"Some DD EX and DTS-ES soundtracks have quite substantial content in the rears..."


There may be "substantial content" in the surrounds of some movies, but if you did a spectrum analysis per channel and compared the content to what is in the other speakers (especially the sub) at that point, I think you would find that the total energy content at that point in the surrounds is quite nominal. This is simply because the surrounds in a cinema cannot take the extremely heavy demands of very low frequencies, and no mixing stage will put out a mix that would be incompatble with the end user (the neighborhood cinemas).

Hollywood may occasionally produce some really crappy movies, but the post production people who finish them know very well what they're doing

Low frequencies are the very area where most of the power demand resides, and if you eliminate them, much less power is required. You are also significantly reducing the power demand if you use bass management and have your surrounds set to "small"

For the record, in my studio I use tube amps rated at 60 watts per channel for my side surrounds and 40 watts per channel for my rear surrounds, and I do not clip these amps. I run these surrounds full range, and regularly play movies at the reference mixing level. I also play master music recrodings which can and do have significantly more dynamic range than what ends up in the movie's soundtrack.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited May 19, 2003).]