Spidey2 + SDDS + Mann Village (Westwood) = why I love theaters and movies! (1 Viewer)

[RobertR]

Agreed. It was the National that prompted me to start my long "no home theater is as good as the best movie theaters" thread.

 

[Carlo_M]

Yeah the presentation is great there as well. But the "retro" carpeting and decor bites!

 

[Paul.S]

Carlo:

I was/am sad to see the Loews Cineplex Century Plaza go. My best memories of Cinema 1 were 10 pm-ish shows of movies where silence was important, deep in the pic's run with maybe 5 other people in the 1,100-seat theater: Cube (scary!) and The Ghost In the Darkness. IMO, Cinema 1 rivaled the Village in terms of soundstage but--not unlike pretty much every other theater I've been to--could not match the Village for sheer bass output. Interesting that you had a preference for Cinema 2, not the larger Cinema 1?

-p

 

[Paul Linfesty]

And I hope the SDDS track is actually used every performance. I've seen a couple of films advertised in the Mann directory as being in 8-channel SDDS one was "The Perfect Storm") yet the theatre was running the film through their SRD penthouse with the SDDS equipment turned off. When the Chinese booth was on the main floor, it was easy to see this.

 

[John Stockton]

Whenever Cinema 2 was tuned and balanced properly no theatre in the LA area could come close to its sound quality. And as mentioned it was equipped with John Allen's HPS-4000 sound system. I have never heard any other system sound so natural and so beautiful. It beats THX in every aspect. The one aspect where it is no competition is MUSIC. Music on HPS-4000 sounds so natural and clean, almost like it is live in front of you.

Regarding the National theatre: That auditoruim has the best accoustics of all the theatres in the city. One of the reasons for this is the decor, which I am hoping will not be changed other wise with today's over use of accoustical treatment the sound will suffer.

 

[Paul.S]

I guess it is unrealistic to think that Mann would change just the color of the curtains, but not their fabric or anything else . . . Changing the seats (to add more padding and head support) would probably change the acoustic, too.

-p

 

[Chad R]

Actually, AMC's Pleasure Island near Disney has 8-Track SDDS available in at least one auditorium. The great thing about Pleaure Island is that since they are on Disney property they are contractually obligated to get the newest, coolest toys for the theater.

Unfortuneately I saw many a movie touted as 8 Channel SDDS over the years, and although the sound is awesome, the extra two channels were nearly indiscernable. It just sounded like 5.1 to me.

 

[Paul Linfesty]

I believe AMC is one of the few chains to include 8-channel SDDS in the largest auditoriums of all their megaplexes. (Typically 2 to 4 screens each of new builds).