Stop! Please read this even if you don’t think of yourself as a home theatre enthusiast.
On a magic night in March each year, the film world comes together to celebrate another year of the magic that is movie-making. It is no accident that this award bonanza takes place in the DOLBY Theater. Dolby is largely a sound company. As most people know, Dolby is credited with reducing noise in music recordings going back to the late 60’s. In the past 30 years, they’ve absolutely revolutionized movie making, first by the creation of Dolby S (the standards, techniques, and equipment needed for making modern digitally processed movies) and Dolby Digital, known originally as Dolby Digital 5.1.
For me, the real stars behind the scenes are the sound designers, without whom the sound and magic simply doesn’t happen. People like Walter Murch, whose work on Apocalypse Now is credited with lighting the fuse that was to follow. Using incredibly difficult live sound, Apocalypse Now is studied in every college-level course on sound design, and he’s won 3 Oscars to back it up. Ben Burtt went directly from USC’s film school to creating the sound that made an entire generation or three fall in love with the movies in the late 70’s. Star Wars has so many wonderful original sounds; think of the cute bee boop of C3PO or the “Aaaargh” of the Wookie. Was there ever a time when we hadn’t heard Darth Vader's deep baritone and heavy breathing? Thank Mr. Burtt.
It’s the Sound: Sound is the single creative element most responsible for creating and carrying the emotion in a movie. Reducing the sound level by just a few clicks in a horror movie reduces much of the terror in the scene. Tom Cruise flying the canyon in Top Gun Maverick -even on a good 4K panel-- doesn’t induce the same white-knuckled tension as he performs increasingly impossible twists and rapid direction changes. It’s the sound that is used to build the tension. Yet with the sound turned down just a few clicks it remains a feast for the eyes, but the tension falls away.
Movies can be beautiful, scary, thrilling, or simple and modest. But no matter the theme, we go to the movies to be transported. For two hours, we can sit down, forget about the world outside, and travel through time and cultures—even galaxies—to arrive changed by the end of a great movie. Who can forget the iconic, awe-inspiring start to the first Star Wars? As the massive battle cruiser slowly rumbles overhead, the audience is reduced, awed, and made to feel small and insignificant. Mute the sound, and the computer-generated graphic (do try not to be critical of early CG, at the time no one had experienced anything vaguely like it) still traverses the fake blackness of supposed interstellar space, but all of the emotion drops away,dead in its silent tracks. Slightly silly…did we ever find that intimidating?
This is Why We Take Movie Sound So Seriously: Back in the 90s, through the good works of Terry Medalen…who may well be the finest trainer in the history of high-end audio, we (as an owner of SUMIKO, we were allowed to bring some 34 training classes through for tours) were fortunate to be able to work closely with and learn from the Saul Zaentz Film Center. Theirs is the studio that created The English Patient, Amadeus, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and the Unbearable Lightness of Being, all Oscar winners for Best Picture. From them, we learned firsthand how difficult it is to make the painstaking adjustments to gain, phase, amplitude, and directional steering that sell a scene. And, how critical it is to have whip-fast deep bass. REL applies lessons learned from the very best to help our customers bring the magic home.
Subwoofers make the movies. Rather, the impact that great subwoofers can impart on the home theatre experience may be the biggest improvement over the past 20 years in increasing the enjoyment of streaming and movie watching. Certainly, having Atmos (Dolby advancement that adds speakers above to replicate full height in scenes), or large channel count processors like a Marantz Cinema 40 AV processor that offers 15 channels ( unthinkable 25 years ago.) Even more so, the 36 channels of a maxed-out Trinnov processor can wrap one in a 3-dimensional hologram. Be careful - this requires a minimum of 8 subwoofers to pull off this effect. Audio processing brings wonderful benefits to the party.
Even if all you have is a quality 2-channel system in a modest home or flat, the addition of a truly high-quality subwoofer, such as we at REL build, can be revelatory. It’s the subwoofer’s contribution that brings enormous impact and drama to the home viewing experience. Check out The Diplomat on Netflix; without giving away the scene’s time stamp, a British aircraft carrier is severely damaged by an explosion in the first episode. Even when played through a quality 2-channel system at a necessarily high level to attempt to emulate the experience, the scene lacks all tension. It’s a modest boom. Big deal. Drop a REL back in, and even when you know it’s coming, you still flinch. I’ve even turned down the volume 2 clicks to a level more common for the kind of casual viewing many of us experience and the REL-supplemented system still thrilled.
We’ve all watched more television at night since COVID-19 began. And Netflix and all the other streaming services that are offered have continued to benefit. Netflix-and I’m using them as a proxy for all streaming services simply because they’re the largest –(expanded from 180 million subscribers in 2019 to over 300 million late last year). The reality is simple: whether you think of yourself as a home theatre lover or not, you ARE spending a lot of time watching “television,” and most people aren’t getting anywhere near as much enjoyment out of it as they could be.
So, here’s a short list of what great subwoofers deliver: Drama. Majesty. Scale. Wonder (how do you think directors achieve the sense of awe and wonder when looking up at a star field?) Deep bass, barely heard, perhaps only felt. Slam. Ducking as a cannon shell bounces by (Patriot). Deafening (final shot of John Wick 2).
Wonderful sound at lower volumes. No, really. By not having to turn it up so loud (most people crave room drive, whereby the room pressurizes and comes alive), the volume level can be reduced and still be enjoyable.
Great subwoofers make for a great movie experience. Enjoy the Oscars, revel in the special effects, and start listening for the wonderfully subtle effects that great foley sound delivers, like footsteps on concrete going through a short tunnel, then giving way to the same footsteps as the walker transitions to gravel. This is the art that sound designers deliver and thousands of more gradations. Our job is to deliver the bass and the space in the movie in equal proportions.
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