Cinema’s non-neutral spectral target forces engineers to compensate and varies across venues

Evidence

The result is that the spectral balance target of cinema sound is different from that which is the expectation in the rest of the audio industry, consumer and professional. It is not neutral, requiring spectral compensation by the recording engineers to arrive at a natural timbral balance. A serious added complication is that the system calibration method, using room curves, yields sound quality that varies among venues. It has been argued that despite these concerns the system has functioned better than if there had been no standards, which is likely true. However, science and technology moved on long ago, and industry standards have not changed. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 357

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the circle of confusion concept from Figure 1.8 and Chapter 1 of this book.