In reply to:
If you really want the TRUE theatre experience you can hire me to sit in your home and talk, cough and make cell phone calls during the movie. For an extra bonus I can also deliver the dialog 10 seconds before the actors do.
Oh YOU'RE the guy that follows me around from theater to theater and sits just behind me. Hmmmm?
You know, I just realized something. A little background first. I got started in this whole home theater thing because of the great sound in theaters. I can remember sitting in the theater, watching the credits roll (all the way to the end) because of the fabulous sound of the music under the credits. Voices had an "in your face" presence that I had never experienced before, certainly not from my 30 year old stereo system. So I got me a Pro Logic receiver and a JBL HTIB (which was my first step down the path which eventually led to hanging out with bad company on the internet
, and to financial ruin), and immediately realized "AH! Boy! Finally! Now this..........still doesn't sound like the theater.
So I made my first "upgrades" (the greatest mistake of my life, for it infected me with the dreaded disease.....upgraditis
) I got me a Cambridge Soundworks center channel, and (admitted with GREAT shame) Bose 301 fronts. I know! I know! I've now, forever, lost any admiration and respect I may have earned. But I just didn't know what I was doing. Sheesh! Anyway, believe it or not, that little center channel got me the results I'd wanted, and I was VERY pleased to hear what I thought, at the time, was an approximation of the theater experience. At the least, I achieved, to a satisfying degree, that vocal presence in the center channel. Well, needless to say, I've come a long way since those days, and the equipment I have today is a considerable improvement over what I had then.
BUT! (And here's the interesting revelation I had that prompted this dissertation.) Because of my particular circumstances, the last time I was in a theater was BEFORE I bought that Pro Logic receiver and the JBL HTIB; BEFORE I experienced the great sound I've achieved in my own home. So, I have no way of knowing how my setup compares to a theater's setup. I've been assuming, all along, that as good as my HT is, it would still never measure up to a theater's.
Could it be, based on what some of you have said above, that my system actually sounds BETTER than a theater's? HOLY CATS! What an epiphany! I'd never even considered that possibility. Only time will tell, of course. But I'm looking forward to that first trip to a theater to find out. VERY interesting!
