Loud volume in theaters (1 Viewer)

If they don't start turing down the volume in theaters, I will be watching all my movies at home. Do they even do volume checks?

Which movies are you talking about?

All set at 85db for dialogue and some films tend to be sheer ear benders on sound effects and music at times its been noted over many decades.

Are Movies Too Loud? Author: Ioan Allen, of Dolby labs
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/are-movies-too-loud-ioan-allen.pdf

So yes what cinema did you go too?

Cinema name
What film you saw
Screen number
Where was you sat in the auditorium
Was it full or half full or hardly full at all?
Are you aware how the LCRS/Sw, works on a film?
Was it a THX cinema
Was it a imax
Was it a LIEMAX
What surround speakers can you notice on the walls any brand name will tell you what the stage channels might be?

Was the stage channels bass pressing on your chest with the weight of 2 cats sat on your chest or did it sound weak and all bloody ear bleeding from the stage horns as that is typically the issue with over EQ over boasted level on the HF horns as the ear is sensitivity to middle to highs than it is with lows.

What scene in the film was offending your ears. Any clips you can find of it on Youtube that might help?

Doubtful. This is what happens when you have teens turning the stuff on, to them loud = better.

Many years ago, when I was between jobs, I tried to get a job as a projectionist at a local AMC in Orlando. I figured they'd like my resume because of my film school background and my tiny bit of experience working on film cameras. I figured that since I knew how to load and run a film camera that learning to load and run a projector wouldn't be to hard.

Well, they did like my resume but, they don't hire projectionist. No, you start out with all the other peons and have to earn the right to run the projectors. So I, someone with a passion for film and getting the presentation right, was stuck cleaning the bathrooms while the 18 year-olds, who couldn't care less, ran the show.

I eventually walked off that job, never to return. Working briefly at a typical movie theater is one of the reason I don't go to many movies anymore, the people working there don't care at all about the presentation so, why should I care to spend my money there. I know there are some really good theaters out there but, the typical theater chain in this country is being run by people who just don't care.

I can give you an idea on some LOUD NOISY films of many years back that I was so close to walking out on.UCI Lee Valley 12 screen, outside of LondonThere was three auditorium sizesSmall, medium and large

JBL in all screens and Dolby CP500 with a few dts CD-Rom in few screens.
I saw a film before my interview started as I arrived very early.Medium size screenFace/Off (1997) 35mm Dolby SR-DJBL 8330 for surrounds so I have to assume stage channels are JBL 4675-A that was typically common for most cinemas around that time. Sub might have JBL 4645 or the B model?

I believe I was sat at the back some 4 or 5 rows in to right outer right side near the aisle.
It was just TOO BLOODY LOUD! It was all mid range to top end. It wasn't as good as UCI High Wycombe THX screen where you feel the weight of many cats weight sat pressing on your chest!!! Now that was a cinema with equal sub bass stage bass surround bass to middle to highs smoothly it was many light-years ahead of its time.During end of reel 1 I noticed the 4 Asian students feeling unsettled due to screen sounding naff, and got up and walked out and I walked out a few minutes later to attended the interview. Would I pay too see a film there. Absolutely not, no way.UCI Lee Valley was poorly EQ calibrated.Last film I saw was in one of its two larger screensALIEN Resurrection (1997) 35mm dtsAgain it was just all mid bass to highs and no real THX cat weight sat on my chest it was just lousy. The film sounds better in my own home THX cinema.

I believe I was sat front row and centre to the screen as the screen was large! But the sound power lacked.

Odeon Bournemouth screen 1(Cinerama curve screen)
JBL surrounds 8330 stage channels 35 or so years old behind the times. Dolby CP500.

Batman Begins (2005) 35mm Dolby SR-D ...In sheer bloody bleeding ears!!! I had my SPL db meter with me and I saw a shocking 100dbA at times and I was close to walking out on this turned for bats hearing range rather than for human hearing consumption for 2 hours.
I believe I was sat middle of the lower stalls 2 rows in as all the front row was taken up.
Opening titles peaked a few times at 100dbA and bass was just rubbish with no sub bass in the screen at the time. UCI Tower Park one 8 smaller screens I saw it around 1998 as I had seen down town in Dolby SR-D JBL sound system that had warmer stage bass not cat weight bass pressing just warmer and stage horns wasn't ear bleeding enoutthg just calmer loud.Titanic (1997) 35mm dts
EV stage speakers and EV surrounds OVERHEAD!!
Dolby CP55 SRA5 with dts CD-Rom (playing film)
The surrounds level was far too high and the surrounds was OVERHEAD now in Stereo at UCI since dts was installed 1993. Someone in projection ether had the levels turned up on the surrounds as they where almost drowning out the stage channels and timber balance was also off due to being played far too loud.

I believe I was sat somewhere in the middle with OVERHEAD surrounds and not too far away from the screen.
I walked out after reel 1 when the helicopter landed on the salvage ship and got a refund.
Had a job at UCI 10 screen tower park in the early days when it opened 1989, back when it sounded reasonable.

Also worked for Warner Bros Cribbs Causeway, Bristol, Warner Village 12 screen.

You don't need many degrees to do projection just common sense regards to safety. Lot dangerous gear in a booth that can rip your fingers off poking around with sprockets, or lamps under high pressure and temperature in the lamp house that can explode in your face if careless as well as lot of voltage about. Its not a playground.

The issue could be with the sound mix. More and more sound mixers are using what is supposed to be 20dB of headroom a actual program material. The theater should be playing the film at the calibrated volume of 7, but the movie could generally be too loud to begin with.

Dolby pink noise generator Dolby CP500 and switched to format screen so you can see what it looks like and on the Sony SDDS DFP-D3000. Yes it was loud on all-channels for brief few seconds but I wouldn't care to listen at "7" for too long.



85db pink noise generated and level gains are adjusted for 85db at "7" which is at 0db Dolby reference level on the display with +10 and +20db headroom.

When I saw Guardians of the Galaxy at my local Regency theater, I had to stuff a piece of napkin in my ears because it was excruciating otherwise. And I like things petty loud.

bryan4999 said:

When I saw Guardians of the Galaxy at my local Regency theater, I had to stuff a piece of napkin in my ears because it was excruciating otherwise. And I like things petty loud.

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Ear plugs I have bundles of them. Often I would take a pair with me in the past to London as the new JBL 56 overrated kilowatts was just top end mostly.



Oh another ear bender loud film was X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) at VUE west end London screen 7 and I think VUE had lost their THX license by then as no THX trailer was promoted before start of film.

I had to stuff the earplugs in as it was all top end bright and the stage bass channels had some bass but not with weight of tw0 THX cats sat on my chest. Still UCI High Wycombe and Empire '89 JBL THX was the best I heard and felt.


STAR TREK Into Darkness or Into Loudness was sick. It was lousy sounding atmos it was extremely LOUD! As so to put my fingers in my ears many times 6 at the most during the scene where Khan attacks federation office. It was unbearable in front and centre row.

In the circle for second viewing to suss out if atmos is good or not it was still unbearable. All the stage bass was like a chicken with hardly any meat on it.

It was top end! Even the surrounds that have to be matched EQ balanced sounded dreadful. I'm surprsised I didn't wind up with a headache. And I did in a morning rush forget the earplugs and thank goodness I have fingers to cover my ears as levels must have been over 90dbA. I have checked SPL db in past with Transformers that reached 120dbC during one scene in the film and dbA was a bit too damn high.

I have a level peak 85dbA in my home THX cinema and C weighting a bit higher so that I can feel the Foley punches when Khan kicks and punches guys around on the Marcus, black federation starship not have it sounding like a ruler is being slapped on a desk which is what it was at the Empire.

Digital projection pretty much runs itself so there's probably even fewer people paying attention to the sound levels now. When I worked as a film projectionist my test was to check movies during dialogue scenes- if it sounded like they were shouting at you, it was likely too loud, and if you couldn't hear what they were saying, it was too low. I've seen a number of action movies where the dialogue played at a decent level and then the 'action' scenes were ridiculously loud, which is the fault of those who mixed them.

Complaining about the volume should warrant someone at the theater checking it, but the true sign of a badly-run theater is if ONE person complains it's too loud and the volume is automatically turned down. Everyone else in the theater could be enjoying it, and turning it down ruins it for them. I'd rather have it too loud than too quiet most of the time.

I usually have the problem that the volume is too low in theaters. My hearing seems OK since guests to my home theater are usually asking me to turn up the volume past my normal settings. But I've been to many theater screenings where I'm straining to hear dialogue.

The only screening I've been to where I actually had to stuff napkin plugs in my ears was Terminator: Salvation. I could actually feel the bass vibrating my chest in the theater. No one else in the theater seemed to be bothered enough to say anything (there were a fair number of people there), so I just stuffed napkins in my ears.

Malcolm R said:

I usually have the problem that the volume is too low in theaters. My hearing seems OK since guests to my home theater are usually asking me to turn up the volume past my normal settings. But I've been to many theater screenings where I'm straining to hear dialogue.

The only screening I've been to where I actually had to stuff napkin plugs in my ears was Terminator: Salvation. I could actually feel the bass vibrating my chest in the theater. No one else in the theater seemed to be bothered enough to say anything (there were a fair number of people there), so I just stuffed napkins in my ears.

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Covering your ears with fingers or earplugs acts like a filter.





Since its night time fader level is turned down. A typical loud action moment from the film with truck case and machine HK.



Detail in the picture is nicely photographed.

Dick said:

This is one of the reasons I go to movies only about three times a year, whereas in the 60's-70's, I went twice a week almost without fail (of course, no video existed then). Not only is the vast majority of movies being skewed toward teenagers and very young adults, but so is the sound level in the auditoriums. Apparently theater owners cannot be bothered to compromise between the youth market's insatiable desire for way-y-y-too-loud (which will, almost inevitably, affect their hearing some years hence) and an older audience's desire to not be in pain while listening to a deafening dts playback.

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The volume in your post is too loud.

Since developing tinnitus, I don't enjoy theaters like I did. I've reduced his often I go out. When I do, I tend to wear earplugs, which diminishes the experience. The new Atmos system raved about in its own thread, I now avoid. I saw Gravity in Atmos. It was phenomenal. And it made my life worse, it was so tremendously loud.

DaveF said:

Since developing tinnitus, I don't enjoy theaters like I did. I've reduced his often I go out. When I do, I tend to wear earplugs, which diminishes the experience.The new Atmos system raved about in its own thread, I now avoid. I saw Gravity in Atmos. It was phenomenal. And it made my life worse, it was so tremendously loud.

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I just use the fader on some offensively loud mixed films. tinnitus is no joy at the beach.

Dick said:

This is one of the reasons I go to movies only about three times a year, whereas in the 60's-70's, I went twice a week almost without fail (of course, no video existed then). Not only is the vast majority of movies being skewed toward teenagers and very young adults, but so is the sound level in the auditoriums. Apparently theater owners cannot be bothered to compromise between the youth market's insatiable desire for way-y-y-too-loud (which will, almost inevitably, affect their hearing some years hence) and an older audience's desire to not be in pain while listening to a deafening dts playback.

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I know I'm getting old. Not only do they have to turn up the sound in the cinema but I actually like his font. So much easier to read.

I very very rarely go to the cinema but see things at home, usually with the weight of one cat pressing on my chest.

But she's rather large and probably equal to two smaller ones.

Please specify the exact size & weight required for correct technical presentation. I have two others available to raise the qualitiy of my installation but, so far, they've not shown any interest in watching films.

The first cinema that I abandoned was NFT1 as they don't understand the difference between a modern track that, being (hopefully) undistorted can remain comfortable at a highish level and old mono optical or VT productions that are painful to hear at excessive levels.

Yes, lots of tissues in the ears, impossible to make contact with responsible culprits either during or after and nobody else seemingly bothered. Entirely unsuitable for cats - or me.

DaveF said:

Since developing tinnitus, I don't enjoy theaters like I did. I've reduced his often I go out. When I do, I tend to wear earplugs, which diminishes the experience.

The new Atmos system raved about in its own thread, I now avoid. I saw Gravity in Atmos. It was phenomenal. And it made my life worse, it was so tremendously loud.

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Going back to this have you tried orange juice Dave, as it as source of vitamin c. I have lot most of the week and thou its hard to say it does work I do feel like a happy camper at times not hearing the hissing inner ear faint noise.

I've noticed that sound in movie theaters has been too loud, with too much bass and not enough treble for many years now, at least 17 or 18 years. Of course, I am generalizing, and not every theater I have been to in that time is guilty, but the vast majority are.


I'd compare it to the change in technology in car stereos. At some point in the 80s, bass became the thing, and cars were outfitted with bass so loud that you could feel it in the next car when stopped at a gas station (and the joke's on the people in those cars, since bass will shred your hearing played at those levels).


Fast forward several years to the rise of the blockbuster mania in movies (from the mid-90s on, there seemed to be more of them), and people less interested in story and dialogue and more interested in spectacle (I kinda - unfairly perhaps - blame Independence Day for this). The sound became part of that spectacle, so they turn it way up, especially the bass (you gotta feel the rumble!). As treble decreases, so does the clarity of dialogue. I can recall attending a movie with my father in the late 90s, and he complained about the sound, but wondered if it was his poor hearing (and/or faulty hearing aid). I told him that, no, it was the theater.


That's been my experience. It may not have been everyone's, but I have noticed it consistently for the last 18 years or so. I've been to more theaters that I can count in that time, mostly in New Jersey, but also in New York, North Carolina, Florida (I used to attend that AMC at Pleasure Island while on vacation), California, etc. I've gotten to prefer my home theater where I can find the sound levels I like. I can make the walls rumble and still hear the words in the quieter moments.