Comparison of two Atmos theaters in Denver area: Marvel's Avengers (Age of Ultron)

The first theater I went to was the AMC Flatirons 14 theater in Broomfield (near Denver), who presented the film in ETX. They pride themselves on having recliners to sit in, and they are quite nice, but they are also in front of a wall.

The recliners are in front of a wall.  Remember that - I will come back to it later.

Flatirons 14

The film was shown in 3D, which is a hassle for me because I wear glasses. I can get around that by wedging the earpiece between my dreads so they don't keep slipping down.

There was no Atmos trailer, and subsequent conversations with colleagues led me to believe that the film was a 7.1 upmix.  I was seated halfway between the screen and the rear of the theater (#14). I didn't hear any thing much from the side or rear loudspeakers, and I suspect that is mostly because each row of seats has a low wall behind it, and each recliner is below that wall.  So, if you don't want to learn a little about sound diffraction and barrier walls, I don't blame you, but know this: walls tend to block sound. It don't take an Einstein.  As my colleague Fred Johnson said, cinemas care about getting butts in (very comfy) seats and recliners do that better than sound.  Sigh!

But there is another theater near Denver: the Regal Continental, which presented the movie in RPX (also in 3D). You can read a thread comparing RPX and ETX, but all I cared about was that it had Atmos.

These guys care about the whole experience. Check out the dramatic entrance!

I met up with Fred's surround sound class. The place was amazingly huge. So, 2/3 of the way back could have been one of 20 seats. I used the sound from the pre-show "First Look" to detect the amount of energy coming from the rear speakers. Because my previous viewing didn't reveal anything, I was more interested in the rear and side channels.  Before the movie began, I counted 8 speakers on the left, 8 right, 8 rear, and 16 in the ceiling (40 total!) Later, we were informed that there are 78 screen channels, (including 5 arrays, 5 mids, and 8 subs.)

A big theater with lots of speakers

Here are some of my notes from the movie (minor spoilers):

• Reclining is nice but the sound is better when I'm sitting forward a bit.
• The Atmos trailer ("geodesic"?) was cool, felt good about my positioning when I heard it
• When Bruce Banner is listening to opera, heard soprano from top speakers
• Front channels are smeared for me - no localization, probably sitting too far back
• Immersion is really good
• When Hawkeye's kids run in, sound is offscreen right, possible a little towards back - hard to localize and that might have been the intention
• Thor's flight into the sky uses top channels
• Glass shattering is always heard in the rear channels - not overdone, just predictable
• When Ultron rises above the city at the end of the movie, mostly top channels are used with some sides and front - textbook "voice of God" technique, lol
• Destruction of meteor in all channels
• Overall, nice and loud without distortion.

After the movie, we got a tour from Fred's contact at the theater. He tld us the brand of speakers were SOS and Klipsch (about $50,000 worth of speakers). They use a Doremi (pronounced do-re-mi) server with PCM uncompressed audio. I had to leave before the end of the tour so I will report back with the info I get from Fred.

Conclusion: If you are in Denver and want to see a movie in Atmos, go to the Regal on Hampden and Monaco. It's very kick ass, from the time you walk in with the neon lighting. This place cares about audio - and the seats aren't bad either, they're like "rockers". Just as comfy. I need to go again and see if sitting closer gives me more sense of what those 78 front speakers are doing!