Most of you may ether love it or hate it, but its probably one of the most favorite Star Trek films in the franchise, so with this multi purpose thread, for the reason it only covers several chapters in the film, and with the images describing the scene as well.
Most of you have slight difficulties in setting-up your home cinemas today with, levels set way to high for the centre channel, that is the mid range and highs, where timber matching, or any panned sound from left to centre will be way-out, most of you only sue the basic pink noise on the AVR, well that's only good for really checking wither the sound system is performing correctly, and running for a few seconds each day when turning on the AVR is a good move, as most cinema projectionists run a pink noise check to see if all is well, as problems can easily crop up at any time.
Setting it with wideband pink noise and a few other test discs, along with multiple EQ's for the fronts surrounds and the baby boom channel as well, getting it done basically will get it close, and only close it will be.
So with some AVR coming with a bass and treble for each of the fronts and surrounds, or a very basic EQ, with only 7 bands will help.
Now chapter 8 of Star Trek II, with the U.S.S. Enterprise, coming under attack by the U.S.S. Reliant, as phaser fire comes overhead with a frequency response around 4KHz and listening at level of 0db on the Kenwood KRF-X9050D THX Select, but please note I'm note using the internal amplification on the Kenwood, but rather routing the pre-outputs from the Kenwood to additional amplification, with active X-over and multiples of EQ's.
With phaser firing at 4KHz, and SPL db level of 73dbA weighting, that's with the THX turned off, which is a bit bright sounding, with THX turned on, SPL db level comes in at 70dbA, this also helps to tame the three-screen channels as well, now thou each speakers placement is different and therefore quite a bit of adjustment needs to be done.
Now setting the fronts to a low level to match the performance from the film as it needs to be tailor fitted to suit the room, or rather the differences in the loudspeakers, some may have different passive X-over networks, sensitivity or general characteristics, in the way it sounds, signature each one will have a different signature, and its getting this down right.
So just simply reduce the level of the fronts, and if you can't turn the split-surrounds off, at will, then disconnect them from the AVR, and then monitor the fronts with the use of the SPL db meter, and set its weighting to "A" not "C" as we what to see the range from 500Hz to 16KHz, like I said the phaser firing from the U.S.S. Reliant is around 4KHz.
The level of it on the fronts is much higher than the surrounds, now quite some years back now, I saw all five Star Trek films as a one off event at the Empire Leicester Square London, with most of the films presented in 70mm six-track Dolby Stereo A and SR types, via the Lucasfilm THX sound system, which really did showcase these films at a higher order, and when that phaser attack moment came, WOW it literally went right over my head, as I looked towards the left side of the cinema, my placement in the Empire was center and on the centre line as well.
With low end kicking like nothing I have felt before, and after seeing and hearing these films in regular Dolby Stereo A type, in a sub standard cinema, the THX sound system delivered Star Trek II with startling realism, as if the whole cinema was pitching rolling and yawing with the onscreen action.
So the results in my home cinema come, close, well with a sub bass that's designed and made for professional cinema installations, it certainly fits in well in the home cinema, the only thing hold everything else back is huge PA cinema loudspeakers, but smaller bookshelf types like the JBL control 5's will have to suffice, otherwise I wont have room to swing a cat.
