CINERAMA IS BACK

[LICORNE]

Yes i'ts back in Seatle Washington ,LA,England.



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<font color="#FFFFFF" size="1">[ October 26, 2007 11:33 AM: Message edited by: CONVERGENCE ]</font>

[stpower]

One of my favorite pictures is in an old Hilliard paper. It shows a behind screen shot of 5 Altec A-2 systems with a double multicell horn on each channel. The whole array is on scaffolding and a man is standing near it the show the immense scale of the system. Very impressive! The Cinerama theatres should have just updated these speakers and added subwoofers, probably the sound quality would exceed the smaller replacements currently used. That's progress!

stpower

[LICORNE]

Yes I've seen that picture.I also went to two showings, one in Montreal in the 60's and one in Boston in the 50's. The sound was Impressive.
The Imperial Cinema in MTL was restored With only two 35 mm projectors equiped eventually to receive the new Cinemecanica platter cinerama projectors. You need a bigger screen than the one in England to install those huge Altecs.300 seats is not enough 700 seats would be Ideal.But what
I'm trying to convey is this. If the A10 was accepted by Lucas Why Altec Pro did not grab the opportunity. I know several projectionist who only accept ALTEC as the best speaker for CINEMAS.

[Don McR]

The problem was that the THX A10 (not to be confused with the 60's A10) was too little, too late for Altec. By the time that Altec introduced such THX systems, they had already lost that market to their competitors.

When THX was first developed in the early 80's, Altec was still firmly focused on the VOTT as the heart of their cinema product line. They saw no need to change since they dominated cinema sales. In contrast, JBL was a very small competitor in the cinema market at that time with systems that were largely copies of Altec's VOTT. Since they had little to lose, they had no problem developing a new system that was a clean break from the VOTT model. That system was the 4675 that consisted of a CD horn in conjunction with a twin 15" direct radiator bass bin.

That system was demonstrated at the 1981 AES which was attended by both the head of the Motion Picture Acadamy and Thomlinson Holman of Lucas Arts. The demonstration was so positively received that Holman contacted JBL to supply this system to what would become the basis of the THX standard. At the same time, the Academy contracted JBL to supply this system as a replacement for their Altec VOTT's in one of the most pretigious cinema installations in the world, the Academy Theatre. Both of these coups drastically raised JBL's profile in the cinema market.

However, this was still not enough to dethrone Altec's ruling position. That would be a result of circumstance. Initially, Altec did not realize the significance of these new developments and did little to couneract them with competing products. More significantly, Altec was in the thoes of bankruptcy and reorganization. In 1984, the THX standard took off with a flood of cinema orders. At this exact time, Altec was in the process of closing their Anaheim plant and moving production to Oklahoma City. For a period of months, they were unable to ship any cinema loudspeakers at all. As a result, Altec ceded their half century domination of the cinema market to a competitor almost overnight. Altec later tried to re-establish themselves with such products as the A10X, but as I said at the top, it was too little too late. This was the beginning of the end that would see Altec Professional brand closed and sold off in the next decade.

[LICORNE]

One major contributing factor was the demise of the single 70mm screen cinema in around 1988.
WE lost 2 in Montreal . Both were equiped with ALTEC VOTT .We are talking 1200 seats.
The baby boomers are complaining about the JBL sound being to loud. I understand that sound effects were verry popular with star wars. But with musicals like Moulin Rouge I and manny viewers noticed that the old VOTT were better to
handle such sound track . Loud is beautifull when it's clear.

Regards

[LICORNE]

According to the 1993 catalogue the A10 mr945a
is 5db short from the JBL 4575c which has 100 db at 1 watt one meter.The ALTEC 3154 measures 95DB
wich makes a differnce in dynamic range. There is still hope for this niche market after all.

I'M optimistic for ALTEC .

[stpower]

I agree, probably the demise of large single screen theatres had a lot to do with VOT's demise.
This baby boomer had the fortune of living in the LA area in the 60's and 70's. I saw first run films in Hollywood on a regular basis. The VOT systems in these large theatres had an overall sound quality (especially the midrange) that seemed more natural and real sounding than the THX I hear now. Yes, the bandwidth of THX is superior, but the acoustics of the living room sized multiplex doesn't compare. Explosions from 7 other theatres can be heard bleeding thru the walls. I usually end up with a headache from these unnaturally loud Foley sound effects coming from these systems.

stpower

[MikeInNH]

I'm amazed that it was the THX certification that dethroned Altec. Based on Cinema's here in the Boston area there MIGHT be 10 (total) THX certified cinemas. Out of maybe 5 thousand. Maybe the new theatre's were buying the speakers, but not getting the cinema certified. But I know most of the big chains could care less about THX certification.

[LICORNE]

According to the history time line. The A 10 was
certified in 1989. What happened after that is
a mystery to me.THe specs looked good. Maybe the product was not commercialized properly.There are several woofers in the 3000 series one which has the 100 db 1 watt one meter. The horn driver exceeds it to 112 db except for frequency range 13k max. I remember seeing it in the THX accepted list of cinema speakers in 2001.
The following year it was removed.????
Your right most cinemas have the product and are not
certified.

Regards
Bert

[RacerXtreme]

What a wealth of information................

Thanks.