What Hi-Fi went round the industry again this year and asked engineers at the manufacturers which scenes they actually reach for when benchmarking kit. Worth reading, but read it with one eye open.
Harman's consumer audio side put forward the Impossible Race from Ready Player One, Shallow from A Star Is Born, and the Gladiator track off Hans Zimmer and Friends. All three are showcase material. The Ready Player One pick has one genuinely useful detail buried in it though, the token coins pinging off into the distance behind the wall of noise, because that is a resolution test rather than a loudness test. The rest of it is a system flattering itself.
Sonos went with the juke joint sequence in Sinners at 55:50 and the social worker scene in Joker at 40:05. The Joker one I would defend hardest. Centre channel timbre on dialogue is the single hardest thing to get right and the easiest to fake with a bit of presence lift, and that scene tells you inside thirty seconds whether your centre is boomy or shouty. But the same engineer mentions having worked with one of the re-recording mixers on Sinners during earlier tuning sessions. Honest of him to say so, and it still means a scene you tuned against is not a neutral yardstick.
My own list runs the other way. I want clips that make systems fall apart, not sing. Sustained low content that exposes port chuffing, a crowded mix that collapses the moment the amp runs out of current, a quiet room tone that reveals a hissing sub amp.
What is the scene that has actually caught out a piece of kit in your room?
Harman's consumer audio side put forward the Impossible Race from Ready Player One, Shallow from A Star Is Born, and the Gladiator track off Hans Zimmer and Friends. All three are showcase material. The Ready Player One pick has one genuinely useful detail buried in it though, the token coins pinging off into the distance behind the wall of noise, because that is a resolution test rather than a loudness test. The rest of it is a system flattering itself.
Sonos went with the juke joint sequence in Sinners at 55:50 and the social worker scene in Joker at 40:05. The Joker one I would defend hardest. Centre channel timbre on dialogue is the single hardest thing to get right and the easiest to fake with a bit of presence lift, and that scene tells you inside thirty seconds whether your centre is boomy or shouty. But the same engineer mentions having worked with one of the re-recording mixers on Sinners during earlier tuning sessions. Honest of him to say so, and it still means a scene you tuned against is not a neutral yardstick.
My own list runs the other way. I want clips that make systems fall apart, not sing. Sustained low content that exposes port chuffing, a crowded mix that collapses the moment the amp runs out of current, a quiet room tone that reveals a hissing sub amp.
What is the scene that has actually caught out a piece of kit in your room?
