JBL Control 1 summertime project surround array and more!

[JBL 4645]

Hears what I have been up to these past weeks.

It all started well I guess since my first trip to the Empire Leicester Square cinema 17 years ago, the site sound and presentation exceed my expectations to a new level, the cinema was billed as the best and one of the largest THX screens in the United Kingdom between 1989 and 1998.

Employing a fully 100% JBL sound system consisting of

JBL five-screen 4675-A x20 15” mid bass drivers

JBL five-screen 2360-A HF horns

JBL x8 4645 sub bass units

JBL x22 surrounds

JBL x15 6290 amplifies

Dolby CP-200

Dolby SR/A

THX 3417 crossover/monitor

Laser show was also included in the presentation that show cased the cinema as an Event, and it was clearly that, with sound that went beyond most home cinemas at that time and further.

After seeing the movie event of the year Indiana Jones and Last Crusade presented in six-track Dolby Stereo with split-surrounds and Lucasfilm THX sound system, every single low end sound was felt along with pin point directivity, from the front row to the sweet spot in the auditorium without a single loss in quality.

The amount of bitching I have heard over the years is rather incredible, those who keep claming there home cinema is better than the cinema, well a professional THX sound system cinema is a hard act to knock, and most home cinema owners are running miss matched loudspeakers placed at the front, not to mention poor placement.

Surrounds in the Empire play a huge and paramount role in the presentation; they really do reach the listener eras with clarity, so far the experiment, this project as met my expectations and is far from being complete, but for the meantime its doing wonders!

The total JBL complement at the moment is as follows

JBL Control 5’s x5 three-screen presently active, this September I will increase this to five-screen.

JBL Control 1’s x8 two on each sidewall at the present moment, with a further two to installed, taken the total to four per sidewall.

The centre back surround is comprised of four JBL control 1’s two of these are used for the centre back surround, note: the picture that I have placed hare, note the bottom part of the diagram shows the back half of the split-surrounds. The middle one shows which ones are running the centre back surrounds.

All the formatting for these channels is done manually; this only takes me a few seconds to perform.

JBL MR centre x1 upper centre channel this works by taking the central phantom signal from the mains left and right, this can only be achieved via using the RCA pre-outputs and sending them to a separate Dolby Pro-Logic from the Dolby Digital decoder, its all in the mix friends and it works!

JBL 4645 x1 Sub Bass Professional THX approved this as to be the highlight of the home cinema, but I’m sure the JBL control 1’s will be focused on more these next few weeks.

JBL HT-1F x1 inactive at the moment, awaiting final placement for this wonderful JBL loudspeaker!