At first I thought it might just be me, but online and in person, I’m hearing more and more people talk or joke about how crazy loud movie theater speakers are getting. Lots of people (including myself) are resorting to wearing ear plugs just to watch a movie without getting ear pain. Meanwhile, I almost never see anyone complaining about *not* being able to hear a movie in the theater.
Is there a secret wave of people who can’t hear theater speakers that I’m just missing? Or is something else going on?
In: Technology
I thought I was just getting old. But I always have to pack earplugs to go to the movies.
I don’t understand how people just subject themselves to extreme noise without complaint. Maybe people are just deaf from all the earbud use in the past decade?
Theaters need to be bigger, louder, and just “more” of everything every year. Bigger screens, louder booms, bigger seats, you name it. Like it or not, theaters are steadily moving from “common everyday entertainment” to “a big night out.” Adding more speakers with more punch is an easy way to add to the experience. Seems silly to an old fogey like me, but that’s where we’ve been heading for awhile now. I suppose it helps justify the $100 price tag to take a family to the movies.
As far as I’m aware, movie theaters don’t have that many volume steps. From my reading at the time (maybe specific to Dolby) they have a scale of 10 or 11. And the default level is 7.
Ehat often happens is that a movie comes in and isn’t quite mixed properly. So they have to increase the sound level to say a 9. And then the next movies comes around and they don’t always put it back. Which results in way too loud a movie.
The truth is most big theaters don’t really care. The Dolby near me is almost always too loud and the projectors have been calibrated properly once in the past 2 years.
If you complain they eventually send someone to fix it. But it’s not very long until something happens to screw it.
Hadn’t been to a movie theater in years, but went to go see Oppenheimer in IMAX 70mm.
I didn’t realize the bigger picture also came with deafening sound.
They’ve always been loud, you’re probably just getting old.
I was never bothered by “loud” until my mid-late 20’s.
For sure, movies are louder. It’s part of the ✨experience✨
On a technical front, movies are supposed to be delivered to theaters with instructions on how to set the sound levels, and these don’t always get changed or updated between different films.
The number of bodies in a theater also dampen noise, so if a theater hosts a new blockbuster movie on Saturday night, then turns the room over the next day to a quiet indie drama without resetting, you can end up with a non-optimal audio experience.
There is a maximum decibel limit allowed in theaters (it varies by state regulations) that is around 100dB. You can load a decibel meter app on your smart phone. If you think a movie is too loud, and verify it on your phone, you can always show it to a theater worker and ask them to turn it down. My dad does this all the time.
Personally, I find going to the theater to be a waste of everything these days. Somebody is always talking, or a phone is lit, or are making noise with a bag of candy, or it’s too damn loud, or too cold, or whatever. They tell you all the seats are booked but no one is there. Ticket prices don’t reflect the value of what comfort I could totally achieve streaming at home, in just a few weeks. Going to the movies is no longer worth it to me.
It has always been unbelievably unbearably loud. The first time I ever went to a movie theatre when I was about eight years old I remember them lighting up behind the screen to show off their gigantic 10ish foot tall bass speaker before sending out a massive boom with it. It damn near blew up my eardrums and ever since then I’ve always brought earplugs with me to the theater. I have particularly sensitive years and as I’ve gotten older I found out my friends have begun to care as well, so it seems to be a sensitive ear/age thing.
Wait, this is new? People have been making comments like this for my entire life.
I went to go see the last John Wick with my wife in IMAX, and holy shit it was painfully loud. I dunno if I’m just getting old either but it seemed to be way over the top.
She was out grabbing popcorn and thankfully came in right after he punched that pole in the beginning otherwise she would have thrown our snacks all over everyone nearby hahahaha. I jumped out of my seat.
It’s because you can more easily attenuate the volume for yourself with earplugs, than you can increase it. So a higher volume is inclusive to a larger percentage of the population.
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