Sir Terrence the Terrible
04-07-2011, 12:49 PM
Decades ago I was asked to update a small but very popular art house theater here in Oakland. So the projectionist George and I set out to pull together the necessary equipment to do this update. In examining the theater(The Parkway Theater in Oakland) it had quite a roomy stage area, so properly placing the existing Altec VOT A7-800 in a baffle wall behind the screen was going to be very easy. Then came the bomb. Instead of the standard surround speakers, the owner was convinced by Dolby Labs(idiots) that 72 individual boxes of surrounds side by side around the side and rear walls would be a better solution(are they out of their minds!!!). No matter how much we tried to tell the owner that this was not a good idea, and it would be very expensive to pull off, Dolby convinced him that it would be a good marketing tool because no other theater had this setup(for good reason).
Well, George and I hired an installation crew wired and installed this complex system. Once the equipment was in place(and it was a very difficult install), I went to tune the system to the room. The Altec A7 for their age sounded pretty darn good, and measured well. The surround array had great coverage throughout the room, but there was more than 6db difference in certain places because of the negative comb filtering from all those speakers(no DSP's or radiation pattern considerations) interacting with each other. After all the work, George and I were quite proud of what we had done under the circumstances.
The Wiz was the movie that would debut the system, and when George open the film cans to setup the projection, he was met with a staggering surprised. He found these following words on the inside of the can. “Dear Mr. Projectionist: To enhance the theatrical quality of The Wiz, this film has no surround channel.”
I didn't know this at the time, but George finally told me this the other day, and we broke out laughing so hard, I almost pee'd myself up.
I asked him how the owner responded, and he told me" the language was pretty colorful".
Well, George and I hired an installation crew wired and installed this complex system. Once the equipment was in place(and it was a very difficult install), I went to tune the system to the room. The Altec A7 for their age sounded pretty darn good, and measured well. The surround array had great coverage throughout the room, but there was more than 6db difference in certain places because of the negative comb filtering from all those speakers(no DSP's or radiation pattern considerations) interacting with each other. After all the work, George and I were quite proud of what we had done under the circumstances.
The Wiz was the movie that would debut the system, and when George open the film cans to setup the projection, he was met with a staggering surprised. He found these following words on the inside of the can. “Dear Mr. Projectionist: To enhance the theatrical quality of The Wiz, this film has no surround channel.”
I didn't know this at the time, but George finally told me this the other day, and we broke out laughing so hard, I almost pee'd myself up.
I asked him how the owner responded, and he told me" the language was pretty colorful".