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Comment by krschultz | Hacker News Reader

As someone who finds just as much interest in sound quality as the lyrics, as critical of the picture as the storyline, I whole-heartedly agree. Most movie theaters are simply horrible. The sound is atrocious (overly loud and muddy is the most common problem) and the pictures have become dimmer and dimmer. Having to travel further to find a good screen just makes movie theaters that much worse. Give me a Blu-ray and my home setup for quality over most movie theaters.

I used to get most movies off of Netflix and then see action movies in the theaters. I thought that I was better off seeing the spectacle on a large screen. But the technical inferiority of the typical movie theater has led me to flip my viewing habits. Now I really only see comedies in the theaters and watch everything else at home.

You still can't replicate a crowded movie theater at a comedy, it makes it far funnier to laugh with other people.

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Oddly enough, your first analogy there nicely explains why I find this issue a big yawn. I cannot in a million years imagine having as much interest in sound quality as in lyrics.

That's not to say I don't like good sound quality. But an awful lot of my listening is to 30-90 year old recordings, many recorded in less than ideal conditions. I listen because the music is brilliant. I can't imagine preferring to listen mediocre musicians because their recording is perfectly engineered and reproduced.

My guess is most of us over 30 have spent most of our lives watching movies in less-than-ideal conditions. Today I don't feel any particular urge to upgrade from DVD. But I'd dearly love to upgrade the writing on most new movies I see...

I used to feel like you did about audio quality (and I don't even care about lyrics, I really am listening for the music itself), but once you get a nice set of speakers and balance them properly (preferably using one of the auto-balancing receivers that use a microphone and test signals), it really does make you appreciate it more. I find myself wanting to listen to music more when I hear on my nice speakers at home as opposed to my crappy-but-comfortable earphones at work.

However, I am listening mostly to music from the last 5-10 years, so there is that.

Music from the last 5-10 years is largely damaged by the loudness war (which is a pity, since there's been a lot of good music in the last ten years!): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Maybe so, but I the point the parent comment was making was that the difference was in recording quality (especially since the parent comment referred to the quality of recordings up to 90 years old).

>Music from the last 5-10 years is largely damaged by the loudness war

It really depends on who you're listening to. For example, this LP and ones like it will reduce you to tears of joy on expensive headphones, and as you can see from the waveform nobody is telling amon tobin how to compress his tunes:

http://soundcloud.com/amon-tobin/amon-tobin-isam/

Especially check out the second track, which starts at around 6:40. Although that is obviously a 128 kbit/s preview stream. Get the CD.

Only if you're listening to Top 40 hacks.

And also the incredibly over-mastered bass in the last 15 years.

I believe it started because people wanted their car stereo to sound like their home CD, so sound engineers started to over-emphasise the bass, to bias it for radio, which led to a vicious circle.

I can't listen to anything post 2000 on my very good home sound system because the bass is so over-emphasised.

I couldn't agree more. The last time I went to the movies, it felt like such a rip off that I vowed never to return. Questions: 1) How long are advertisements anymore? It felt like 15+ minutes. 2) Is there no cell phone etiquette at all?

In Germany I witnessed 30+ minutes of advertisements.

Yeah, we first get commercial adverts, kinda like in TV but usually more elaborate. Then movie trailers. When I still went into the cinema it was common for the movie to "start" at 2000 and then actually start at 2030 to 2045. Which is just one reason why I do not feel bad about pirating movies.

I timed 24 minutes of commercials in Boston.

Yeah it's just as bad in Australia. Having paid for a ticket you don't want to have advertising and a whole heap of previews shoved down your throat. I don't mind parts so much, but needs to be kept to say 2 for about 5 minutes only.

Talking about earphones, good earphones can give quite stunning results. You'd be very surprised.

I have been gradually working from the soft stuff (~ £20 earphones) to the crazy, crazy hard stuff these days (~ £400, Shure SE535's [1]), but the difference is worth it.

[1]:http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/headphones/shure-se535-review-4930...

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