Things that go boom.

[audiomagnate]

At CES 2011 I experienced a real revelation during a demo in the Harman truck. They were playing a fairly quiet scene from "Open Range" on their Synthesis HT system. The mains looked like K2s or something similar. There was a pistol shot that came out of nowhere that made everyone in the room who wasn't ready for it jump. To me, it sounded EXACTLY like a real gunshot, something I'd never heard before from a speaker system. I sought out the Harman room in the Venitian and have been hooked on big JBL's ever since. I know gunshots aren't exactly musical reference material, but if a speaker can't do a gunshot properly, how can it get any any impulse noise right?

Five years later I'm watching "The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared" (Sweden's highest grossing movie ever) on my big JBL's and my 2245 IB fireplace sub, and if you like to listen to things that go boom on your big JBL's you'll get a kick out of this one. It's also a very entertaining movie in its own right, which is something I can't say about the explosion laden films that come out of Hollywood.

[martin2395]

Harman likes to use those 'jumpscare' demo's, they should at least warn people about the volume level. :(

[hjames]

Watching a TV show last night (Elementary perhaps? - or Limitless?)
Anyway, suddenly, there was a knock at the door -
Emma looks around, startled - I smiled -
back up and replay the last 60 seconds of the TIVO and there it was again -
from the right side surround UREI 809 ...
(4 of them in the room - for front mains and side surrounds)

We've had a couple of occurrences where we are wrapped in a good story and an unexpected sound pulls us past the 4th wall ...

[hsosdrum]

Watching a TV show last night (Elementary perhaps? - or Limitless?)
Anyway, suddenly, there was a knock at the door -
Emma looks around, startled - I smiled -
back up and replay the last 60 seconds of the TIVO and there it was again -
from the right side surround UREI 809 ...
(4 of them in the room - for front mains and side surrounds)

We've had a couple of occurrences where we are wrapped in a good story and an unexpected sound pulls us past the 4th wall ...

Good sound mixers work hard so that does not happen. An immersive surround-sound environment helps draw a viewer into the experience they're watching; when a single unexpected sound forces them to turn their head, they've been taken out of that immersive experience and placed right back in their living room or the theater audience—the place they've just committed a couple of hours (and in the case of the theater, a bunch of money) to get away from.

I'm guessing that the soundtrack of that show was mixed to be heard on a sound bar operating in a quasi-surround mode, or a similar system that doesn't do anywhere near as good a job of realistically rendering sounds in 3 dimensions as yours does.

[bubbleboy76]

I have checked my phone a couple of times, then realising the whole world has the same ringtones... :)

[audiomagnate]

Watching a TV show last night (Elementary perhaps? - or Limitless?)
Anyway, suddenly, there was a knock at the door -
Emma looks around, startled - I smiled -
back up and replay the last 60 seconds of the TIVO and there it was again -
from the right side surround UREI 809 ...
(4 of them in the room - for front mains and side surrounds)

We've had a couple of occurrences where we are wrapped in a good story and an unexpected sound pulls us past the 4th wall ...

I find it funny that no matter how good the knock or the doorbell is, it never fools my big ol' mutt. Now my ex's goofy little pomeranian, he falls for it every time.