Q-SYS and Cinemas with Balconies

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Core Auditoriums with balconies can provide a significant challenge to the proper design and deployment of a cinema audio system. Generally, a 7.1 cinema auditorium is considered a single seating zone which is covered by multiple audio channels. When a balcony is introduced to an auditorium … Read More

Cinema Sound for Small Rooms (Part 3)

In this third and final installment of our look at small rooms, we’ll focus on Q-SYS and how it can be used for multi-room systems, especially “cinema on demand” rooms in commercial multiplex sites. As before, let’s look at room sizes of about 10m, or 33 ft. in length. We’ll also assume the use of … Read More

Sensitivity Sensationalism

Loudspeaker sensitivity and power ratings have become the primary specifications used to design sound systems in cinema. This practice and these specifications are accepted at face value and not often questioned. They make designing sound systems fairly easy and straightforward. However, they rely on many assumptions and some of them are simply not valid, at least … Read More

The New Networked Normal of Cinema

No one knows exactly what the “new normal” of cinema exhibition will look like. First, let’s get this out of the way: Coronavirus will not kill the global cinema exhibition industry. Changes are for certain, but cinema is here to stay. As has already been said by many industry observers – cinema has survived the … Read More

Cinema Sound for Small Rooms (Part 2)

In Part 1 of our discussion on small rooms, we focused on premium solutions using our Reference Monitor System. In Part 2, we will look at some systems using the economical DCS SC 1120 and SC 1150 screen channels and a variety of amplifier and processor options for small rooms, including private screening rooms, high-end … Read More

Hows and Whys of Baffle Walls

In some ways, sound waves are like light waves. They radiate into space, reflect off objects, and lose energy upon contact with absorptive surfaces, walls, and with distance from their source. Sound waves can be more challenging to control, primarily because we can’t see them.  Low frequencies are especially difficult because their long wavelengths (up … Read More

Cinema Sound for Small Rooms (Part 1)

In addition to our larger audio solutions for mainstream multiplexes, QSC has several options for small rooms. These could be private screening rooms, high-end home cinemas, or even “cinema on demand” rooms in multiplex sites that are rented to small groups. While QSC can support all room sizes, let’s focus on rooms of less than … Read More

Four Myths that Cause Bad Sound

In 1992, Syn-Aud-Con co-founder and audio industry legend Don Davis wrote an article (which later became a book) titled, “If Bad Sound Were Fatal, Audio Would Be the Leading Cause of Death.” While it hasn’t killed me yet, I’ve certainly been hurt more than once in public spaces, where it was evident that proper attention … Read More

Aim to Please

The best speakers in the world are not going to sound great if they are not located in the proper position and aimed correctly at the audience. The goal of a cinema sound system is to provide the best possible sound to a large number of people.  Each seating location should have a similar audio … Read More

An Inside Look at DPA-Q

Discover the power and flexibility of the new DPA-Q amplifier series Q-SYS – our ecosystem for audio, video, and control – combined with our new DPA-Q amps, has become increasingly popular for powering immersive audio systems in Premium Large Format cinemas. In this post, we’ll show you how you can use our new 8-channel DPA-Q … Read More