Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Movie theaters sound stinks!

I'm lucky enough to live in Los Angeles, and we've likely got some of the finest movie houses in the world. The sound in many of them is quite good. Though I have to admit an "average" theatre is downright awful.

You're all going to go see Batman Begins in IMAX, right? Our sound systems are 10x better than a regular theatre.

Ou rnew IMAX in Des Moines won't be showing any "first run," or whatever you want to call them, movies until next year, so I would have to drive 6 hours to Chicago.. I don't think that I will be doing that. I hope that it is good. Can't be worse than the last couple bat flicks.

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Ian stopped going to theaters in the early 80s!!

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1996's The Fan was the last movie I saw in a theatre, though we have attended the drive-in a few times since (which is a different experience altogether). Mediocre sound, idiot patrons, no chance to pause it and pop out for a smoke and generally my lack of being able to sit still for 2 hours just make it an exercise in futility.

One of the audio techs I used to work with hadn't been to one since the 60s... he had the same problem with sitting still... must come with working in a situation where everyone else is sitting and watching a broadcast or event and it's your job not to sit quietly and watch.

Bren R.

I thought it was just me! I saw Star Wars last Friday. During the ads, and previews, I was thinking "man this sound really sucks! I hope it's better during the movie". Well it wasn't any better, they had it turned up so loud that I had to plug my ears for 75% of the movie. The sound was REALLY bright, lots of ssssibalence, it was physically painful. I was sitting in the middle of a full house, so I didn't want to get up and climb over everyone. I kept seeing other people leave the theater, I was thinking and hoping that they were complaining about the sound,"Am I the only one here here being tortured by this noise? those people have to be complaining" Well aparently none of them complained, because it never got any better. It totally runined the movie for me, all I could think about was how loud and crappy sounding it was, why don't they do something about it? After the show I looked for someone to complain to, all I could find were pimply faced 16 year olds, so I didn't bother.

From what I've seen Batman Begins looks very, very good. They've really developed the story, and avoided camp at all costs.

spiff, when will Batman Begins be at the The Bridge IMAX?

Same day as the 35mm version, June 15th.

I've seen a couple IMAX movies, and the IMAX sound beats HT, but HT blows away regular movies.

This just means that it is possible to have good sound in a regular theater, if it can be done in an IMAX one. They have a much more extensive speaker setup in our IMAX theater though.