Nope, I'm not trying to make people think like I do, although the world would be a much better place if that were the case

My original point was that there is a lot more information in the soundtracks of movies than the vast majority of people realize. Because of inadequate setup and/or compromises in things like speaker placement and acoustics, they are generally not receiving anywhere near the full impact of what is in the soundtrack in it's unaltered state.

I work on the movie mixing stages where major films are mixed and hear film soundtracks as they were intended to sound by the original mixing engineers. The sound is nothing short of spectacular and seamless in it's envelopment, and if the soundtrack "needs something" more, the mixers simply supply that "something" in the mixing process.

The consumer sound industry is marketing driven. As such they push any number of "band aids" to supposedly "fix" movie soundtracks in people's homes. What I take issue with is that these processes are being used pre-emptively without users, because of poor room setup, inadequate speakers or lousy acoustics, even extracting what is there in the original soundtrack. The manufacturers would like the comsumer to believe that these processes are "necessary" to extract the best sound from film soundtracks. Believe me, what is present in most soundtracks sounds better than all the post processing in the world can provide.

If people would take more effort with things like the acoustics of the listening room (admittedly not a "sexy" topic like the newest signal processing scheme) and other factors, they would probably find that most of these post processing schemes would be un-necessary.

I wish more people could hear the sound of films on the mixing stage to see how satisfying they really are. The people who mix films are very dedicated to their craft and spend more time fussing over seeming minute details than most consumers would believe. If a soundtrack is deficient in some aspect, believe me, they take care of it in the film's original mix.

No post processing scheme, not even Logic 7 can provide as good a sound as in the soundtrack in it's unaltered state.

Don't believe me? Try to visit a mixing stage sometime and hear for yourself. Talk to the people who actually mix the films.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited October 23, 2003).]