Ryan Schnacke
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2001
- Messages
- 876
Seems like this story has been told before some months back. But actually experiencing it was enough to make me want to post my impressions.
During my trip to Disney World 2 weeks ago my wife and I happened upon an "Ultimate Home Theater" show in one of the Innoventions buildings at Epcot. How could I resist?
The show starts in a corner of the big room where everything is going on - enough noise from other exhibits to preclude any real listening tests. But Disney solved that one - they just rigged a comparison that was so obviously and completely unfair that the verdict was unquestionable. First they showed us a big, single (mono) speaker that was comprised of a single 15 inch or so driver. No midrange. No tweeter. And it looked like they'd pulled it from underneath a pile of junk in Al Bundy's garage. "This is the sound quality we were accustomed to 40 years ago." Um, if you say so.
The competition? You guessed it - the amazing Bose acoustimass "noise" system. Of course it was smaller, better sounding and better looking than that other hunk of junk. Way to go, Bose! Here's a new slogan for you - "Bose ... better than crap ... sort of". Needless to say I wasn't fooled. Neither was my wife.
Next we move into a soundproofed room. This room was designed to look like a living room but had wood bench seats with no backs. There's a high-def rear projection TV flush mounted in one wall. A flat screen on another wall. Remote control lighting and doors to conceal the RPTV. Pretty neat. But how does it sound?
Once again the almighty Bose AM speakers were called to the task and once again they failed. The demo was intended to show the difference between stereo and full blown surround sound. A clip from Armageddon was played in stereo. Kinda loud but otherwise quite unimpressive.
"Now we're going to play that again and this time you'll hear and FEEL surround sound". This was too funny. They played the same clip but in some surround mode (I can only assume it was Dolby Digital). Slightly louder but same poor quality with zero imaging. And this time they kicked in the bass shakers they had hidden under the wooden benches. I couldn't help but laugh. There's pleny of action and sound but virtually no bass. And yet my butt was vibrating. Not my whole body - the backless benches prevented that - just my butt. It was so ... wrong. The best comparison I can make is putting one of those jumbo-coffee-can-sized mufflers on a Honda Civic. Sure its loud, but that silly buzz doesn't actually make it powerful. Just annoying. I was just waiting for them to ask "Now wouldn't you love to have this in your home?" but I'm guessing they've already gotten a few NO's to that question since they didn't bother asking.
Thankfully we moved on to the last demo which consisted of a large dedicated home theater room with some impressive equipment (no Bose whatsoever). Very nice and high quality. Still didn't WOW me other than the amount of money they must've put into it. Maybe if I had the benefit of calibrating it to MY preferences I'd be more impressed but that's another matter.
In the end I'm rather embarrassed that Disney fell so deeply into the Bose hype. My wife and I are big Disney (expecially Disney World and Disney Cruise Line) fans and its unusual to see them utterly fail. In some ways I'd like to think that they were just catering to the publics perceptions of quality and that they really know better. But Disney has done so many things so well, going beyond the status quo and innovating new solutions, that I expect more of them. This was a great opportunity to demonstrate what quality sound is REALLY about - accuracy, clarity, imaging, ... but in an unusual display of unDisney-like character they took the cheap way out.
During my trip to Disney World 2 weeks ago my wife and I happened upon an "Ultimate Home Theater" show in one of the Innoventions buildings at Epcot. How could I resist?
The show starts in a corner of the big room where everything is going on - enough noise from other exhibits to preclude any real listening tests. But Disney solved that one - they just rigged a comparison that was so obviously and completely unfair that the verdict was unquestionable. First they showed us a big, single (mono) speaker that was comprised of a single 15 inch or so driver. No midrange. No tweeter. And it looked like they'd pulled it from underneath a pile of junk in Al Bundy's garage. "This is the sound quality we were accustomed to 40 years ago." Um, if you say so.
The competition? You guessed it - the amazing Bose acoustimass "noise" system. Of course it was smaller, better sounding and better looking than that other hunk of junk. Way to go, Bose! Here's a new slogan for you - "Bose ... better than crap ... sort of". Needless to say I wasn't fooled. Neither was my wife.
Next we move into a soundproofed room. This room was designed to look like a living room but had wood bench seats with no backs. There's a high-def rear projection TV flush mounted in one wall. A flat screen on another wall. Remote control lighting and doors to conceal the RPTV. Pretty neat. But how does it sound?
Once again the almighty Bose AM speakers were called to the task and once again they failed. The demo was intended to show the difference between stereo and full blown surround sound. A clip from Armageddon was played in stereo. Kinda loud but otherwise quite unimpressive.
"Now we're going to play that again and this time you'll hear and FEEL surround sound". This was too funny. They played the same clip but in some surround mode (I can only assume it was Dolby Digital). Slightly louder but same poor quality with zero imaging. And this time they kicked in the bass shakers they had hidden under the wooden benches. I couldn't help but laugh. There's pleny of action and sound but virtually no bass. And yet my butt was vibrating. Not my whole body - the backless benches prevented that - just my butt. It was so ... wrong. The best comparison I can make is putting one of those jumbo-coffee-can-sized mufflers on a Honda Civic. Sure its loud, but that silly buzz doesn't actually make it powerful. Just annoying. I was just waiting for them to ask "Now wouldn't you love to have this in your home?" but I'm guessing they've already gotten a few NO's to that question since they didn't bother asking.
Thankfully we moved on to the last demo which consisted of a large dedicated home theater room with some impressive equipment (no Bose whatsoever). Very nice and high quality. Still didn't WOW me other than the amount of money they must've put into it. Maybe if I had the benefit of calibrating it to MY preferences I'd be more impressed but that's another matter.
In the end I'm rather embarrassed that Disney fell so deeply into the Bose hype. My wife and I are big Disney (expecially Disney World and Disney Cruise Line) fans and its unusual to see them utterly fail. In some ways I'd like to think that they were just catering to the publics perceptions of quality and that they really know better. But Disney has done so many things so well, going beyond the status quo and innovating new solutions, that I expect more of them. This was a great opportunity to demonstrate what quality sound is REALLY about - accuracy, clarity, imaging, ... but in an unusual display of unDisney-like character they took the cheap way out.
