Recent content by Paul Hurt

Of course, inverse square law only holds true in a free-field eg outdoors. Once you’re running a speaker in a room, the way sound waves are contained / reflected means you don’t get that expected drop in SPL as you increase distance from the speaker. But the thing about reference level is...

Hi again VJ! I think you nailed it. We did touch on Fletcher-Munson in the podcast… mainly in relation to Audyssey. The difference between the equal loudness curves at listening levels of 79dBC and 85dBC is very small, so I don’t think F-M effects are going to affect how movies and home...

FWIW I think I’ve figured out ripping UHD and extracting WAVs. Have never had any need to do it before. Amazing what you can figure out with 10 min on Google. Let me decide if I want to go quite this deep down the rabbit-hole :-) I agree JS - when the object is just to find good volume...

Netflix and everyone tend to use a variation on the broadcast ITU / ATSC / EBU R128 LKFS-target based spec. Thing is, that’s not how movies are mixed… tho it may be how some HE mixes of movies are mixed. But since i believe the aim is try and duplicate the theatrical experience, it makes sense...

yes… same technique people use to rip discs for Zappiti etc. Can it rip Dolby Digital/Atmos tracks to WAV files tho? I guess BEQ folk are doing it somehow, I just haven’t had time to investigate.

I have all the DAW stuff obviously. The issue is not the DAW or plug-ins, the issue is capturing the audio accurately from the disc (or a stream) into a bunch of WAV files. It needs to be done either by ripping the disc and extracting WAVs at least for each base layer channel, or taking it from...

So, just to relate what I’m saying about guessing an average Dialog level, the min dialog SPL in that Judas ATBM chart is 68dBC, and the max is 74 or 75dBC. Average of those is 71dBC, which is what I’ve settled on as a good target dialog level in my room. (That’s because that graph was measured...

Yes, interesting. Think we’re all converging on similar conclusions. Reading those graphs is challenging because obviously you need to indentify what’s dialog and what’s silence. Generally the peaks are Dialog, the valleys are gaps between lines/words.. so I’m taking the value of the highest...

Yep, can be hard to get a “read” on dialog levels if they jump about a lot. Judas ATBM was very much like this too. That’s why I’m measuring with SPL logging in REW. Having that graph makes it easier find both the loudest and the quietest bits of dialog in a speaking scene (ignoring any...

I ought to point out also that Dolby Digital incorporates built-in dynamic range compression algorithms that kick in only if the programme is being played back on a device with limited power and dynamic range, like a soundbar or a TV internal speakers. Played back on a home theater receiver the...

If it’s different, I suspect it’s because most of the streamers work to R128-style LKFS/LUFS audio specs. Judas And The Black Messiah sounded fantastic on Amazon. It needed me to run at +2 (on a 79dB ref system) to get 71dB dialog. But believe me, the loud bits were still LOUD. Note that the...

It has. Plus I’m enjoying movies more. Means I’m not guessing at a volume setting then having keep the remote on hand and ride the volume the whole time. Now I have this methodology, movies are the right volume for me from the start. Despite this, Judas & The Black Messiah got pretty loud...

Great observation, another thing I’ll check out. It keeps getting more interesting, doesn’t it ?

Thanks, interesting, I’ll look at that. It’s very similar to what I’m doing… tho I’m gearing my method towards achieving consistent dialog level… trying to hit a target average level across the whole movie will skew things depending on the distribution of loud segments to quiet segments (which...

Perfect analogy. You can’t uncompress a mix that’s already got too much compression going on in it. Music mixers in particular sometimes don’t realise that they’re using compression as a crutch, and not because the music is better for it. Compressing instruments often makes them easier to...