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2. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION AND SERVICE HINTS
THX
®
is an exclusive set of standards and
technologies established by the world-renowned
film production company, Lucasfilm Ltd. THX
resulted from George Lucas’ desire to reproduce
the movie soundtrack as faithfully as possible both
in the movie theater and in the home theater.
THX engineers developed patented technologies
to accurately translate the sound from a movie
theater environment into the home, correcting the
tonal and spatial errors that occur.
When the THX mode of the SR9600 is on, three
distinct THX technologies are automatically
added:
Re-Equalization-restores the correct tonal balance
for watching a movie in a home environment.
These sounds are otherwise mixed to be brighter
for a large movie theater. Re-EQ compensates for
this and prevents the soundtracks from being
overly bright and harsh when played in a home
theater.
Timbre Matching-filters the information going to
the surround speakers so they more closely match
the tonal characteristics of the sound coming from
the front speakers.
This ensures seamless panning between the front and
surround speakers.
Adaptive Decorrelation-slightly changes one
surround channel’s time and phase relationship
with respect to the other surround channel.
This expands the listening position and creates
with only two surround speakers the same
spacious surround experience as in a movie
theater with multiple surround speakers.
The Marantz SR9600 was required to pass a
rigorous series of quality and performance tests, in
addition to incorporating the technologies
explained above, in order to be THX Ultra certified
by Lucasfilm Ltd.
THX Ultra requirements cover every aspect of
performance including pre-amplifier and power
amplifier performance and operation, and
hundreds of other parameters in both the digital
and analog domain.
Movies which have been encoded in Dolby Digital,
DTS, Dolby Pro Logic, stereo and Mono will all
benefit from the THX mode when being viewed.
The THX mode should only be activated when
watching movies which were originally produced
for a movie theater environment.
THX need not be activated for music, movies made
especially for TV, or shows such as sports
programming, talk shows, etc.
This is because they were originally mixed for a
small room environment.
THX and Ultra 2 are trademarks or registered
trademarks of THX Ltd. Surround EX is a jointly
developed technology of THX and Dolby
Laboratories, Inc. and is a trademark of Dolby
Laboratories, Inc. Used under authorization. All
rights reserved.
The THX Ultra2 specification provides
uncompromised 7.1 channel playback of any multi-
channel program, whether movie soundtracks or
music over the widest possible seating area.
There are an additional two processing’s for THX
Ultra2 as bellow.
A.S.A. (Advanced Speaker Array)
“ASA” is a proprietary THX technology which
processes the sound fed to 2 surround and 2
surround back speakers to provide the optimal
surround sound experience. When you set up your
home theater system using all eight speaker
outputs (Left, Center, Right, Surround Right,
Surround Back Right, Surround Back Left,
Surround Left and Subwoofer), placing the two
Surround Back speakers close together facing the
front of the room as shown in the diagram will
provide the largest sweet spot. If for practical
reasons you have to place the Surround Back
speakers apart, you will need to go to the THX
Audio Set-up screen and choose the setting that
most closely corresponds to the speaker distance,
which will re-optimize the surround sound-field.
ASA is used in two new surround modes; THX
Ultra2 Cinema, THX Music Mode and THX Games
mode.
B.G.C. (Boundary Gain Compensation)
If your chosen listening room layout (for practical or
aesthetic reasons) results in most of the listeners
being close to the rear wall, the resulting bass level
can be sufficiently reinforced by the boundary that
the overall sound quality becomes “boomy”. THX
Ultra2 receivers contain the BGC (Boundary Gain
Compensation) feature to provide an improved
bass balance. BGC can be selected by choosing
“THX Ultra2 Subwoofer-Yes” from the “Boundary
Gain Compensation” section of the “THX Audio
setup menu”.
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