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Author Topic: AMC Dolby CInema -- What are the speakers? Mark Lensenmayer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1605 From: Upper Arlington, OH Registered: Sep 1999 posted 06-06-2019 07:20 PM                     Had my first experience with Dolby Cinema today. What are the round speakers that AMC uses in the auditorium?  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-06-2019 10:38 PM                     Probably the SLS (aka Dolby) MA390. https://www.dolby.com/us/en/professional/cinema/products/sls-3-axis-speaker-ma390c.html  |  IP: Logged Mark Lensenmayer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1605 From: Upper Arlington, OH Registered: Sep 1999 posted 06-07-2019 07:22 AM                     Thanks. That looks like what I saw. All of the surround and overhead speakers were this model.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-07-2019 09:41 AM                     Those little round things don't look anything like the speakers I've seen in AMC's Dolby Cinema theaters. Each one I've visited had the ones with the red lights in them. The side and back wall speakers had multiple drivers in a vertical layout. Boxy looking enclosures were on the ceiling, including a pair of big sub-bass cabinets. The visual theme is a hold-over of the old AMC Prime theater design.  |  IP: Logged Mark Lensenmayer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1605 From: Upper Arlington, OH Registered: Sep 1999 posted 06-07-2019 10:11 AM                     This Dolby Cinema was just opened about a month ago, so it is a very new installation. (AMC Lennox 24 in Columbus, OH)  |  IP: Logged Brad Steckroth Film Handler Posts: 1 From: Westland MI USA Registered: Jun 2011 posted 06-07-2019 10:12 AM                        Bobby, I agree with the square older auditoriums. What I've seen in the Dolby Cinema's around us is what appear to be Line Array Surrounds with red LEDs pointed inwards towards the driver mounted on the skinny grills. This would lead me to believe they are using some form of SLS Line Array Dolby speakers. Very similar to the SLS CS6600 Cinema Screen Channel Line Array Speakers with Red LEDs mounted to the vertical grills. https://www.dolby.com/us/en/professional/cinema/products/sls-cs6600-product-sheet.pdf  |  IP: Logged Terry Monohan Master Film Handler Posts: 379 From: San Francisco CA USA Registered: May 2014 posted 06-07-2019 10:49 AM                     Many AMC Theatres around the SF Bay Area are changing out the speaker lights from red to blue color and putting in blue side wall lights and getting rid of the bright red. The AMC Metreon in SF did this a few months ago. They needed to keep the red ones on when you come in and add blue for when the movie is on. When I worded at the Fox West Coast Fox Oakland & Paramount Theatres in my high school days in Oakland CA many of the old IA projection guys taught me about color lights in the cinema. In the summer time they had blue/green bulbs and in the winter they switched to red/orange lights. No one bothers to do this much now. We have two brand new cinemas coming to SF soon Cineworld UA Stonestown 12 going in now at the old Macy's store at the Stonestown mall along with the South Korean company remodeling the Van Ness Theatre, I wonder what color lights they will use in their single Dolby Cinema? There are many new LED colors to choose from but Dolby Cinema Vision® seems to favor just red or blue now they are pulling all the red lights. I think blue light is not as harsh as red that may be the reason plus a Dolby® guy told me in SF that they had way to many complaints at the AMC Metreon Theatre that the red lights were going on the corners of the bottom of the huge curved Dolby Cinema® curved screen. I have seen some new theatres around the USA that are not a AMC Dolby Cinema® set up put in a nice teal/blue/green light on the side wall lights. This looks so nice with dark blue type seats. So many modern circuit theatres when they build their multi cinemas today just put in cheap old boring white side wall bulbs and white overhead lights. They all shine on the screen when they play the pre show ads! No black level everything is washed out grays. At least the Dolby® people have some color light showmanship class in there new builds.  |  IP: Logged Kenneth Wuepper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1026 From: Saginaw, MI, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 06-07-2019 04:50 PM                     Our local single screen used to put red lights in the wall fixtures during the winter and then change them to blue for the summer. This was to make the room warm feeling in winter and cooler in the summer. The power of suggestion at work.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 06-07-2019 06:39 PM                     "Older" AMC installs are probably using the same Christie Vive Line Arrays they've been using for their initial, custom build-outs, but with red "neon" effects added to them. Although Dolby acquired SLS Audio somewhere at the end of 2014, it probably took a while to integrate their speakers into the "Dolby Cinema" design.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-07-2019 09:47 PM                     LEDs for border or ambient lighting can be acquired in any number of configurations. You can even buy setups using clusters of Red Green and Blue LEDs for full color effects, even with animation. Usually they turn off all the Red LED stuff when the movie is playing (thank God). Aside from the little round Dolby-branded speakers, I wonder how many Atmos-equipped auditoriums are using the new Dolby multi-channel amplifiers. At first glance it would seem like those devices would make it much easier to configure an Atmos system where it can properly render discrete surround audio to each individual surround speaker. With conventional 1, 2 or 4 channel amplifiers you have to fill rack after rack after rack after rack with amps to have something that can sound noticeably different than "plain" 5.1 or 7.1.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-08-2019 11:38 AM                     Though we haven't used them, yet, I hear that their sales are doing well. Their use goes beyond Atmos rooms. Take most any Cinema Processor and connect it ot the inputs of the DMA and you're done (it has the 8-channel analog input as well as Atmos-Connect". In fact, with the new CP950, you've got the booth monitor also in the system (the CP950 has a booth monitor) and connection between the CP950 and the DMA is via "Atmos-Connect"/Blu-link/AES67. It can do the crossovers of the stage speakers and all of the surrounds in a typical 5.1/7.1 system and all in 4U of deeeeeeeep rack space. Since servers no longer need pedestals or racks to be stored in, you can probably put the DMA in there and avoid the rack if you have a booth. Note, Dolby is not along in multi-channel amplifiers that go beyond 4-channels. QSC has their 8-channel DPA-Q series and BGW has their 16-channel behemoth (Immersive sound amplifier). It is just 5U but weighs in at up to 150lbs https://www.bgw.com/amplifiers/vxi/vxi88  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-09-2019 01:36 PM                     I think these huge multi-channel amplifiers are virtually self defeating. No amplifier is totally reliable and even a small stupid thing failing inside one can take your entire screen down. If you go the multi-channel route then have at least one spare on site ready to swap in to the failed amplifier, or lose a number of shows. I had a customer in SLC that used AB Systems six chanel amplifiers in the early 2000's. He said they'd save a lot of money on equipment and instalation. Well, the amplifiers sounded pretty good and had 250 wpc. But all the Mallory main filter caps in them failed randomly, and he did not have a spare amplifier. Yes, this was in the days of capacitor plague... but... this sort of simple failure thing can still happen. Many two channel amplifiers are still a better route and prefered at least by me. If a single 2 channel amp fails it may be one that no one would really notice being gone for a few hours. Its also much less expensive to keep a spare in the booth or even bolted right in the same rack. The only place I used any multi channel amplifiers was for surround channels (DCA-1644's) and I only did that a couple times because of space issues. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-09-2019 05:46 PM                     I agree with Mark in keeping a spare amplifier in a complex (or even in a single) since things do fail. In my Q-SYS designs, I always split up the stage channels between two amplifiers. If quad-ampling (SC-424 stage speakers, for instance), I'll use two 8-channel amplifiers. One for Left/Right and the other for Center/Sub (that way it fails symmetrically). In my Q-SYS designs I also have an amplifier bypass built-in for the stage channels so one can route around the failed amplifier until it can be replaced. Speaking of which, QSC has made such replacement pretty easy with everything on plug-in-connectors. If you do leave a spare amp in the rack, one can merely move the output phoenix type connectors to the spare amp (or it could be automated with relays). You should look at the topology of the Dolby DMA. It would take quite a bit of failure to take it down. It has multiple power supplies, knows how to prioritize/shed power and has multiple output modules. It is also quite modular in its assembly/repair. The clearly put a lot of thought into it. Certainly time will tell. I'm also curious if software/firmware related issues can take it down. It isn't a quiet amplifier as it sounds like a jet taking off when it first powers on.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 06-09-2019 11:47 PM                     Redundancy is as good as the software it is running, so that can still get it down. Then again, a buggy CP-850 will also cause havoc in your auditorium and it's not like that never happened. The nice thing with Dolby Connect is that you can, theoretically, easily route around problems. If a channel in your unit fails, you only need to re-route the speaker part. Also, in the end, you only have "one speaker" at any given position, so there is always a SPOF somewhere. The CP-850 is currently missing a feature I'd really want to see in there (maybe the CP-950 will bring it): An easy way to temporarily disable an output channel and let the system itself compensate as well as it can for it.  |  IP: Logged Haris Ellahi Film Handler Posts: 23 From: Dubai, UAE Registered: Mar 2017 posted 06-10-2019 04:48 AM                    Bobby, Those speakers you saw that had multiple drivers in the vertical layout are the JBL CBT Series. Have a look: http://www.jblpro.com/www/products/installed-sound/cbt-series#.XP4nb1wzYuU  |  IP: Logged

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