I got to hear the complete music to the sound track yesterday. The composer Hans Zimmer put it up in a high bit rate stream. I listened and analyzed it yesterday. I wish I had committed it to hard drive yesterday, as I went to post the link to find that Warner have blocked it.
Anyhow it is an amazing score, and I think may well have a life in the concert halls that have powerful organs. Unfortunately few do. The RAH, with the huge Father Willis organ, the Voice of Jupiter, obviously comes to mind. So does the Sydney Opera House, Meyerson Hall Dallas, the Place Des Arts in Montreal, Berlin and some others would be capable. If the rights can be obtained, I suspect this will be programmed at a Henry Wood Promenade concert in the 2016 season. This season will already be set in stone.
I can see why it is a system destroyer.
The dynamic range is huge. The 32ft stops is wonderfully recorded at all volume levels. It vibrates the room and your body, even in the soft passages. With the door of my studio open the bass pressurized the whole house and could set all levels vibrating. At no time was the sound boomy, but very clean.
In addition to the 1926 Harrison and Harrison organ, it is also scored for 34 strings, 24 woodwinds and four pianos and 60 voices . There is also extensive use of synth and computers.
Roger Sayer gives a stunning performance on this Harrison and Harrison instrument and the organ is playing during a large part of the score for extended periods. It really lets fly in the Cornfield track!
I noted enormous energy down to 20 Hz. This is as low as my spectrum meter goes. In addition Roger Sayer also makes extensive use of the 16ft, 8ft, 4ft and 2 ft principle Diapasons. One of the notable aspects of good organs is the quality of the principals. British organs are renowned for particularly fine principals. Any how this means there is extensive energy from 40 to 400 Hz. In addition there are glizandos on silvery high flute stops. Reads obviously come into play on occasions also.
There are in fact high energy levels sustained frequently from 20 Hz to 6 KHz after which energy levels drop of, but there is significant content above 10 KHz.
With the softest passages just audible I noted sustained peaks in the 96 to 100 db range at the listening position.
As noted above, I noted now boom at all. So I suspect those with high Q bass systems will get a poor result. A bass system of low Q design able to deliver high sustained spl to 20 Hz and below is required. A lot of the time there is sustained high energy from 10 Hz to 5 KHz.
My system has good output into the 12 to 20 Hz range. It rolls off from 20 Hz 3 db per octave. The lowest fundamental of a 32ft organ stop is 16 Hz.
So sealed subs will be prone to driver burnout unless they are very robust. I don't think there is a driver made that could deliver the high spl required over time without burnout on this sound track. I suspect it will also run class D amps that boast only high peak powers out of steam.
I think tweeters will be particularly vulnerable, because there is much higher energy than usual in the tweeter band pass area. I'm pretty sure this has to do with the use of the synth.
The extended peaks are also likely to tax receiver output stages and I would expect an incidence of output transistor failures.
This score did heat all my amps more than usual even the bass amps which usually run very cool. Fortunately my big bass lines have excellent efficiency and acoustic coupling, and have to be set 9.5 db below the rest of the system. I was gratified to note that even when producing a huge output in the deep bass, cone excursion was modest. I think efficiency is the key here. That is why I think small sealed units will get into trouble here.
In any event I can see clearly where systems have got into trouble and failed.
I played this audio via my Audio workstation via my RME DAC. On the first crescendo I ran out of bits, with potentially disastrous results and was lucky I did not blow a tweeter. I made adjustments and started again.
The BD is due for release March 31. Play at your own risk.
If we get more scores like this, I think it will lead to better high powered speaker systems in cinemas. The current crop are in many way inferior to the Voice of the Theater systems in use from the 1930s into the 1970s and some beyond.
