Movie Sound, Part 1: Perceptual Differences of Six Listening Environments

The soundtracks of movies are composed and mixed in various listening environments and the final mix is reproduced in cinemas. The variation of electroacoustical properties between the rooms could be significant, and mixes do not translate easily from one location to another. This study aims to elicit the audible differences between six different movie listening environments, which are auralized to an anechoic listening room with 45 loudspeakers. A listening test was performed to determine the attributes that describe the alterations in the sound field between the rooms. Experienced listeners formulated a vocabulary and created an attribute set containing 19 descriptive attributes. The most important attribute was the sense of space when dialogue was evaluated. Moreover timbre and especially brightness were important when music was evaluated. Furthermore, the change of width and clarity of the sound field was considered important.