4
DESCRIPTION
THX
®
is an exclusive set of standards and technologies established by
the world-renowned film production company, Lucasfilm Ltd. THX
resulted from George Lucas’ desire to reproduce the movie
soundtrack as faithfully as possible both in the movie theater and in
the home theater.
THX engineers developed patented technologies to accurately
translate the sound from a movie theater environment into the home,
correcting the tonal and spatial errors that occur.
When the THX mode of the SR-12S1 is on, three distinct THX
technologies are automatically added:
Re-Equalization-restores the correct tonal balance for watching a
movie in a home environment.
These sounds are otherwise mixed to be brighter for a large movie
theater. Re-EQ compensates for this and prevents the soundtracks
from being overly bright and harsh when played in a home theater.
Timbre Matching-filters the information going to the surround
speakers so they more closely match the tonal characteristics of the
sound coming from the front speakers.
This ensures seamless panning between the front and surround speakers.
Adaptive Decorrelation-slightly changes one surround channel’s time
and phase relationship with respect to the other surround channel.
This expands the listening position and creates with only two surround
speakers the same spacious surround experience as in a movie
theater with multiple surround speakers.
The Marantz SR-12S1 was required to pass a rigorous series of
quality and performance tests, in addition to incorporating the
technologies explained above, in order to be THX Ultra certified by
Lucasfilm Ltd.
THX Ultra requirements cover every aspect of performance including
pre-amplifier and power amplifier performance and operation, and
hundreds of other parameters in both the digital and analog domain.
Movies which have been encoded in Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Pro Logic,
stereo and Mono will all benefit from the THX mode when being viewed.
The THX mode should only be activated when watching movies which
were originally produced for a movie theater environment.
THX need not be activated for music, movies made especially for TV,
or shows such as sports programming, talk shows, etc.
This is because they were originally mixed for a small room
environment.
“Lucasfilm
®
” and “THX
®
” are registered trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd.
Lucasfilm and THX are trademarks or registered trademarks of
Lucasfilm Ltd. ©Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. Surround EX is a jointly
developed technology of THX and Dolby Laboratories, Inc. and is a
trademark of Dolby Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved. Used under
authorization.
The THX Ultra2 specification provides uncompromised 7.1 channel
playback of any multi-channel program, whether movie soundtracks or
music over the widest possible seating area.
There are an additional two processing’s for THX Ultra2 as bellow.
A.S.A. (Advanced Speaker Array)
“ASA is a proprietary THX technology which processes the sound fed
to 2 surround and 2 surround back speakers to provide the optimal
surround sound experience. When you set up your home theater
system using all eight speaker outputs (Left, Center, Right, Surround
Right, Surround Back Right, Surround Back Left, Surround Left and
Subwoofer), placing the two Surround Back speakers close together
facing the front of the room as shown in the diagram will provide the
largest sweet spot. If for practical reasons you have to place the
Surround Back speakers apart, you will need to go to the THX Audio
Set-up screen and choose the setting that most closely corresponds
to the speaker distance, which will re-optimize the surround sound-
field. ASA is used in two new surround modes; THX Ultra2 Cinema
and THX Music Mode.
B.G.C. (Boundary Gain Compensation)
“If your chosen listening room layout (for practical or aesthetic
reasons) results in most of the listeners being close to the rear wall,
the resulting bass level can be sufficiently reinforced by the boundary
that the overall sound quality becomes ‘boomy’. THX Ultra2 receivers
contain the BGC (Boundary Gain Compensation) feature to provide an
improved bass balance. BGC can be selected by choosing ‘THX
Ultra2 Subwoofer-Yes’ from the ‘Boundary Gain Compensation’
section of the ‘THX Audio setup menu’.
THX Surround EX - Dolby Digital Surround EX is a joint development
of Dolby Laboratories and the THX division of Lucasfilm Ltd.
In a movie theater, film soundtracks that have been encoded with
Dolby Digital Surround EX technology are able to reproduce an extra
channel which has been added during the mixing of the program.
This channel, called Surround Back, places sounds behind the
listener in addition to the currently available front left, front center,
front right, surround right, surround left and subwoofer channels.
This additional channel provides the opportunity for more detailed
imaging behind the listener and brings more depth, spacious
ambience and sound localization than ever before.
Movies that were created using the Dolby Digital Surround EX
technology when released into the home consumer market may
exhibit a Dolby Digital Surround EX logo on the packaging.
A list of movies created using this technology can be found on the
Dolby web site at
http ://www.dolby.com.
“SURROUND EX ™” is a trademark of Dolby Laboratories. Used
under authorization.
DTS was introduced in 1994 to provide 5.1 channels of discrete digital
audio into home theater systems.
DTS brings you premium quality discrete multi-channel digital sound
to both movies and music.
DTS is a multi-channel sound system designed to create full range
digital sound reproduction.
The no compromise DTS digital process sets the standard of quality
for cinema sound by delivering an exact copy
of the studio master recordings to neighborhood and home theaters.
Now, every moviegoer can hear the sound exactly as the moviemaker
intended.
DTS can be enjoyed in the home for either movies or music on of
DVD’s, LD’s, and CD’s.
“DTS” and “DTS Digital Surround” are registered trademarks of Digital
Theater Systems, Inc.
The advantages of discrete multichannel systems over matrix are well
known.
But even in homes equipped for discrete multichannel, there remains
a need for high-quality matrix decoding. This is because of the large
library of matrix surround motion pictures available on disc and on
VHS tape; and analog television broadcasts.
The typical matrix decoder of today derives a center channel and a
mono surround channel from two-channel matrix stereo material. It is
better than a simple matrix in that it includes steering logic to improve
separation, but because of its mono, band-limited surround it can be
disappointing to users accustomed to discrete multichannel.
Neo 6 offers several important improvements as follow,
• Neo 6 provides up to six full-band channels of matrix decoding from
stereo matrix material. Users with 6.1 and 5.1 systems will derive
six and five separate channels, respectively, corresponding to the
standard home-theater speaker layouts.
2. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION
