The New Master List of BASS in Movies with Frequency Charts - Page 181

When comparing two movies with the same settings in SL - we also see the difference in "output level".
The difference in output level is always adjusted to the Volume we prefer in our Hometheater when we actually see the movie.
Isnt the difference within in each movie more interesting?

Will this version make it easier to "see/feel" ULF bass in our systems? I prefer to stay the way it is today - at linear level.

Mine is set up for optimal transfer from my mic through my interface. Since you're going straight off your player into your sound card there may be a level setting difference in your sound card menu, which, since I don't use that method, is something I'm not familiar with.

You can go to "options" in SpecLab, "Spectrum (2), and change the "offset" to correct the intensity difference.



Also check your scroll speed. Mine is 80 ms. Yours looks to be slower, so LMK if it's 80 or different.

I just checked out some scenes from different movies. Avatar is better than Avengers which is better than Battleship. I gave Avatar a 4 rating so Avengers a 3.5 and battleship a 3. This is based on feel. I used to get out my spl meter and judge by what it hit during the scene and how that spl created tactile sensations(extension). Transformers would be a 4 or 4.5. I have to recheck it again.

It's Avengers I haven't seen. Battleship was a three star to my ears.

I'm actually not sure which was the worse movie: Aeon Flux or Battleship. Bass content seemed about the same, though AF is a lot shorter movie.

If you were capturing from the AVR sub out, it would certainly make sense to disable any auto-EQ (Audyssey, MCACC, YPAO). My question is: Where would you want to set the crossovers as this would have an impact due to re-directed bass from other channels, no?

I plan on getting myself set-up to provide graphs, but wanted to make sure we're all on a level playing field.

My suggestion is to take the feed off the player, digitally, if you have that capability. That eliminates the AVRs analog SW out roll off and gives the most accurate presentation.

Actually, my sub is -3db @ 16Hz. In fact, I thought the bass I heard from the beginning of the movie prior to the credits was riveting.

Thanks, Dave. I'll either have to use the 7.1 analog out from the Sony BDP-1000ES since my PC doesn't have an HDMI audio IN and optical won't be passing the HD audio formats. Maybe there is a way for SL to capture from a BD while being played within the PC.

That will work. My experience with Sony players analog out is that they're flat to 3 Hz, so should be accurate enough. Make sure you set the sats to small and sub to yes in the players menu to send all bass to the SW out. I've done both and compared them and I think the anny out of the player is gonna be just fine.

I have my settings in a file that you can just upload into SL and be running, if you're interested, LMK.

Great news! I knew Sony was good fer sumpthin'!

If you're refering to the .INI file for SpecLab, I'll just get it in the .zip file from your site, correct?

Kinda excited to get this going and contribute positively to this thread.

Yes, the zip has SL and the .ini file.

I posted earlier for another member that you may have to adjust the "offset" if the levels are too high. Just play a scene and adjust the offset until it looks right, with highest peaks at around -5dBFS (whitish color).

Love to see more posters with SL graphs. Good luck and LMK if there's anything I can help with.

Saw that. I'll dink around with it this weekend.

Thanks again for the help!

4.5 stars for The Avengers huh? About to take it for a spin right now...

You are? Hmm... I'm going to try it on my laptop.


Max

FWIW, the waterfalls I posted were also done in a windows 7, 64bit os version.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

I just demoed a few scenes to compare to the avengers to get an idea what to rate it which I gave 4 stars initially. Avatar, avengers, batman begins, and LOTR:FOTR. I compared them to each other and Avengers comes close to Avatar with the difference being Avatar digging deeper with more hair raising bass and Avengers havin more Midbass punch. Then came batman which went deeper and louder than both. FOTR wins this hands down with its overall soundtrack as good as any. It reminds me of immortals without clipping. All the bass and the surround and front stage is awesome. There was an effect that happned several times in one scene that never happened ever during Avatar and the Avengers. So I give it 4 stars if prefer Midbass punch and I give it 3.5 stars if you like 20hz stuff. Avatar is 4 stars. I think all the transformer movies, batman(Christian bale), LOTR, etc... Have better bass than the Avengers. I still love the movie!

What speakers/subwoofers/receiver do you have in your system?

Watched the Avengers last night at -12. I had not seen it. The movie was really entertaining and I got some good laughs out of it, plenty of action too. I thought the movie itself was great. I also thought the picture quality was great and the surround use was good but not top tier. I would give it a 3.5 for bass maybe even a 3. It had tons of bass quantity and loudness but it didn't have the diversity and creative use of the bass that my favorites do. I don't mean just the sub bass either. Still a really enjoyable movie just not bass demo material. YMMV

Agree 100% the bass is there with quantity but the quality of it and the way it was used was not very diverse or creative. I could understand if they filtered it at 20hz thats fine...but 30hz?....seriously WTF!. Surround use was ok, but nothing special at all compared to other movies. Enjoyable movie regardless of that though.....just wish the studios wouldnt do an half arsed effort in mixing these movies.

Where exactly is the evidence of filtering at 30hz? I'm not seeing that. these graphs are showing plenty of content down to 20hz and even some below that.

@ mojomike,

I have to assue that is the MIN-MAX average for the entire film. That being the assumption, look at the roll-off below the peak @ 30Hz. Looks suspicously like a 4th/5th order pass filter. Even in the other waterfalls, (dependant on intensity) everything has that same charateristic.

That's the definition of "filtered" that I and others are meaning, not a brick-wall filter at a specific frequency.
Edited by Dr. Spankenstein - 9/28/12 at 10:17am

Flageborg,i appreciate your charts god work : ) hope you can give the movie "Inside" à shot,its à french horror flick With insane bass into singel digits,check it out ; ) even Bosso cant complain on this one : )

Thanks for that. I thought I was looking at the charts wrong, I know nothing is like a brick wall, but I figured that if it were filtered, then there would be absolutely nothing down low, It looks like there is content, just not that loud or intense because it looks green instead of red. Unless I am reading the charts wrong.

There is certainly a lack of content below 20hz, but do to the emphasis of output between 30 and 50hz, the strength at 20hz is still up there with everything at 70hz and above. It does look like the sound guys were shooting for bass that would be most useful for the commercial theaters as well as probably 99+% of home theaters. The bottom line is that the only bass content that is lacking is that which is below 20hz.

I just watched Avengers last night with a group of friends, Everyone was impressed with the bass and there is certainly a lot of it, but I could easily tell there was a real lack of <25hz and below - That is the stuff that makes your pant legs and your hair vibrate. Every once in a while there was a bit of a sense of the deep stuff, but when compared to something like The Incredible Hulk there was a huge difference. It is a bit disappointing given that stuff like the building collapse could have been so much better if it had the really deep stuff. As a side note I was also surprised with the 16:9 aspect ratio given the type of movie.

I was wondering why it filled the whole screen lol. I thought I had my PQ settings messed up.

The bass at 20Hz is down 15-20db from 30Hz. That difference coupled with the typical reduced perception of lower frequencies means that there isn't much at 20Hz at all. Yep, filtered at 30Hz.

The movie itself was definitely enjoyable, the audio was pretty good, but the bass could definitely have been better, especially when you consider the bass in some of the other movies within the franchise (TIH and Iron Man). It appears that this trend is occurring in the newer movies in the franchise (Thor and now Avengers). Definitely looking forward to the next Avengers movie with the appearance of Thanos at the end of the first one, but hopefully, by then, they'll have moved away from this silly trend of filtering at 30Hz.


Max
Edited by djbluemax1 - 9/28/12 at 1:54pm

You only know peak dB FS levels in a waterfall if you calibrate your system, only show one input channel on the waterfall, and you account for DD Dialnorm variances. In addition the color RED (as an example) shows a range of SPL levels that vary poster to poster. It could be +/- 3 B, or +/- 6 dB or whatever scale the poster uses.

In addition, only the upper spectrogram shows PEAK dB FS by frequency bin with any accuracy.

On a bass managed system, calibration is impossible. Add 5 channels of bass plus the LFE channel together, and the combined bass total will easily go over the 0 dB FS limit that is used on each individual digital channel if you do the math. Even 2 channels encoded with a -3 dB FS signal level will peak at a theoretical level of +3 dB FS.

Not the way that you show it!

Try a single channel waterfall 3 to 24 kHz.

I just wanted to clarify my stance on this Avengers soundtrack for the few who seem rabid about my opinions and especially because they've chosen to give this soundtrack a 5 star (or A level, or whatever the top rating for others may be) rating.

First, yes, this soundtrack is filtered with at least a 4th order HPF at 30 Hz. There is no question about that, so please don't try to bait me with baloney on this point.

Second, concerning the so-called filtered 5 star soundtracks claim, alleging that there are "massive" numbers or "the vast majority" of titles that fit this description and that the titles with <20 Hz content are "less than 1%" baloney, let's just try to add that claim up. There are over 1,000 titles in this Master List thread, virtually all of which have <20 Hz content. So, that would mean that there are at least 100,000 titles of 5 star filtered soundtracks available.

...right.

As far as Avengers being 5 star, I've sized and cropped the best examples of a true 5 star movie with bass to Avengers from 0 to 60 Hz. Both are mic'd at the LP at 0dBRL (reference level at my seat), with the subwoofer calibrated flat with the mains. I also zoomed in on a scene from A to show the filter estimate vs the scale I use in SL:



So, all I can say is, if A is 5 stars, TIH must be 200 stars.

With Thor, the BR is +10dB hotter than the DVD and the A graphs I did were of the DVD, so the intensity of the graph may be higher with A on BR, I don't know, but that's not gonna change anything in the comparison besides the simple fact that to most folks louder means better. Bumping the levels up changes nothing but the master volume level. It's simple enough to run my subs hot with Hulk as well, but loudness is not what I use to rate soundtracks.

Bottom line: there is no comparison whatsoever from any angle you look at it. Quantity, bandwidth, quality, enhancement of the viewing experience, added realism, etc., etc. Hulk is 5 stars, A is not. A is not 4 stars and I feel I was kind in giving it 3 stars.

Since this thread was jacked by a few haters maxmercy has pinged me to say he's done with posting peak-to-average graphs or any other graphs/tests he runs. I can't say I blame him or any of the others who've stopped posting such in this thread, but I'm taking a sentence here to ask him: Doc, please reconsider and please post the Thor PtoA graph and any future graphs you create here. I find them extremely valuable and I appreciate the time it takes to do them and post them here.