Cinema EQ. What is It? (1 Viewer)

[Jason Wolters]

I have the Cinema EQ mode on my Kenwood VR507 receiver. The problem is I can't get the sub to match using the Avia calibration DVD while using this mode. Everything calibrates fine with it off. What is the purpose of this mode? I think it sounds better with this mode on but I can't get everything set right.

 

[BruceD]

Movie sound is mastered on a soundstage for a movie theater, and both are much larger than our HT rooms. Movie sound for the theaters is also mastered to project through the theater's movie screen (speakers are behind it).

When DVDs were first being produced, they were taken directly from the movie theater sound tracks and not adjusted for our HT rooms. DVDs produced these days are said to be designed with our HT rooms in mind.

Because of all these factors, sound from the center speaker may be a little too hot for our HT environment. Cinema RE-EQ was designed to correct for this.

You should only use this on movies whose sound you think is a little too forward or pronounced from the center speaker, not necessarily on every movie.

All speaker level setup should be done with this feature turned off.

BruceD

 

[Albert M]

Kenwoods website says the following:
Cinema EQ: enhances bass response for films and smoothes the blend between front speakers and subwoofer.

 

[Jason Wolters]

And it should go on to say.... Makes calibrating a system using the Avia DVD impossible. Bruce, if I match all of my channels to the Avia DVD test tones, and then proceed to switch on the Cinema EQ mode for a DVD, my channel matching has just gone out the window. Correct? If I match everything to 75 db with Cinema EQ off and then turn it back on, I check the levels and find that all of them are off. Especially the center and surrounds and sub. So doesn't this make speaker matching useless? They are not matched in the mode I am listening to as intended by the sound engineer, correct? This is all really confusing.
What makes it hard to decide is that it sounds so "good" in Cinema EQ mode in the mid range whereas with it off the midranges are very tame. Maybe they are supposed to be tame and my preconceived notion of "good sound" may be based on the more is better phenomenon?

 

[RyanDinan]

If I match everything to 75 db with Cinema EQ off and then turn it back on, I check the levels and find that all of them are off. Especially the center and surrounds and sub. So doesn't this make speaker matching useless? They are not matched in the mode I am listening to as intended by the sound engineer, correct? This is all really confusing.

Jason,

I think what you're doing is fine -

Leave RE-EQ off when you calibrate with AVIA's test tones. This will ensure that all speakers are matched.

When you watch a movie, especially a loud movie, go ahead and turn RE-EQ on. Allot of DVD's use the soundstage audio master, which is just too hot -especially in the center channel. If you listened to the movie with RE-EQ off, it would kinda be like calibrating your center speaker at 10dB higher than the rest. With RE-EQ on during this particular movie, it would balance the center back down to the rest of the channels.

However, most of today's DVD masters are re-mastered for a home theater environment - So RE-EQ isn't necessary on all films.

-Ryan

 

[BruceD]

Jason,

I said the Cinema RE-EQ should ONLY be used on SOME movies, not as your standard listening mode for everything.

If you want to listen as the Director intended, then DON"T use Cinema RE-EQ on most movies, especially the newer releases (since maybe Jan 2001?, I'm not sure).

Again, Cinema RE-EQ is only necessary for some of the OLDER movies that were not mastered with our HT rooms in mind.

A properly leveled system should sound just fine without Cinema RE-EQ on any recent release. If it doesn't, then your system may not be setup or calibrated correctly.

This is a personal preference issue, so listen the way you want, just understand what the standard is.

Bruce

 

[Jason Wolters]

Thanks Guys,

That clears things up. I will recalibrate with cinema eq off. I just wish Kenwood could tell me exactly what their version of this is. I talked to a guy at Kenwood a while ago that had on clue what cinema eq was. Thanks again.