Issue 127, January 2008 of Widescreen Review:• “Marantz VP-15S1 1080p DLP” By Greg Rogers

• “Triad Gold Series In-Wall Loudspeakers” By Gary Altunian

• “Artcoustic Spitfire Loudspeaker System” By Gary Altunian

• “Over The Rainbow: Deep Color™ And xvYCC” By Alen Koebel

• Our HDMI series of articles written by Steve Venuti, HDMILicensing, LLC; Xiaozheng Lu, AudioQuest; Steven Barlow,DVIGear; Raymond Griffin, Kimber Kable; Noel Lee, The HeadMonster; Steven Hill, Straight Wire; Joe Perfito, Tributaries; DonBouchard, Ultralink; and Ben Jamison, VizionWare.

• “On Screen With Charles de Lauzirika: DVD Producer of BladeRunner: The Final Cut” By Danny Richelieu

• Over 40 Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD, and DVD picture and soundquality reviews

• And more...

December is here and winter has arrived, even in sunny Southern California. While last month’s Newsletter found us run-ning around in shorts, this month we’re wearing jackets and scarves and getting ready for the Holidays.

Our archived article this month picks up where last month’s left off with the interview with the Room Tuning WizardsMichael Green and Bob Hodas. Have you entered to win one of the DVDs available in our DVD Giveaway contest? Do so nowwhile you still have time, as this contest ends on December 31, 2007. And the special Holiday subscription rates forWidescreen Review are still available, so be sure you start your new subscription or renew your old one before the offerexpires on January 31, 2008.

Next month will find us at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and I’m sure we’ll have lots to report onwhen we get back from Sin City. Everything that happens in Vegas will not stay in Vegas, and we will share with you the high-lights of the show, both in the print magazine and in this online Newsletter. Until then, Happy New Year to you all.

2 Recent News

3 The Studio Scoop: Rumors, Reports, & RamblingsBy Stacey Pendry

4 New Equipment: Coming Soon To A Retailer Near YouBy Danny Richelieu

6 From The Archives: Michael Green And Bob Hodas—Wizards Of Room Tuning, Part IIBy Gary Reber

WELCOME!

NOW AVAILABLEON NEWSSTANDS

ATTRACTIONS

Gary ReberEditor-In-Chief, Widescreen Review

WIDESCREEN REVIEW NEWSLETTER 19 1 DECEMBER 2007 - www.WidescreenReview.com

December 2007 • Volume 2, Issue 19 • The Official FREE Newsletter Of Widescreen Review Magazine

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Recent News

Industry View

Here are some of the recent headlines that have made it to the News section of WidescreenReview.com,which is now updated daily as our Web staff finds worthy home theatre-related stories and press releases. VisitWidescreenReview.com throughout the day to find out what’s going on in the world of Home Theatre.

After Holidays, CompUSA Is Done(The Orlando Sentinel)

“Consumer electronics retailer CompUSA said Friday it will close itsstore operations after the holidays following the sale of the company toGordon Brothers Group LLC, a restructuring firm. Financial termsweren't disclosed...”

EchoStar To Officially BecomeDish Network (MultichannelNews)

“EchoStar Communications filed documents with the Securities andExchange Commission Thursday to officially change its name to DishNetwork Corp., a move that reflects its plans to split into two separatecompanies.

EchoStar announced in September its intention to split into two sep-arate entities—one to hold its Dish Network satellite TV assets and theother, dubbed EchoStar Holding Corp., to hold its broadcast satellitereceiver, antennae, and commercial satellite lines of business...”

Dolby And SIM2 Exploit LocalDimming LED BacklightTechnology (LEDs Magazine)

“SIM2 Multimedia and Dolby Laboratories, Inc are working togeth-er to develop new prototype high dynamic range (HDR)-enabled liquidcrystal display (LCD) flat screens using Dolby's new LED-based localdimming technology.

In addition, SIM2 will provide Dolby with manufacturing referencedesigns. SIM2 Multimedia manufactures home theater products andhigh-end large screen systems and professional projection systems...”

Awareness Of Digital TV TransitionGrows, But Substantial EducationStill Needed, Research Shows

“There's growing awareness of the nation's February 2009 transi-tion to digital television by TV broadcasters, yet the group ofAmericans with the lowest level of awareness about the transitionincludes those that are most deeply affected—households that receivetelevision programming exclusively ‘over the air’...”

ATI Acquires Theta Digital“Amplifier Technologies, Incorporated [ATI] has acquired Theta

Digital of Agoura Hills, California. Theta Digital is one of the most pres-tigious names in high-end audio and home theatre.

This acquisition will position ATI to provide products that define theutmost audio/video experience. Long known for its innovative stylingand dedication to sonic purity, Theta Digital’s legacy of unswervingdevotion to quality and detail will be further enhanced...”

Digeo® Announces Moxi® TV ForPC And Offers An Early Look

“Digeo, Inc., makers of the Emmy®-award-winning Moxi digitalmedia recorders (DMR), today announced Moxi TV for PC, a softwareapplication enabling PC users who have a TV tuner card and WindowsXP to use their personal computer as a DMR. With Moxi TV for PC,users can watch, record, and play TV content from their PC. For a lim-ited time, those interested can sign up to for the Moxi TV for PC betaprogram at www.moxi.com. The beta will be available to beta testersfor download at no cost...”

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WIDESCREEN REVIEW NEWSLETTER 19 2 DECEMBER 2007 - www.WidescreenReview.com

WSRnewsletter19 12/13/07 2:18 PM Page 2

Cop in early 2008. The comedy stars Kevin James (I Now

Pronounce You Chuck & Larry) as a mild-mannered mall security guard, jolted intoaction when his mall is taken over byorganized crime.

James, who co-wrote the script with NickBakay, will also produce the project alongwith Happy Madison Productions.

Paramount/DreamWorksThe writers’ strike has caused a number

of shake-ups in Tinsel Town’s unfinishedprojects. The inability to get rewrites to tai-lor vehicles to a specific star are noted asbeing problematic.

This week, Martin Scorsese andLeonardo DiCaprio stepped out of WarnerBros.’ project, The Wolf Of Wall Street andover to Paramount’s upcoming film ShutterIsland. The screenplay for Shutter is adaptedfrom the Dennis Lehane novel. Paramounthas signed Sir Ben Kingsley to this periodthriller as well. This will be Sir Ben’s firstcollaboration with Scorsese.

Philippe Dauman, President and CEO ofViacom—DreamWorks’ parent company—this week lauded Steven Spielberg as “oneof the great filmmakers of our time and alltime.” Hopefully, those words will have thesame massive impact as the dismissiveremarks made by Dauman this past sum-mer. Dauman commented that the potentialloss of Spielberg at the end of his contractin 2008 with DreamWorks would be “com-pletely immaterial” to the bottom line ofParamount and its parent company Viacom.

Now, amid the rumors DreamWorksexecutives Spielberg and David Geffen areunhappy with their marriage withParamount and are looking at Universal,Dauman is quoted as saying, “We are verypleased with where we are withDreamWorks.” WSR

Stacey Pendry

Disney/Pixar/Buena Vista/MiramaxPixar’s latest hit, Ratatouille, topped this

year’s list of Annie Award nominees, withmore than a dozen nominations in 11 cate-gories. Even the short film, Your Friend TheRat, which ran along with Ratatouille in the-atres and was later included on the DVD,received a nomination.

Other nominated Disney projects includeLittle Einsteins, Tigger & Pooh: The TurtlesNeed For Speed, Meet The Robinsons,Disney Princess Enchanted Tales, and TheEmperor’s New School: The Emperor’s NewMusical. All were nominated in one or twocategories.

Enchanted, Disney’s tale of an animatedprincess come-to-life in New York City hadthe highest stateside box office receipts.With its total takings to date of $71 millionin its first 12 days of release, this enchanti-ng film could indeed prove to be a lucrativeholiday favorite for the Mouse House.

The French film that had all the buzz atCannes this year, The Diving Bell And TheButterfly has been picked up by Miramaxfor distribution in the states. JuliaSchnabel’s outstanding drama will bereleased on Friday, December 7, 2007 inNew York and Los Angeles prior to anational rollout.

The film is based on true-life events ofJean Dominique Bauby, former Editor-In-Chief of the French magazine Elle. Baubysuffered a severe stroke that left him totallyparalyzed, except for his left eye. By blink-ing his unaffected eye, Bauby was able todictate a heart-tugging memoir. Butterfly iseasily one of the best reviewed films thisyear, and Oscar® buzz is building evenbefore this film’s U.S. debut.

NBC/UniversalRussell Crowe will replace Brad Pitt in

Universal and Working Title’s project StateOf Play, saving the delayed political thrillerfrom shutting down completely.

Pitt pulled out of the movie in mid-November, citing concerns that the scriptmade him feel uneasy. Universal wasadamant about going forward with MatthewMichael Carnahan’s script and the cast thatwas already in place.

Russell was already due to start filmingUniversal and Imagine’s projectNottingham, the Ridley Scott-directed re-telling of the Robin Hood story. He wasable to shift his schedule to begin workingon State Of Play this month and to beginproduction on Nottingham in March 2008.

Crowe has turned out to be Universal’sgolden boy, starring in such box-office suc-cess stories as American Gangster,Cinderella Man, and A Beautiful Mind

NBC/Universal has laid off 25 percent ofits salaried staff at Oxygen Media, as partof the takeover of the network that wasannounced two months ago.

After consolidating functions and opera-tions, NBC laid off a total of 65 of the 260employees. The staff made redundant bythe takeover will be offered jobs withinNBC/Universal, where available. Others willbe offered an enhanced severance pack-age and outplacement services.

NBC/Universal paid a whopping $925million for the network, hoping to targetwomen viewers by linking Oxygen throughcross promotion with other in-house proper-ties such as Bravo and The Today Show.

Sony/Columbia Tri-StarIn order to hype their newest project with

Producer Judd Apatow (Talladega Nights,The Cable Guy, Knocked Up, The 40 YearOld Virgin, and Superbad), Columbia hascreated an unconventional tie-in with themovie Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

The film stars John C. Reilly (TalladegaNights, Chicago, Boogie Nights) as DeweyCox, a fictional rock-n-roll icon whosemusic influenced a nation. Reilly willunleash his inner rock star and tour theUnited States performing in character, asDewey Cox, along with his band The HardWalkers. The “Cox Across America” tourkicks off the first week of December inCleveland at The Rock And Roll Hall OfFame with additional performances inChicago, Austin, Nashville, San Francisco,Los Angeles, and New York. Each concertwill be preceded by a special screening ofthe film.

Steve Carr, director of Daddy Day Care,has been named to helm Columbia’s Mall

I Want ToKnow

The Studio ScoopRumors, Reports, & Ramblings

WIDESCREEN REVIEW NEWSLETTER 19 3 DECEMBER 2007 - www.WidescreenReview.com

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Belkin has introduced theirnewest HDMI switch, the aptlynamed HDMI 2-to-1 VideoSwitch. The switcher allows forthe connection of two HDMI-based sources to a single HDMIinput on your display device, andsupports 480i/p, 720i/p, and1080i/p resolutions. The HDMI 2-to-1 Video Switch is fully HDCP-compliant and can be controlledvia IR remote, which is included withthe device. The switch sells for $55.

Danny Richelieu

Panasonic recently intro-duced their first Profile 1.1Final Standard Profile Blu-rayDisc player, the DMP-BD30.At $500, the player includesHDMI 1.3b compatibility with1080p24 playback potential,and will upconvert standard-

definition DVDs to 1080p. The player includes an SD Memory Cardslot for viewing images and video through the player on your dis-play, and can even be used to play bonus material that could poten-tially be downloaded from the Internet to coincide with Blu-ray Discmedia. Blu-ray Disc’s Profile 1.1 adds picture-in-picture compatibilitywith secondary video and audio decoders as well as on-board per-sistent memory.

Nordost recently announced the newestaddition to the Wyrewizard line, the Maguspower cord. The Magus is a flexible cablethat uses high-strand-count OFC (“OxygenFree” Copper) conductors combined withNordost’s proprietary Micro Mono-Filamentand extruded FEP (Fluorinated EthylenePropylene) construction technology. Thedesign reduces insulation contact with theconductors by more than 80 percent. TheMagus is fitted with a gold-plated IEC con-nector, available in either a straight or right-angled configuration, as well as the option for a straight or right-angled US NEMA connector. A 1.0-meter Magus cable sells for$160; additional half-meter increments are $20 each.

Nordost Magus

Panasonic 800 405 0652 www.panasonic.com

SmX Cinema Solutionshas introduced a newline of audio-transparentscreens that use a pro-prietary, patent-pendingwoven material. TheCineWeave™ HD has again of 1.16 with a“hotspot-free” viewingangle of 160 degrees,and the woven materialis said to require no

equalization for loudspeakers that are placed behind the screen.SmX also guarantees that the CineWeave will be entirely free ofmoiré pattern artifacts, which can be a problem with micro-perforat-ed audio-transparent projection screens.

SmX Cinema Solutions CineWeave HD

SmX Cinema Solutions 888 810 6906 www.smxscreen.com

Panasonic DMP-BD30

Coming Soon…To A Retailer Near You

NEW Equipment

UltraPower, a division ofUltralink/XLO, introduced their newline of power management and con-ditioning components, calledPowerGrid. Three models are in theline, the PGX-500 ($500), the PGX-

400 ($400), and the PGX-300 ($300). Each features Ultralink’spatented under-/over-voltage auto shutoff circuitry with microproces-sor control, high-joule surge protection, and noise filtration. ThePowerGrids use a dedicated processor-based active surge proces-sor to monitor the incoming line voltage, board-level power status,and outgoing power conditions to minimize voltage fluctuations. Thedevices’ natural state is that of an open circuit, allowing the proces-sor to diagnose the power conditions before closing the circuit,delivering power to the connected components. Each of the threemodels are available now.

UltraPower PGX-500

Velodyne Acoustics 800 VELODYNE www.velodyne.com

UltraPower 909 947 6960 www.ultralinkproducts.com

Velodyne Acoustics has introduced theMicroVee subwoofer, with a small, 9-inchcube footprint and three 6.5-inch drivers.

Two of the drivers are passive, tuned todeliver maximum bass output, and thethird driver is active, driven by an internal

Energy Recovery System Class-D amplifier, which can provide 2,000watts of dynamic power and up to 1,000 watts of continuous RMSpower. The drivers are made with aluminum cone diaphragms andthe active driver uses a dual-layer copper voice coil. The MicroVeeis available now for $1,000.

Belkin 800 2BELKIN www.belkin.com

Nordost 800 836 2750 www.nordost.com

Velodyne Acoustics MicroVee

New Electronics

Belkin HDMI 2-to-1 Video Switch

New Loudspeakers

New Electronics

WIDESCREEN REVIEW NEWSLETTER 19 4 DECEMBER 2007 - www.WidescreenReview.com

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Michael Green And Bob HodasWizards Of Room Tuning

FROM The Archives

Create A ControlledAcoustic Environment

Gary Reber, Widescreen Review:We’restarting the conversation while we open thefirst group of boxes containing the ClampRacks.

Michael Green, RoomTunes/MichaelGreen Designs: Yes.

Reber: Michael, how are your ClampRacks designed? What are the benefits ofyour rack designs?

Green: These are actually Deluxe JustaRacks, which can double for a ClampRackif you decide to do top and bottom clamp-ing on the components. These are the firstmechanical grounding racks that have everbeen made. What they allow you to do isadjust the vibrating energy from each ofyour components. Every part on the circuitboard vibrates and has its own little signa-ture. That signature changes depending onwhat else is vibrating around it.

What this rack allows you to do is devel-op a vibration synergism between your dif-ferent components and even the room itselfby “tuning” the components. As you tight-en the shelves on the rack, it takes energyfrom the components, sends it into the rack,then down the rods and into the mechanicalgrounding devices at the bottom, the bot-tom cones, which then transmit the energyinto the floor. If you want the sound, or the pic-

Michael Green And Bob HodasWizards Of Room Tuning

In this edition of On Screen we explore the controlled acoustic approach to home theatre surround sound. Can the videophileand audiophile be considered separately in the context of a home theatre experience? I think not. Both the videophile’s goal ofrealistic reproduction of the theatrical experience in the home and the audiophile’s goal of the recreation of the concert or record-ing venue experience are mutually supportive in a home theatre music system optimally setup to maximize spaciousness andscale. The primary raison d’etre of the theatre or concert hall is not spaciousness in and of itself, but rather the ability to containa sizeable audience. The large number of seating positions inevitable results in a whole range of better and worse seats acous-tically and visually. With the typical home audience consisting of just one, two or a few people (on occasion), the optimization ofthe reproduction of the soundtrack for all or most of the likely seating positions is well within reach.

Michael Green and Bob Hodas, who spent time with us at our home re-setting-up our reference systems, approach surroundsound set-up with the idea that when you listen to a sound system you are listening to the room as much as the system. If youaccept this premise an understanding of the way a room works acoustically will provide great insight into appropriate systemset-up. The result of treating your room in the way prescribed is to substantially eliminate the boundaries of the room acoustically,thus allowing for a sense of stage width, depth and height extending beyond the physical boundaries of the room.

Editor Gary Reber talks with both Michael Green and Bob Hodas during the two day period the three spent together creatinga controlled acoustic environment in the living room of the home which serves as Widescreen Review’s reference system facilities.Michael Green is the President of Michael Green Designs and RoomTune who design and manufacture acoustical and tunableaudio products distributed by Ultra Systems (800 724 3305). Bob Hodas has made excellence in audio a primary goal from his earlywork with The Doobie Brothers, through the recent remix of Aladdin for Walt Disney’s World On Ice, and has recorded a number ofrecords for the Windham Hill and Hearts Of Space labels. He has consulted on the development of many successful products withmanufacturers such as Dolby Laboratories and Monster Cable®. As a contributing editor for Recording Engineer/Producer and Mixmagazines he has written articles sharing knowledge that contributes to the advancement of audio quality. He tunes more than 200recording studios on a regular basis. Mr. Hodas can be reached at 510 649 9254 in Northern California.—Gary Reber, Editor �

Michael GreenPresident, Michael Green Designs/RoomTune

Reber: Where are we now?Green: I think we’re up to the mechanical

grounding drain.Reber:This is the stage at which we posi-

tion the AudioPoints between the bottomchassis of each component and the shelf.Explain what the purpose of AudioPoints are,what they’re made of, why use only threeand what’s the benefit?

Green: The AudioPoint is a pure brass,geometrically designed, mechanical ground-ing device. Its job is to gather the vibrationfrom a component chassis and send it at acertain rate of speed into your next surface,the shelves, which we call “tuning boards.”We use three because that’s the smallestnumber possible without leaving the com-ponent unstable. So we take the energy fromthe components, through the AudioPoints,

This continues part 2 of “MichaelGreen And Bob Hodas: Wizards of

Room Tuning” from WidescreenReview Issue 15, July/August 1995.Part 1 is available in our November

Newsletter #18 athttp://www.widescreenreview.com/

wsr_newsletter.php for free download.

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Michael Green And Bob HodasWizards Of Room Tuning

FROM The Archives

of not being grounded in scientific principlesor research?

Green: Oh, absolutely! Every time some-bodymakes a statement of searching, whetherit’s a true statement or it’s a false statement,you’re going to find a lot of controversy fol-lows. A lot of people have veered from thetruth. There has been a lot more attention paidto electronics and gadgetry than the mechan-icalphysics area. They’ve kind of left it alone.In fact a lot of people say to me that afterthey hear their components put on my racksthey’re really surprised that they make thatbig of a difference. They’re shocked. And theysay “we didn’t think that a signal could beeffected that much.” Acoustical music, theconcert hall, and acoustical concepts areages old, but we need to remember thataudio and video are still very young indus-tries. Combining something as delicate aselectricity with sound cycles, meaning notonly sound waves but actual signals travel-ing down a very fragile path, with all thesedifferent shapes and sizes of materials thatare passing that signal, you’re going to havea lot of opportunity for mistakes along theway. So to take this industry and base it onan electrical, mathematical value of a circuit,instead of including the mechanical physicsbehind that part, is a big mistake. What I’mtrying to do is to bring the industry back tothe days of the acoustical instrument, backto putting vibrations into their proper, valu-able perspective, instead of saying “oh no,we can solve this problem electrically byadding more parts or more damping.” I thinkthe industry will swing back around and start

I have designed it so that you usually pointthe absorbent side away from the listenerand towards the room boundaries.

Reber: I notice also that they’re not largepieces of treatment, they’re rather small andunobtrusive.

Green: Yes. A big misconception in theindustry is that you need large sizes to workon bass response, and smaller sizes to workon higher frequencies. It’s really not true, espe-cially in this context of corner loading. Withcorner loading, all the frequencies gather inyour upper corners and they all will load backinto the room again. And so we’ve designedour triangular CornerTune product so thatyou use the minimal amount of product to getthe most coverage in the room. And we havefixed major bass cancellation and phasingproblems in a room by using products assmall as the 16-inch x 10-inch EchoTuneplaced in the right place in the room. The morewe think of our systems like big, tunable musi-cal instruments the better off we are. It reallyis one big instrument. The only non-variableelement in the equation is your ear. Every-thingelse in the room you can change. Every-thing in the entire audio chain should be vari-able so that you can dial-in the sound thatyou want. The more locked-in a sound youhave from any component, or speaker, orroom, for instance because of damping, thefurther you are from the truth, and the harderit is to get back to the truth in the music. Sovariability and flexibility are really key to agood sounding system.

Reber: Have you had critics of your ap-proach? Has anyone accused your approach

building simplicity back into our systems.If we do we’ll end up with better soundingsystems.

Reber: So we mechanically groundedeverything and intrinsically treated every-thing while still keeping the room relativelylive. We followed by setting the loudspeakerspositions according to an equal time-dis-tance radius geometry while tuning the rel-ative positions for the best acoustical sounddictated by the dimensions and shape ofthe space. And what an incredible differ-enceyour tuning, mechanical grounding andJustaRack system has made in terms of open-ness and three-dimensional spatially, anda natural vibrancy to the sound. Then BobHodas, using his SIM analyzer, simultane-ously worked with us to fine tune the signaloutput from the electronics into the room usingAudio Control one-third octave equalizers.These precision equalizers allowed us toelectronically correct for the little problemareas that we couldn’t address acoustically.But overall, if you look at the equalizers eachchannel is pretty flat based on an imaginaryline drawn through the knobs to approximatethe frequency response created by eachchannel of equalization. There’s not anythingreally seriously out of whack there. So thecombination of a relatively good room withgood dimensions and high ceilings, andyour acoustical treatment has laid the foun-dation for the last stages of electronic equal-izer filtering.

Green:You want to allow the componentsin the system to do as much as they can andto use electronic devices like equalizers whenyou have a system at this level to control someof the fine tuning. You make that all work to-gether by selectively choosing how you wantyour room to be controlled. You don’t want tocome in and just blast your room with damp-ening material because you’re going to losewhat you’re trying to preserve, all that ambi-ence that the microphones picked up dur-ing the recording process. You want your roomto preserve that on playback you have a bigsoundstage. So yes, the two worlds reallyneed to be working together, and that’s whatBob is doing by coming along afterwards,after the room is treated and you bring theroom along to a certain level, he can thenmeasure what the room is still doing right,and what it’s doing wrong, and what the com-ponentsare doing right and wrong, and thenyou can fine tune and adjust and then...Voila! The end result is obvious: now we havethis huge soundstage that is very articulateand detailed, and a very realistic sound.

Reber: That’s for sure! What an aston-ishing openness and spatiality with very de-fined imaging and resolution! It simply is amaz-

Snugging the component between AudioPoints to create energy conduitsto the ClampRack TuningBorad shelves.

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the wrong direction, and just because some-body may gain a lot of ground by being, let’ssay, well known in a particular area, maybeeven in the film industry, doesn’t mean thatthey’re going to be able to make that samescenario work in your home. It’s a complete-ly different world.

I look forward to the day when homes areactually being built with theatres in mind.Having a dedicated room where you can viewmovies and listen to music and get educat-ed and play video games. Someday you aregoing to have a multimedia room where youwill be able to combine all of these things.We need to take everything into consider-ation because someday you’re going to walkinto a Parade of Homes and they’re going

ing! Frankly I was a bit skeptical about thecomponent mechanical grounding part untilI experienced the dramatic difference yoursolution has produced. We have two otherreference systems that we will be doing aswell. We’ve already done all the acousticaltreatment and interfacing equipment so thenext step is to really just fine tune it and equal-ize it, which we’re going to be doing follow-ing this. We will report on those rooms andsystems in a future issue.

Is there anything you want to communi-cate to our readers in summary?

Green: Yes. I would say that we need tolook at the overall picture. If I was a consumergetting involved in home theatre, I’d be look-ing at the basics. I’d be looking at “what isit I’m trying to achieve and how do I get therewithout a lot of tricks that are going to con-fuse me and lead me astray in the process.”Consumers need to get on a path of truth.And remember, simplicity is really the key.Electronics are never going to solve the prob-lems that you need to solve mechanically oracoustically, neither can you solve actualelectronic problems with mechanics andacoustics. It’s a blend. Don’t put all your faithin buying the most expensive gear out therewithout addressing the other areas. It’s muchbetter to have a medium-priced or even alower-priced system done right than it is tohave a very expensive system done wrong.I think a lot of people buy equipment basedon the prestige of a particular brand nameand that isn’t necessarily the right way todo it.

We also need to provide better show-rooms for people to go to where they canactually see and hear surround sound hometheatre systems raised to a higher level, highenough to move the potential customer tothe point that they’re saying, “what I’m see-ing and experiencing here is really spec-tacular. I want to put this in my home. Howmuch does it cost?” Once we get this all fig-ured out and agree technically what pathwe are going on, then we need to start equip-ping the stores a little bit better. And this typeof an article is very important because itstarts to bridge that gap of understanding.

Reber: You have demonstrated that yourtechniques for room and equipment tuningfor five-channel discrete really opens thingsup into a three-dimensional world.

Green: It’s a whole new era for us and it’simportant that designers start thinking abouthow a room operates and how ears operate.We mustn’t think that a huge theatre is like asmall listening room, because to take thatapproach is going to lead you into some bigproblems.There are approaches out thereon the market right now that are heading in

to have a room there that’s going to be ableto do everything you want it to do so that allthe media input that you want to put into yourbrain will be there available for you. I thinkwe need to stop heading into so many dif-ferent areas and start concentrating on someof the problems and start getting them fixed.And you can do a lot of that even in the wayyou construct your room.

It is my goal to put together a system likethis that doesn’t cost a lot of money. Thenyou’ve changed the industry. It’s one thingto go after the ultimate in expense and every-thing else. But so much the better to be ableto produce something that the common per-son is going to be able to afford to put in theirhome. That’s what my company is working

JustaRack Configured As ClampRack.

FROM The Archives

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we’re one or two steps away from being ableto do that for the average person in the aver-age home. Then you’re in a whole new world.I don’t know what’s going to happen withtheatres at that point.

Reber: The home is such a more intimateexperience and in many ways you can cre-ate a much more enveloping experience inyour home than that in a movie theatre.

Green: I think it’s much more enveloping.Reber: Than you can experience in a

large auditorium.Green: Absolutely. For instance, the air

pressure levels that you can develop in thehome as opposed to a large auditorium. Thereare so many compromises that you have tomake in a large auditorium that you can solvesimply in a home. And to get that feeling, thatthunderous feeling at home of being there...it’s amazing too, if you’ve ever done a studyof how quickly a person, when they sit downand view a TV, how quickly they switch overinto that virtual reality portion of their mind,and in a matter of seconds they’re gone. Andin half a minute, they’re lost, enveloped intothis world of the screen. What enhances thatis when the sound involves them three-dimen-sionally, then you’re completely removed fromeverything else around you. They used to saythat watching television was shifting yourbrain into neutral. It’s really just the oppo-site. Your mind is the most active and con-centrated and involved when that three-di-mensional soundstage really pulls you in.That’s learning. You raise the art of learningwhen you can get involved with all your sens-es.That’s what we strive for. I would wipe outthe idea of the living room tomorrow andchange it to a multimedia room and I would

on by developing our test facility where wecan simulate any room. Not so we can do abunch of two-million dollar homes, it’s so wecan get to the point where somebody pur-chases an average priced system and getstotally blown away by the performance. Andto provide the technology in a way that willmake it so simple that all you’ll have to dois sit down and grab your remote and popit on and then enjoy the movie. That’s thedream. I think that the dream of every video-phile is to just get past all this other stuff andjust get to the enjoyment of the movie. Be-come engulfed in it. I think the industry isstill so very young right now. We’re still tak-ing a lot of guesses. And physics are whatI believe are going to put an end to all theguesses. The more I work in the technologyend of it, the more I realize that a lot of theseproblems can be solved by good mechani-cal design techniques both in the home andin the equipment. And then you can hearwhat a five-channel system will do. Then youcan hear that it’s wrong to over-dampen aroom. Then you can hear that it’s wrong touse a narrow focused point source blastingout at your ears. Then we can learn how toset the music free. You know just like we didin your big room here. Hearing the sound reallyengulf you from all over the room. Then it couldtake you places and your mind can get real-ly opened up. It’s just like taking a walk out-side in the morning with the birds singingand everything else going on, the bicyclesgoing by, the children playing and every-thing else, we’re used to listening to in athree-dimensional world and we need to getto that point. Once you’re in that realm you’llsay, “Wow! This is reality.” And I think that

say to home builders, if you really want tocash in, create a home-environment mediasystem and watch how people respond to itbecause that’s where we’re going to do ourlearning in the future. It’s all right there. �

Fine TuneElectronically

Gary Reber, Widescreen Review: Bob,I invited you back this trip because you didsuch a fantastic job equalizing and tuningthe main reference system at the early stagesof designing our reference systems and pub-lishing the magazine.

Bob Hodas: Thank you.Reber: Tell me your impressions of the

last two days during which Michael Green,you and I spent time building racks, tearingdown the system, doing the geometry on thesystem, mechanically tuning and ground-ing the components and the room acous-tics, and finally electronically equalizing thesystem within the room utilizing your SIMSystem II® room analyzer. But first, what isthe SIM analyzer?

Hodas: The SIM analyzer is made by aCalifornia company called Meyer Sound Lab-oratories,which builds very high-end profes-sionalsystems and studio monitor loudspeak-ers. The SIM System II is a state-of-the-artacoustical analyzer that looks at phase andfrequency response and coherence, all in realtime. It can look at the time alignment of thesystem and it can look at the phase place-ment of the subwoofers in a room comparedto the main speakers so that you can movethe speakers around until you get linear phaseon the display. Also it looks at room reflec-tions and the impulse response of the speak-ers so that you can actually analyze wherereflections are coming from in the room.That’s why my work with Michael is impor-tant because we can pinpoint places in theroom where the reflections are and then hecan treat those with his RoomTune acous-tical devices.

Reber: What does SIM stand for?Hodas: SIM stands for Source Indepen-

dent Measurement. What source indepen-dent measurement means is that you canuse virtually any noise source for your tun-ing. You could use somebody singing, oryou could you use different types of noises—pink noise or impulse noise, or swept tones.This system really doesn’t care what thesource is. The most important thing is that thenoise is broad-band. What it allows you to dois to compare what’s going on at the comput-er with what’s going on with the microphone.I can then look at what’s going on at the ampli-fierand the input and the output of the equal-

Bob Hodas and Michael Green tuning up.

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to reflected sound ratio, should be very high.You want high intelligibility in the theatre sys-tem so the coherence factor gives you thatintelligibility reading.

Reber: So basically what we have to dois trace linearity up to and through the out-put of each loudspeaker into the room?

Hodas: Right.Reber: The signal then is analyzed from

the input to the output of the processor allthe way through to the equalizers and ampli-fiers, and finally the loudspeakers. As youknow we use the Audio Control R-131 one-third octave equalizers which are essentialto doing this job.

Hodas: I would say one-third octave isactually “old school” at this point. I know thatthey’re still very popular but if you really wantto tune a room properly, what you need isa complementary-phase parametric, that’sa parametric that works with minimum phase,second-order filters. The reason I prefer para-metric over third octave is because the cen-ter frequencies of the third-octave equaliz-er are all fixed. The problems in any givenroom are not necessarily fixed at those cen-ter frequencies. For instance you may havea big bump at 900 cycles or you might havea big bump at, let’s say, 70 cycles. The thirdoctave has a frequency center at 60 cyclesand at 80 cycles but there’s no center at 70cycles and the bump that you have or thedip may be wider or more narrow than thirdoctave. The parametric allows you to find theexact center frequency and to shape thecurve to exactly fit your problem. Whereaswith third octave you’re stuck. And you canonly come half around that problem. In factthere are many problems that go untreat-

izeraswell as the microphone. And I can makea number of different transfer functions andthen do some very creative work with that. SoI can actually see my equalizer settings asI’m tuning a room and how it fits into the roombefore it’s tuned and what the result is. Atthe same time on the screen, I can display theroom in its very raw state, I can fit the equalizerinto the curve of that raw room and then alsowatch at the same time the room as it’s equal-ized to see how the room is being affected.

This source independent measurementthe system can be used for doing tuning oflive situations, live music concerts or live the-ater. The SIM system is used on a great num-ber of Broadway programs. It’s also used bysome very, I would say, high-end opera peo-ple who are very, very concerned with howtheir concerts sound. Pavorati uses the SIMSystem. Kiri Tekanawa, Carreras, The ThreeTenors concert, all these people are SIMingtheir concerts now. That’s how much they be-lieve in this system. The Montreaux Jazz Fes-tival uses SIM.

So I don’t have to be concerned when Iwalk into a home theatre and there’s all thisvariety of equipment. I’m not as concernedwith where the noise source comes from asa lot of the other tuning systems have to bebecause my system looks at whatever comesout of your processor as being flat.

Reber: Define for us “phase,” becauseyou use the term quite a bit in your discus-sion of the subject.

Hodas: Phase is reflected in the timearrival of the different components of thespeaker system. System phase can also beaffected by elements such as room reflec-tions and modes that bring back audio infor-mation to the listener delayed from the directspeaker signal. In an ideal situation we wouldhave a flat phase response system. Thereare very few speakers manufactured that arecapable of doing that. What is important ina home theatre system is to make sure thatthe absolute polarities of all the speaker sys-temsinvolved—left, center, right, surrounds—are all running with the same polarity. We alsoshould address where the subwoofers actu-ally are positioned in the room. The combi-nation with the main speakers, dependingon where the subwoofers are placed, canaffect the phase of the bottom end in thecrossover frequency. Without looking at phase,you could accidentally place your subwooferso that you’re canceling at the crossover fre-quency. So it’s important that you can seethe phase response, so you can find the flat-test response and hence get the proper ampli-tude for the combination of subwoofers withmain speakers. Then aside from just the phase,the coherence factor which looks at the direct

ed because you can’t get to those propercenter frequencies or you don’t have the rightbandwidth control. So really I would like tosee the industry moving into parametrics andout of third octaves because there’s just notenough control. And when you have a roomin a home that has a lot of anomalies any way,a room that’s not specifically designed forlistening to music or movies, you run into alot more problems that you need finer toolsto produce good results.

Reber:Outside of Audio Control and RaneCorporation there’s really no other compa-nies that are building high quality equaliza-tion products. Audio Control does not builda parametric equalizer. Rane has one equal-izer designed for home theatre with limitedparametric capability. It’s limited to two bandsof frequencies, with the balance in partialonethird octave. I have found the Audio Controlunits to perform to the highest audiophile per-formance standards with virtually no degra-dation to the signal. They employ profession-al Constant-Q (another word for bandwidth)adjustment for precise control within narrowbands with no or minimal effect on adjacentone-third octave bands even for small amountsof boost or cut. Because of their Constant-Qtechnology the bandwidth is very tight andnarrow, and they are, I understand, easier towork with unlike a parametric which allowscontrol over all parameters of equalization:amplitude, frequency and bandwidth, andrequires a sophisticated analyzer such asthe SIM System.

Hodas: Yes, they do perform well. I doknow who makes parametric equalizers forthe consumer market though. Meyer SoundLaboratories makes a complimentary phase

Bob Hodas dialing in Right Surround equalization on the Audio Control C-131 one-third octave equalizerusing the SIM Room Analyzer.

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parametric equalizer that’s very hi-fi in thatit’s built with all polypropylene capacitorsand 1/2 percent metal film resistors. It evenhas gold connectors. They do a very nice jobon it. Their unit can operate at +4 dB whichis the pro level or -10 dB for consumer appli-cations. It has a switch on the back so youcan actually use it in a semi-pro or let’s saya home-style situation.

Reber: It’s important when you’re doingthe kind of sophisticated tuning that we’redoing that you have individual control overevery channel in a multichannel system, sowe’re using mono one-third octave equalizers.

Hodas:Yes it is important to have enoughcontrol. The Meyer equalizer comes as astereo parametric. You get two channels inone chassis. If you wanted to, you could actu-ally jumper it together to make a mono equal-izer, but it’s not usually necessary. If you cansolve the room problems using it as a stereoparametric then you can save some money.With a parametric you can usually tune aroom with less filters since those filters areadjustable.The parametric, I should say, iswhat I put in most of the recording studiosthat I tune. Recently I just tuned a studio foran Elton John session and I just finished astudio for a Lyle Lovett session, for the re-cording and mixing of their records.

Reber: While I agree with you that a par-ametic can offer even greater control, theAudio Control R-131 equalizers do an excel-lent job providing precise control within thedesignated bands and a significant level ofimprovement in audio performance. I haven’theard a better sounding unit. It sounds trans-parent and is built to audiophile quality stan-

operator. But certainly for my money, I wantthe best tools that I can get and that’s whyI use the SIM system.

Reber: There’s a direction developing inthe high-end audiophile market toward usinga room analyzer for tuning multichannel sys-tems. In fact, Snell Acoustics is one of the firsthigh-end loudspeaker companies to intro-duce a six-channel digital room system inwhich the early-arrival response of each ofsix speakers is corrected for both magni-tude and phase response. I have not hadany experience with this new system whichcosts about $8,900.

Hodas: I am not familiar with Snell’s sys-tembut I do know what other companies withsimilar products are doing. First off, I wouldhave to say my SIM analyzer alone costs$30,000. The level of sophistication that I’vegot in my analyzer is extremely high. The SIMSystem won an R&D 100 award from R&DMagazine and was displayed in the Smith-sonian as a significant advancement inacoustic measuring tools. I don’t know anyother company that can make that claim.Also I know that the resolution that I capturein my SIM analyzer is much greater than whatthe other systems can capture. If they areusing digital equalizers then they may bedoing digital conversions in the listening chain.This could place a restriction on the amountof reverb and air heard in the system. Andas far as I’m concerned, in the audiophileworld, the less digital conversions you usethe better. Even without additional conver-sions, the type of filters that are currentlybeing used in all of the digital equalizers areFIR filters (finite impulse response), and if youreally want to produce a minimum-phase fil-ter, which is what your room problems are,you need IIR filters (infinite impulse response),and those are extremely expensive. The tech-nology just isn’t there yet for a high perfor-mance consumer analyzer/equalizer com-bination. So my feeling is that at some pointin the future, digital equalizers in the analyz-ers will be a good thing, but right now youcan accomplish better dynamic range, bet-ter signal-to-noise and better resolution usinganalog components.

Reber: You said the SIM system hasgreater resolution capability than other sys-tems. How do you define resolution and whatis the importance of that?

Hodas:A lot depends on how the systemgathers information and whether it takes intoaccount the reflections, the distance betweenthe speaker and the tuning microphone, andthe propagation delay that occurs. You wantto identify first order reflections and depend-ingon how the information gathering windowis set up, you can actually miss information

dards. I do agree that an audiophile qual-ity parametric with sufficient capacity to workacross the full frequency bandwidth wouldprovide more precise control and thus wouldbe a benefit to precise room tuning to elimi-nate or minimize coloration caused by thelistening room. Perhaps our discussion willpeak the interest of Audio Control or Raneor others to introduce wide bandwidth para-metric equalizers.

Hodas:Your system certainly does soundgood. There’s no doubt about it. But there werefrequencies that I couldn’t get to, things thatI would have liked to have done that I justcan’t do with third octave. If you were goingto give me my choice for the best tool to dothe job, it has to be a parametric. But believeme I’m happy with the way your system turnedout.

Reber: Yes, I agree, it sounds wonderful!How do you feel about using an equalizerwithout having a capacity to analyze the roomelectronically with a calibrated microphone?

Hodas: It’s a dangerous thing. You couldhire someone to come in with a less sophis-ticated analyzer but there are things thatare missing. Most of the analyzers don’t lookat phase and so you could have a compo-nent out of phase and never know it and youcould be trying to make up for the prob-lems with the equalizer. You know I startedout with less sophisticated tools. Mostly Iwound up checking everything with my ears.And of course ears are always the final testof any system. But you could do an adequatejob with a less sophisticated equalizer or youcould create more problems. I do think partof it is going to depend on the skill of the

Bob Hodas setting up to dial in Center Back Surround equalization on the Audio Control C-131 one-third octaveequalizer using the SIM Room Analyzer.

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that you should be trying to measure. For in-stance there are some systems that use veryfast swept tones to gather the information.The speed at which the tone sweeps throughin the low end doesn’t last long enough togenerate enough of a wave length, and soin the low end they tend to smooth out theresponse. My system looks at different fre-quencies with different length windows andso can capture accurate information very fardown the spectrum in real time. With the SIMsystem I’m gathering information at 48thoctave resolution and displaying it at 24thoctave resolution. You can imagine that’s a lit-tle more sophisticated than third octave. AndI can see problems that in one-third or evenone-sixth octave analysis become smoothedover. Problems where you may have somecombing occurring from let’s say a coffee tablesitting in front of the listening position. To athird-octave system that may look like a hole.But if you look at it in one-24th octave res-olution it may be a series of combs that arevery tight and that’s an area that you wouldnot want to equalize. What happens is, as youmove around the room in your listening posi-tion, that equalization isn’t valid, in fact it caus-es problems for other people in the listeningarea. The SIM system gathers very accurateinformation. Some of the other analysis sys-tems tend to smooth over some of the prob-lems because they don’t see those problems.

Reber: So many systems rely on sum-ming techniques, don’t they?

Hodas: Yes. A lot of the systems comingout in the market right now which have beendeveloped by THX® and Dolby use summingtechniques. JBL, I think, also has a system.Multiple microphones are placed in differ-ent areas of a theatre, then the responses aresummed together in order to make decisionsabout how to equalize. There’s two things thatI see wrong with that. You may have threemicrophones that are showing a pretty goodfrequency response, and one small area ofthe theatre that has a very poor response thatdrags down the average, so you end up mak-ing equalization decisions based on a lowergeneral average than you should. Also youmay find that because of the way that thingssum together, you may be equalizing areasthat really you should be leaving alone be-causeasyou go around to the different points,things may be changing radically. The otherbig problem with summing is that it doesnot allow you to see phase. None of thosesystems address phase whatsoever. You mayhave components in your system that are outof phase and never know it and they’ll showup as frequency problems. Then you’ll beequalizing to compensate for phase prob-lems which is a big mistake. I’ve seen situa-

the system has become with Michael’s acous-tical tuning and your complementary elec-tronic tuning.

Hodas: Yes, a lot of that had to do withthe combination of acoustic treatments alongwith equalization. I don’t think that either iscompletely the answer. I think that really youwant to address as much of the acoustic prob-lem as you can with treatments and then comein with equalization once you’ve done every-thing you can acoustically. Use equalizationto really fine tune things and correct someof the low end room problems that wouldbe much too expensive to do acoustically,because it would mean changing walls andthings like that.

Reber: I’ve never heard my Mirage Sys-tem sound that open and spatial before inthat room or in any other environment.

Hodas: It sounds great. I’ll tell you, whenI played my CD reference that I take to allthe studios, it just sounded wonderful. Itsounds better than a lot of the studios thatI tune.

Reber:The home theatre market is a wideopen market for SIMing.

Hodas:Yes. I’ve tuned several rooms thathave been featured in Audio/Video Interiors.Mostly people have been using me on theextreme high end but it’s certainly possi-ble to SIM tune on a cost-effective basis, anda lot of people, even with mid-range systems,could benefit from it. Certainly anyone that’sgot a high-end system, who’s really concernedwith the way it sounds, would benefit fromthe analysis.

Reber:Do you have any other commentsthat you think our readers would be interest-

tions where a system was tuned by one ofthe major companies with their summing tech-niques and the people who were putting onthe show, complained bitterly about the wayit sounded, although it showed up as beingflat on their system. They brought in SIM andlooked at the system and we found that thewoofers and the horns were out of phase andeven some of the horns were out of phasewith each other. So I think it’s very importantto look at individual microphones. The SIMsystem allows you, depending on how sophis-ticatedyou want to get, to use up to 64 sep-arate microphones. But it doesn’t sum themtogether, it lets you draw up memory traceson the screen and then you can comparethe memory traces with live traces and doa series of overlays and let a human makea decision as to what’s valid and what isn’t.And the coherence factor also tells you alot about how badly room reflections or longreverb times are affecting the frequency re-sponse, soyou can make accurate decisionsthere as well.

Reber: We accomplished today the mainroom, or Reference System L, and we haveyet to complete the room tuning on two otherrooms, System F and System D. I am extreme-ly impressed with the sound of the main room.The sound is so open and so huge. I meanthe soundstage extends to outside the wallsof the house enveloping the listener in a seem-ingly endless radius perspective with excep-tional depth delineation in both the front andback soundstage. The speakers have disap-peared completely as a source. The sound isspatially holophonic. It’s simply unbelievablehow, defined, spacious and natural sounding

The completed Reference System L acoustically, electromechanically and electronically tunedby Michael Green and Bob Hodas. (See Reference Systems page 6 for complement of components.)

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ed in about today’s tuning or anything aboutthe approach we’ve taken to our home the-atre reference systems?

Hodas: As I stated already, what’s impor-tant is that when working with an equalizerand an analyzer, you go for the best resolu-tionyou possibly can. It’s important to addressas many issues of the room acoustically beforeyou start turning knobs and doing things elec-troacoustically. I certainly believe that it’s asolid marriage between acoustic treatmentsand equalization to get a room really tuned-in so that it’s enjoyable.

Reber: Were you as impressed as I waswith Michael Green, with the componentmechanical grounding and tuning of therack that resulted in subtleties and benefitsto the sound?

Hodas: Absolutely. I’m a firm believer inthat. And only because I can hear it myself.You know I’m in the pro business, but I haveaudiophile sensibilities. In fact, as you know,I have recorded a number of records forthe Windham Hill and Hearts Of Space labels,as well as remixing Disney soundtracks. I’ma recording engineer myself and my ears arevery important to me. As you know I’ve re-

electronically tune to finely adjust for the bestsound attainable in the room.

Hodas: I think it’s a simultaneous processbecause the analysis can help you identi-fy the areas that you need to treat acousti-cally. You can do the treatments and thenplay with the equalizer to tweak it all in. But Ithink to just sort of do acoustic treatmentson a random basis you may get into moretrouble. And sometimes you might spendmore money than you really need to. You mayover treat a room and that’s just as bad asunder treating a room. You should use some-body who does this professionally. I’ve doneover 300 rooms and I’ve seen a lot of differ-ent types of rooms and know what to lookfor, and if you’ve got someone that just sortof does it on a part-time basis, you might getyourself into trouble.

Reber: Well, not too many people aregoing to invest in a $30,000 analyzer unlessthey’re serious about their work.

Hodas:No, very few people would spendthat kind of money on an analyzer. But I wantthe best tools that I can possibly get becausequality is the most important thing for me andmy reputation. �

corded some CDs that were done ten yearsago that are still in use at the Stereophileshows and even the CES shows for demon-stration purposes.

Reber: I know when I first met you, youwere one of the first people in the pro worldthat recognized that cables made a differ-ence and even embraced and used high-end cables such as Monster Cable ProLink®

used for professional recording and mon-itoring.This system, as you know is complete-lywired with Monster Sigma® interconnect andloudspeaker cables, which are engineeredfor time correct phase, and Monster SilverDigital and Silver Video.

Hodas:Yes, I certainly do and I am alwaysopen to listening. I think analyzers are greatbut there are a lot of things still that we don’tknow how to measure yet and so we haveto rely on the best analyzer possible whichis the ears and the brain, and that is alwayssomething that I am going to continue to use.I’m not going to just trust what goes down onthe computer screen.

Reber: So bottom line for our readers isthat you’d recommend them to seriouslylook at their acoustics and simultaneously

FROM The Archives

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