The American Fotoplayer | Hacker News Reader

The American Fotoplayer

silentcinemasociety.org

26 pointsdaverol10 comments

There are some sounds that it seems speakers can't still faithfully reproduce.

Gunshots are one - the sound difference between a real gunshot and a high end sound system replaying a gunshot is huge.

Likewise, the sound of an old nokia ringtone (make by a piezoelectric speaker) can't be replicated by a modern speaker really. If you have thee two side by side, you can always tell which is which.

I wonder if a modern Fotoplayer could make use of that to make a market for itself?

Forget 5.1 or Atmos. Your home theater needs Harman & Kardon "gun + ringtone" cabinet.

Is it that these sounds cannot be faithfully reproduced or that people don't want them faithfully reproduced?

For the gunshot example specifically, my intuition is that it should be possible to fool someone into thinking a gun was fired if the signal chain from capture to speaker is designed with this goal in mind.

Basically the opposite of a movie where viewers want to be able to comfortably hear dialogue and gunshots.

I believe they cannot be.

Gunpowder has about 3000 joules of energy per gram. A shotgun cartridge might be 30 grams. A decent chunk of that energy ends up as the audible shockwave. That shockwave comes out of the muzzle in about 1 millisecond.

Therefore, a speaker system would be needing an instantaneous output power of 90 megawatts to replicate it. 90 megawatts is a small powerstation if you wanted that much energy continuously. Typical large home speaker systems might go up to say 100 watts - or 900,000 times less power than needed.

(this analysis glosses over lots of details, but I believe the conclusion to remain the same even if you take those details into account).

Yeah, but the sound energy usually dissipates by the point it arrives at your ear. Unless you shoot a gun right next to your head, which is probably not what you want to replicate.

They could be reproduced, but it would be expensive and impractical for most environments.

Actually I think recording the sounds with a good dynamic range is probably the harder problem, but I'm pretty sure with some post production that would be possible as well.

Can you still tell the difference between the real ringtone and the modern speaker system if you hard pan it to a single speaker? It's monophonic, with a simple timbre, and is fairly high pitched, all of which contribute to making interference between speakers easily noticeable when played on a stereo (or other multi-speaker) system.

Multi-speaker sound systems are inherently flawed because the different path lengths from speaker to ear cause constructive/destructive interference at different frequencies. Most of the time you don't notice it, but for some sounds it's obvious. Try listening to mono pink noise played on stereo speakers, and move your head from side to side. The effect is strongest close to the speakers and in an acoustically dry room. Compare to the same noise played on a single speaker.

As for the gunshot, it's probably just lack of volume, and I consider that a good thing. I don't want my sound system to cause hearing damage.

In today's world of consumer 3D printers, recreating this is getting easier and easier.

Sure - it would be a 6 month passion project. But you'd get it done a lot quicker than the original designers took to make the thing out of carved wood.

So cool! I love all the bells and whistles.

At some point in my life, I’d love to witness someone playing one of those enormous Wurlitzer theatre organs that need basically entire buildings to house them.

There are a few around and they sound awesome in person. I've seen two different ones, one at a local (well local to where I lived 10 years ago) community theatre, which had some big name organists give a concert. One at a private residence because the owner was member of a music club i'm in (mbsi.org, but there are others).

The later I was allowed inside while it was playing, an experience to not forget.

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