I don’t see why everybody thinks that these THX certified Door is a bad thing. I think it’s great. If you have ever read the book Master Handbook of Acoustics by Alton Everecrest you will learn that acoustics is an extremely complex thing. Room acoustics is 50% of what makes good sound good. For example you can have a $10,000 home theater and it could sound like a 5,000 dollar home theater because of the poor acoustic properties and direct reflections and slap echoes and such and also noise coming in from other rooms and HVAC noise. If you have a $5000 home theater and you use room treatments to avoid acoustical anomalies, it can actually sound better then a 10,000 home theater without treatments.
I don’t see why everyone is so surprised that THX have certified a door. For years THX has certified theaters before they ever certified home theater equipment. Part of the theater certification process involves making sure that noise does not pass from the surrounding theaters, or that you cannot hear the projector in the back or that the HVAC system does not create noise over a certain DB level. Remember everyone! The point of a home theater is to transport you to another world! Studies show that watching a movie is very much the same as hypnoses. You want your home theater to be like plugging into the Matrix, you enter another world full of sights and sounds. There is nothing worse in home theater then anything that removes you from that other world, such as poor quality non transparent speakers, bad acoustics, crackling recordings, noise from other rooms, and your HVAC system suddenly roaring air through the vents in a critical moment during the movie. The THX certified door insures you will get one of the best doors for insulating noise from other rooms to a degree that is required for maximum enjoyment of your home theater, as well as not bothering uncle Bob sleeping in the guest room and coming and yelling at you, diminishing the home theater experience, just like THX has always done in the theater. If we had a chance to see the studios at Lucas Film, or the home of the London Symphony orchestra, or THX headquarters themselves, you would see that acoustics and environment plays such an important role that these studios spend thousands even millions meticulously scrutinizing every acoustical detail. And the THX certified door is the next step in bringing that attention to detail of these state of the art facilities to the home.
Some of you also criticize the THX certified cables, and perhaps THX did jump the gun, but remember that THX certified cables are not necessarily for the purpose of saying they are the best cables, THX certified cables simply implies that the cable does not exhibit any of the Design flaws that degrade the signal in other cables. Perhaps some of the claims are snake oil or exaggeration, but THX job is not too bust snake oil myths, it is simply to tell the consumer, we have tested this cable and we find nothing to indicate that the signal will be degraded in any way when passing from one end to the other, at least within acceptable limits. I have also heard criticisms to the THX certified computer speakers, of coarse they do not sound as good as a pair of Axioms, but they are computer speakers! Remember that there are different levels of THX certification, there is standard THX, THX select, and THX ultra. If you want the best you need ultra, of course after owning Ultra equipment, standard THX equipment won’t sound that great, and the THX certification for computer speakers simply states that the speakers perform to acceptable limits for “computer speakers”. If we all had degrees in acoustics and had access to thousands of dollars of acoustical analysis equipment then perhaps we would not need THX, we could probably just buy a bunch of doors from Home Depot and test them all, unfortunately this is not the case. I for one think the THX certified door is cool, in fact I have been so annoyed by the sound my HVAC makes during movies that is very distracting that I cant wait till THX comes out with THX certified HVAC ducts!!, to ensure maximum isolation of the annoying sounds the HVAC makes which diminish the enjoyment of the movie. I mean Come on Guys! This is Audiohiolics! Not Audioholics anonymous!. THX rocks!
