1. Which ones have you experienced in both commercial and home setting?
Dolby Atmos at Empire Leicester Square. star trek into darkness Dolby cinema digital, Atmos (JBL/THX) it was so deafeningly loud and off putting I had to cover my ears far too many times.
2. Was the commercial experience better or was the home experience better?
Yes as it was in a large cinema with real audience atmosphere.
3. Which one do you prefer?
Depends on the film mix and its sound delivery format.
4. Do you use Overhead Ceiling speakers or On-wall Height speakers or Add-on-Modules?
Attached to the ceiling.
5. Do you think Four (4) Ceiling/Height/Add-on speakers are better than two (2) ?
Four or more is better.
6. What do you think is the best setup and speaker placements after seeing other systems ?
Well after seeing for decades speakers fitted within the ceiling or attached to the ceiling at few of the local cinemas. Odeon screen 1 and 2, screen 1 had them fitted flush with ceiling around x6 spread evenly above and performed okay with Dolby Stereo (CP50 in both screens) downstairs had the surrounds speakers arranged around the sides rear and flush mounted speakers spread evenly around the ceiling. The cinema is now closed down since early last year. Screen 2 was gutted in late '89 into shoe-boxes the surrounds that was in the ceiling covered up with some wood/plasterboard where the speakers was once visible to the trained eye and listener.
(found these pictures online)
Screen 1 look closely at ceiling you can see square shapes x6 in all around the circular ceiling. The JBL 8330 was installed around mid 1999 for star wars episode 1 but I think it was up and running when I saw The Matrix in SR-D, the original overhead surrounds last time I heard them working was around late 1997 I think as there was some bookshelf speakers placed in the far corners of the auditorium, that lacked. Talk about cutting corners. Maybe the overhead speakers had some damage of sort and no one was bothered to getting them replaced?
So speakers fitted above the audience is not uncommon to me nor should it be we hear them in shopping centres airports etc as PA public announcements of for ambiance music.
UCI tower park where I learned projection back around 1989 had EV Eletro-Voice speakers EV, three screen (no subs installed even thou essential for SR soundtracks) and overhead surrounds I mean what else can it be called?
Two of Larger screens Seven of the smaller screens
5 and 6 one and four and seven and ten
A bit uncommon for a cinema to experiment with the surrounds placed on the ceiling and worked fine with Dolby Stereo CP55
Today the cinema has been revamped back around 2009 I think not too sure but looks nothing like how it did back then when seeing Titanic (1997) "3d" thou throw the glasses away and saw it for the 15 or maybe 18th at a cinema since 1998 when I projected it at Warner village cinema 12 plex by hand with a co-worker taking turns to run the film off the cake platter as the PCB board failed to operate the motor for the cake platter, that was brand new.
7. Do your main speakers and subs “Overpower” the Atmos speakers?
I have noticed it and can easily compensate to get audio levels to match the other channels keeping an eye on the level meters.
End credits of Man of Steel
The decoding of the channels and when listening to only the four height channels by them-self with rest all muted the carries a bass like guitar string thou could be keyboard synth with some higher musical notes.
The side surrounds sounds like some sort of Hawaiian music with choir voices that plays for few moments then lets other bass music notes play then the choir fades back in with that Hawaiian music I mean is this film about Superman or surfboarding?
The back surrounds has deeper musical percussion drums and strings.
The five screen fronts that I use carries a wider bass, with percussion beating away.
When all at present 16 channels playing with the below matrix surrounds it sounds okay.
8. What are some awesome Atmos, DTS-X, or Auro-3D materials for showing off your system?
one of the few affordable Marantz SR6012
So far this pressing has managed to avoid being thrown into (like the bluray was) but that all depends on my state of depression been 4 days now since it arrived.
Not a huge fan of the music score theme its not like Superman the movie (1978) which had a good theme, this is just a load of drums beating away but its nicely assembled in the mixing processes which I guess why the disc has been in the player since Sunday now and its almost Wednesday.
Sound effects 1.33.08 superman punches one of zods girls over the cornfields with truck passing by honking its horn across the five screen left to right then thou the right surround arrays discreetly as the camera pans to left honking passes and fades away as superman and zods' girl smash into a restaurant with LFE.1 accompanying all the action with each super-punch weaponry effects explosions and earth rumbling.
Its not a bad movie its like Superman the movie and Superman II all rolled into one but prefer Christopher Reeve as the man of the steel. Henry Cavill, delivers a fine, Kal-El .
Drone appears as high pitched sound then a bit more above with what was once a $12million dollars of hardware kaboom that thunders deeply then fades away to the openness of the desert.
Dialogue appearing right centre to left centre then to centre, time stamp is on the picture.
Cool when Superman flies off with thunderous sonic booms.
