We recently paid a visit to our partner Pulse Cinemas in the UK. Being equipped with an Altitude32 and a best-in-class Krix speaker system, their showroom now features our WaveForming technology. Although the showroom was already high-performing, WaveForming was still able to further improve many aspects, allowing for better seat-to-seat consistency, more details, greater immersion as well as ultimate flexibility for the integrator. We interviewed Mike Beatty & Simon Gibbs from Pulse and Dave Williams from Global AV Sales inside the showroom.
Please introduce yourselves
I'm Simon Gibbs, and I'm the Head of Sales at Pulse Cinemas. We look after the projects division of Pulse and Invision.
I'm Dave Williams from Global AV Sales, and I look after the International Sales for Krix Residential Loudspeaker systems from Australia.
I'm Mike Beatty. I'm Head of Business for 22 years now.
We believed when we started Pulse Cinemas all those years ago, that we wanted to have a breathtaking facility that our dealers could come along to, bring their clients along to and that would really inspire. So we thought to encourage dealers to really understand what the ultimate in cinema can be like.
Can you tell us about this room?
We're sitting today in the Pulse Cinema x Krix x Trinov demonstration room, which is equipped with the Krix Theatrix loudspeakers across the front with Hyperphonix 45 surround and Atmos speakers. We also have the WaveForming setup with Trinnov, where we're actually running the Cyclonix 18 subwoofers, 4 in the front and 4 in the rear, to exact that beautiful WaveForming tight deep bass. All around it is a pretty impressive room to be honest, after sitting in it a few times.
What challenges did you face in this room?
In our whole cinema demo facility, it was never designed from the start as as a WaveForming room. In fact, Dolby Atmos wasn't even available when this room was designed.
One issue that we've always had is low ceiling. Obviously it affects multiple areas, but with WaveForming and the amount of subs that we would like to have got in the room.
Before WaveForming, we would have dealers/clients in and consciously or not, we're encouraging people to sit at the back to hear the cinema at its best. Now we're very relaxed. People come in and we encourage them to sit wherever they like.
What were your first impressions after optimization?
The first thing I noticed in the room after the upgrade was the bass performance was just off the scale and so controlled! I just always felt like it lacked.
When you moved around the room, there was definitely an issue with hotspots. What was just incredible when I came in was moving from back to front and across to the side walls. There didn't seem to be much of a difference. And wherever I was, the bass performance was off the scale.
The optimization is a big thing for sure. I'd say the biggest thing for me was that the noise floor allowed a lot more detail in the higher end mids to highs, which again, automatically creates a bigger ceiling level, if you like, an artificial ceiling level. You become more immersed, definitely in the movies because of that.
What do you think about Trinnov WaveForming technology?
We're doing some measurements before and after or turned WaveForming off and on. We found, I think it was about a 20db difference, seat-to-seat consistency with WaveForming off versus 2db with WaveForming on, which is just insane. It's all very clean bass, which allows you to hear a lot more detail.
The beauty of it is that with WaveForming, it's not just one solution. There's multiple solutions within that WaveForming process. You can really minimize all those room modes, the null points and the likes. Everything just tightens up. It just takes it all to another level. When you've got big subwoofers like we do, having that processing power just gives you so much more flexibility and I guess makes the room design just a little bit simpler. Placement, of course, becomes a little bit less critical in some ways because we can do so much more with the DSP.
What makes Trinnov different from other brands?
I think it's been an infatuation in our industry that we need to buy a product, and then a couple of years later, we need to dump it and start again. What Trinnov have brought to the market is a product that was wonderful 10 years ago and it's still wonderful now because of the upgradeability. The serial number of the product that we have in our current rack powering this system is serial number 82, which is just an amazing fact when you consider the amount that the company has sold since then. And even more amazing that the product is so much better than it was when we first had it installed here.
With the Trinnov, the number one for me is just the processing power that it offers, the ability to really dial in, really get underneath the skin, just really the level of configuration that you can do is by far the the greatest out of all. For me, that's been the number one element of that, for sure.
From a manufacturer's point of view, when you're creating a loudspeaker, obviously, you want to try and create the most accurate and low distortion loudspeaker that you can. But when it comes to the room itself, there's only so much you can do with room acoustics before you really need to step into that DSP.
Then, when you work with a brand like Trinnov, just the amount of flexibility it gives you, you could do almost anything with your loudspeakers. It's not just time alignment anymore. There's just so much more to it that Trinnov just takes it to that next level, again, where you really can almost perfect a room.