl, of Bjorn's Audio Video discussed selling surround sound to the high-end consumer.But in the end it was five-time GrammyÆ Award-winning icon Herbie Hancock and his music that stunned the attendees. ""Surround sound is the catalyst for compositional ideas,"" said Hancock. Not until he played ""Butterfly,"" a cut from his 1994 album entitled Dis Is Da Drum in its two-channel release mix, followed by the component parts of the mix spatialized over the multichannel sound system, and finally the complete mix in 10.2-channel sound, did the audience fully appreciate the spatial beauty and musicality of the increased number of channels. Hancock said in ""our immersive sonic world, stereo is unnatural, surround is natural... [and] the more channels the better.""The majority of the loudspeakers used in the 10.2 set up were provided by U.K.-based PMC (Professional Monitor Company Ltd.). Initially conceived as a professional monitor manufacturer, PMC now designs speakers for the home environment as well. The LCR speakers were each stacked PMC BB5 monitors. The BB5 features PMC's transmission line technology to deliver exceptional low frequency extension, lower coloration and high SPLs without distortion or compression. PMC's MB1s, hung fourteen feet in the air outside the LCRs, served as the left and right height channel speakers. The three-driver, internally cooled MB1s deliver piston-like precision at a frequency range of 20Hz to 25kHz. Two additional MB1s were used as wide left and wide right front channels. And at the rear of the setup, stacked MB1s handled the left and right surround duties, with a single MB1 unit in the center back position. Twin Tesseract loudspeakers formed surround dipoles and a Whise 616 subwoofer rounded out the playback system. The source for all this sound was a large Pro Tools system, followed by two TMH Bass Managers forming a 10.2-channel unit and Rane equalizers.Thirty-nine channels of Bryston amplification powered all the loudspeakers. Bryston Ltd., of Ontario, Canada has a stellar reputation for designing amplifiers with exceptional sonic characteristics including fine transparency, outstanding tonal balance, full dynamic range capability and authoritative imaging.Asked why he choose Bryston amps and PMC monitors, Holman said, ""I have had a long term relationship with Bryston, starting from the 1970s when they were competitors of my company, through THXÆ, to today. It was a big risk for them to supply so much equipment and manpower to set up such a large system on request, without ever having heard the program material and what we were up to. We are profoundly thankful to them that they participated in this demonstration of what we think is the future of audio. I had been introduced to PMC loudspeakers at MasterMix in Nashville, and had specified Bryston amplifiers into a number of consulting jobs, such as the Paramount Studios main theatre, and am glad to have their help in this major demonstration."" Equipment ListBryston Amplifiers15 7BST PRO3 4BST PRO3 10B Pro Stereo with custom crossovers4 8BST ProPMC Loudspeakers6 BB5 Monitors9 PMC MB1