Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Hitman Blu-Ray - What sound!

Folks,

If you have not heard this Blu-Ray, it has absolutely incredible sound. Both the gun battles and the soundtrack throughout are unbelievable in DTS-HD. The pistol (and other weapon) shots in this movie absolutely slam you in the chest.

As a side note, I have two friends in town this weekend and we're again putting the PB-13 Ultra and EP-600 up against one another. In this case, the 600 excelled. Really incredible sound. (I'm out of superlatives and have already used "incredible" twice, so I'll leave it at that for now.)

This movie is going on the top of my stack for HT demo discs.

Jason

PS: The movie is not half bad either.

I guess I still don't get some of the sound effects stuff. Having grown up around firearms, the only time you should get that hit in the chest feeling is, well...

Standing next to a 30-30 when it is discharged really really hurts the ears though. I don't recommend it.

So, you're just going to keep both of them, then?

Fred, fair point. 'Pistols' wasn't really accurate... It was really shotguns, semi-automatic assault riles, grenades, etc. Now, I've never heard any of these in real life (outside of shotguns), but whether they were realistic or enhanced sounds, they sounded very nice to me. Your 350 will sound great with them as well.

I'd encourage you to check the movie out for everything other than the gun sounds as well. The whole thing is great.

Jason

I hear you. I think I have been over sensitized to that kick-in-the-chest phrase.

I will be checking out lots of movies with good LFE once I get my system and get it dialed in.

Have you tested both the EP600 and PB13 playing at the same time?

The thing is, in the movies, gunshots/grenades/rockets/artillery simply don't sound like the real thing. Having been in the Army (Infantry, no less) I can tell you that sounds are all artificial. However, Hollywood sounds are more fun than the real deal. So I can't really complain about what Hollywood is doing to enhance the sound. For example, a grenade has a more of a "chunk" sound to it. Artillery rounds (coming down) sound like ripping bet sheets. I think my favorite (real) weapon sound is the 25mm gun on the Bradleys. Or M60 machine gun.

Hansang, great point. It's definitely not the 600 making it sound more boomy or "chest-thumping," it's how the studio mixed the soundtrack to enhance the effect. The 350 should do much of the same.

Fred, I did try both subs running together. It was impressive, but to me, not $3400 impressive for my 2400 cubic foot room. I'll be keeping one of these subs and running it together with my older Earthquake sub to smooth out response to more spots in the room. The 600 and PB13 are more than capable volume- and frequency-wise to fill the room, but they are unfortunately limited by physics as to how consistent/smooth of a response they can provide to all seats of the rooms at once.

With two of the subs running, even though one (the Earthquake) is inferior to the primary sub, this seems to be vastly improved. This was confirmed just through quick testing by plugging in the second sub and experimenting with the phase switches. Final calibration and tweaking will undoubtedly take me another day up in the media room to figure out, so once I make a decision on the primary sub, I'll move on to that task. (possibly separated by a week or two so that my wife doesn't string me up for spending another Saturday locked in the media room)

I have a older Paradigm PS-1000 130 watt subwoofer which is obviously inferior to my EP-500. I would love to get another EP-500 but financially it's not feasible and I still have to purchase the center and surrounds first. That being said, would I benefit from running both my EP-500 and PS-1000 for the time being? I have always found the Paradigm sub to perform up to its capabilities but I didn't know if it would be detrimental to use it with my EP-500.

Any thoughts on that?

Give it a shot. From what I understand, you could still get some benefits from doing this.

I think so too. My Earthquake is no slouch, but it's definitely not in the same class as the 600 and it still sounds quite nice paired with the 600. Though like I said, this is just from dropping it in a corner and turning it on. Getting it tuned in to how it really should sound when running with the 600 is going to take a bit more work.

I'd say definitely try it out though. Play with the phase of both subs when you first set them up to see what combination gives you the least cancellation (maximum volume) in your listening position. You can use a static test tone or the "warble" setup tones from your receiver to see what works best.