[Written by Sungyoung]
Probably the first thing I have always wanted was to visit a Dolby Theater and experience the ATMOS mix in a movie theater. I had been looking for an opportunity in the U.S., but unfortunately, I wasn’t successful in finding one.
However, today I had the chance to watch the movie “Little Mermaid” at the Dolby Theatre in Samsung-dong COEX Megabox. Since I was already familiar with the music and story, I thought I could fully focus on the sound and immersive mix created by Dolby ATMOS.
Originally, my intention was to watch “Guardians of the Galaxy Part 3” in the Dolby Theatre, but I missed the opportunity. Nonetheless, “Little Mermaid” turned out to be a decent choice.
To keep it brief, I have a couple of observations:
- The volume was too loud – I’m not sure if Megabox measures the overall loudness of each movie or not. I couldn’t determine if it was an issue with the system’s loudness or the specific content, but it was uncomfortably loud. (Or perhaps it was just my personal sensitivity?) I felt that there was an excessive use of high-volume sound, which could potentially lead to temporary threshold shift (TTS, see the article for specific info of TTS sound generation). You could easily experience a temporary loss of hearing after watching two movies with such loud soundtracks.
- The sound positioning was too high – The spatial placement of sound effects seemed to be predominantly coming from the ceiling. There was an overuse of the height channels, and a lack of balance or integration between the ear-level and height channels.
Overall, despite these observations, it was still a valuable experience to witness the Dolby ATMOS technology in action. I hope that theaters can find a better balance in sound levels and optimize the use of height channels to create a more immersive and enjoyable audio experience. Or, I should check the ATMOS quality more so that I can better compare its quality with other movies at different locations.