Favorite Movie Theaters

[anamorphic96]

I agree with you about AMC. Sometimes the sound is great such as Bay Street 16, and sometimes only respectable at other locations. Even downright bad . For example house #6 at the Van Ness 14 uses a Taurus screen which curves the screen from the top and sides to improve brightness and light efficiency. However its not as transparent as most screens therefore they installed the horns above the screen and shoot them down and out towards the audience. This makes makes dialog hard to follow and the sound somewhat weak with poor dynamics and integration with the bass bins. I think they used to use this at other theatres with traditional screens and passed it off as something called HITS. High Impact Theatre System or Sound. It seems they have gotten away from this idea and moved on to more traditional installs. This could also explain some of the sub standard sound you are hearing.

On the whole AMC seems to put the most into there booths compared to some of the other chains. However the # 1 problem contributing to bad presentations are the operators not being trained properly. Its a shame the theatre companies dont take this position more seriously and pay the operators better. There are exceptions to this rule. Some of the larger complexes have qualified people that get a repectable wage and some locations still have union operators. But even union houes can suck.