Achieving An OPTIMAL Holosonic Soundfield Experience
Dear Gary: I am a subscriber and live in Belgium, Europe. First of all, let me say that I am much more informed on w what is happening with the U.S home theatre market than over here, due to your excellent publication. “Your” market is so much more dedicated to the “real experience,” so I think the distribution of your magazine worldwide is really worth gold! Thank you for that, and I will promote Widescreen Review as the reference magazine over here as well. But I wonder about something based on the excellent article in Issue 15, “Doing Home Theatre Sound Right” (an article that everyone must read before set-up). Does this apply in the same way if you have (and engage) a THX amplifier, or is this different? I base this question on the fact that in most cases, the owner’s manual speaks of setting front speakers on one line (for THX application). Am I correct in stating that this set up (Issue 15, speaker …place) works in any case whether Dolby Pro Logic, Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Surround EX, DTS Discrete 6.1 and/or THX process? P.S. Please accept my highest recommendation for all of your staff as well!
Wim Van den Broucke, Heverlee, Belgium
Editor-In-Chief Gary Reber Comments:
The answer is YES. As stated in the article, to achieve an OPTIMAL holosonic soundfield experience, each speaker position needs to be equidistant from the “sweet spot” listening position (the primary “chair” position). Any other positioning will be a compromised experience. This is not to say that the experience otherwise cannot be satisfying to an audiophile, but for the best that it can be, speaker positions should be equidistant in reference to one set of ears and should be at a distance sufficient to support a particular speaker system’s design at which distance its multiple driver response produces a coherent wavefront (typically eight feet or more). The speakers at each position on this radius should also be identical and capable of full-frequency response, with bass response to below 25Hz (as a single full-range speaker system or each speaker supplemented with a subwoofer). The electronics and associated equipment and cables should also be identical for each channel. This approach applies to EVERY surround sound source, be it analog or digital, matrix or discrete. This also applies to expanded channel formats such as Dolby Digital Surround EX and DTS-ES Discrete. And most definitely, this approach optimally supports both movies and music. I don’t want to discourage anyone, but you asked and I am giving you my answer based on extensive experimentation in the pursuit of “real-life” soundfield reproduction. We are planning a new reference home theatre laboratory in which these principals will be adhered to. Should we be able to fully implement our plans, we will fully document the building and setup of this state-of-the-art home theatre.
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