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By contrast, most multichannel music is mixed with a single pair of surround
speakers aimed directly at the listener from behind. Many music mixers
deliberately place particular instruments or musicians in these locations, and
want you to feel as though you are “in the middle of the band.” Thus, a diffuse,
non-localizable soundfield is not what you might like for the most accurate
reproduction of the musical producer’s intent.
THX Ultra 2 solves this apparent dilemma by the innovative use of a special
surround array that can provide either highly diffuse surround sound (for
movies) or highly localizable surround sound (for music), without having to
reposition any loudspeakers. The Advanced Speaker Array™ places a pair
of surround speakers to the sides of the listener, and another pair directly
behind the listener (and as close to each other as practical). Through the use of
sophisticated digital signal processing (DSP), this array can create the audible
illusion of either many speakers surrounding you on all sides, or only a single
pair of speakers behind you and spread apart as you might normally expect.
THX Ultra 2 Music Mode By using the technology in ASA (described above), the THX Ultra 2 Music
mode optimizes the performance of the speakers in the system for multichannel
music – whether found on a concert video DVD, a DVD-Audio disc, or a
multichannel SACD disc.
When in THX Ultra 2 Music mode, ASA creates the illusion of a single pair of
surround speakers located at ±30° from directly behind the primary listening
position. This simulates the most common configuration found in multichannel
music recording studios, and provides the best-possible recreation of the
experience the music producer had when mixing the recording.
There are other changes as well (for example, the Re-Equalization circuit is not
employed, since the music was not mixed with large movie theaters in mind)
– but the bottom line is that the THX Ultra 2 Music mode does a terrific
job of optimizing the performance of your system for multichannel music
reproduction, with the touch of a button.
THX Ultra 2 Cinema Mode As you might expect, the THX Ultra 2 Cinema mode does a similarly terrific job
of optimizing the system for accurate reproduction of movie soundtracks.
When in THX Ultra 2 Cinema mode, ASA creates a diffuse soundfield that
emulates the much larger array of surround speakers found in a state of the art
commercial theater. Of course, Re-EQ, Adaptive Decorrelation, and Timbre-
Matching are all employed to compensate for the differences between an
excellent commercial theater and your room at home. Once again, a single
selection can fully optimize your system for a significantly different task:
reproducing movies as they were intended to be experienced.