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This is a reprint of a review posted elsewhere, sorry Lex
Tuesday I was invited back to his house for another demo for tonight, but he got sick and I had previous plans. Hopefully we will reschedule very soon because he said we can get into the really fun stuff! Like the first demo wasn't fun enough
We in Utah had the great privilege of meeting Jim Fosgate designer/inventor of the new Dolby ProLogic II. For those of you that may not be familiar with the technology here is a quick description. First of all it is not meant to replace or even compete with Dolby Digital or DTS rather than work with them as another format. It is used mainly for 2-channel stereo and Prologic encoded movies providing 5 full bandwidth channels of sound. The rear two channels are matrixed from the front L/R but are stereo and, as stated above, full bandwidth.
The evening started with a few of us meeting at a local steakhouse in Heber City, Utah with Jim and his wife. Both of them are very friendly and personable. While we were finishing up Jim and his wife left a few minutes early to get everything set up and the tube amplifiers warmed up.
Arriving at his house we went downstairs into the “heart of his domain”. There is practically a museum of older equipment, speakers and memorabilia spread throughout the majority of his basement that he has collected over the years. Just by looking at this we knew that we were in for a treat! Taking a right turn leads towards his laboratory where all of the technical work gets done. Just before entering the lab on the right side is a “closet” packed full from floor to ceiling of spare tubes and electrical parts used in the designing process. Walking down the hall a little further you end up in the lab. It is quite simple, but very organized and one can tell that it is very businesslike. I could tell that countless hours of brainstorming took place here.
Moving on to his sound room: The room itself is very impressive. The size is approx. 15-20” wide by 35-40’ long and is concrete all the way around: floor, walls and the ceiling as well. The main ceiling is hidden from view by a drop ceiling of acoustic tiles, which also hide the bass trap that is up there as well. Plush carpet is on the floor including the walls and entry door. This room is dead quiet! He says that he can play demos at full level and his wife cannot hear anything from upstairs. The speakers are built into the corners of the room and angled towards the center of the room. Imagine a rectangular shaped room with the corners cut out so it almost looks octagonal.
Equipment: Probably the thing that blew me away more than anything else (except the ProLogic II demo) was that is equipment is not top of the line or esoteric by any means. All cd’s were played on his Sony 7000 DVD player. His speakers, while looking and sounding very impressive, were built by himself with parts supplied by MCM and only cost about $150 per speaker! The front 3 speakers have 4ea 10” subs, 2 mids and 1 bullet tweeter. He has less money in his entire 5-speaker setup than I have in my 2 mains!! All speakers are tri-amped by tube amps he built himself as well which means that each channel has a separate amp for the tweeter, mids, and subs. The subs were powered by a 60 watt amp per channel that translates to each driver only receiving 15 watts per channel, but boy could these things rumble the place with nice, deep articulate bass! Rear speakers have 2 subs per speaker bringing the total to 16 for the entire room! BTW, he also has side speakers in the room that are not hooked up.
Also something very interesting was the DPL II processor. He said that it is probably the only analog-tube surround processor that we would ever see. Cool indeed.
Now that I have rambled on long enough I will get to the DPL II demo: This is an awesome way to listen to music. Period. We listened to vinyl records and CD’s recorded in normal PCM sountracks with this new technology and I was astonished. I could swear that the side speakers were on because there was front to back imaging as well as left to right! It sounded very natural without the massive reverb and echo that normally is associated with surround music (DSP’s). Since these were not recorded in surround format it did not sound the same as DTS surround music, rather it sounded like you were in a concert hall or studio where the performance was taking place not in the middle of the band. It’s hard to describe, but the best complement that I can give it is that it was very, very natural sounding.
After the music we moved to some movies. We listened to the Apollo 13 take off scene on DVD and I was speechless. Bass that full and rich and surround sound that sounded like it was 5.1. Really, if I did not know that it was not DPL II I would have thought it was the DTS or DD 5.1 encoding! Moving on to the Matrix was just as thrilling as Apollo 13. Again, bass was very full and natural sounding with the surround sound just as impressive.
Conclusion: Last week the Dolby engineers were at his sound room and gave their final approval and the code for DPL II gets released today 9/1/00 to the manufacturers. Jim said that a few companies will have prototypes or even working models by January CES with production models to follow about 6 months after that. If you have a lot of ProLogic only movies and/or like listening to music in surround sound then this is an upgrade that you will not only want, but also need. Jim is very excited about this and acted like a proud father. He has every right to act this way because I would do just the same if I developed a product that works this well. By the end of the night (about 3 hours of demos) I had to pick up my jaw off of the floor and I think that you will to if the production models sound the same.
Pictures: http://www.homestead.com/richardsons...kylespics.html
Tuesday I was invited back to his house for another demo for tonight, but he got sick and I had previous plans. Hopefully we will reschedule very soon because he said we can get into the really fun stuff! Like the first demo wasn't fun enough
We in Utah had the great privilege of meeting Jim Fosgate designer/inventor of the new Dolby ProLogic II. For those of you that may not be familiar with the technology here is a quick description. First of all it is not meant to replace or even compete with Dolby Digital or DTS rather than work with them as another format. It is used mainly for 2-channel stereo and Prologic encoded movies providing 5 full bandwidth channels of sound. The rear two channels are matrixed from the front L/R but are stereo and, as stated above, full bandwidth.
The evening started with a few of us meeting at a local steakhouse in Heber City, Utah with Jim and his wife. Both of them are very friendly and personable. While we were finishing up Jim and his wife left a few minutes early to get everything set up and the tube amplifiers warmed up.
Arriving at his house we went downstairs into the “heart of his domain”. There is practically a museum of older equipment, speakers and memorabilia spread throughout the majority of his basement that he has collected over the years. Just by looking at this we knew that we were in for a treat! Taking a right turn leads towards his laboratory where all of the technical work gets done. Just before entering the lab on the right side is a “closet” packed full from floor to ceiling of spare tubes and electrical parts used in the designing process. Walking down the hall a little further you end up in the lab. It is quite simple, but very organized and one can tell that it is very businesslike. I could tell that countless hours of brainstorming took place here.
Moving on to his sound room: The room itself is very impressive. The size is approx. 15-20” wide by 35-40’ long and is concrete all the way around: floor, walls and the ceiling as well. The main ceiling is hidden from view by a drop ceiling of acoustic tiles, which also hide the bass trap that is up there as well. Plush carpet is on the floor including the walls and entry door. This room is dead quiet! He says that he can play demos at full level and his wife cannot hear anything from upstairs. The speakers are built into the corners of the room and angled towards the center of the room. Imagine a rectangular shaped room with the corners cut out so it almost looks octagonal.
Equipment: Probably the thing that blew me away more than anything else (except the ProLogic II demo) was that is equipment is not top of the line or esoteric by any means. All cd’s were played on his Sony 7000 DVD player. His speakers, while looking and sounding very impressive, were built by himself with parts supplied by MCM and only cost about $150 per speaker! The front 3 speakers have 4ea 10” subs, 2 mids and 1 bullet tweeter. He has less money in his entire 5-speaker setup than I have in my 2 mains!! All speakers are tri-amped by tube amps he built himself as well which means that each channel has a separate amp for the tweeter, mids, and subs. The subs were powered by a 60 watt amp per channel that translates to each driver only receiving 15 watts per channel, but boy could these things rumble the place with nice, deep articulate bass! Rear speakers have 2 subs per speaker bringing the total to 16 for the entire room! BTW, he also has side speakers in the room that are not hooked up.
Also something very interesting was the DPL II processor. He said that it is probably the only analog-tube surround processor that we would ever see. Cool indeed.
Now that I have rambled on long enough I will get to the DPL II demo: This is an awesome way to listen to music. Period. We listened to vinyl records and CD’s recorded in normal PCM sountracks with this new technology and I was astonished. I could swear that the side speakers were on because there was front to back imaging as well as left to right! It sounded very natural without the massive reverb and echo that normally is associated with surround music (DSP’s). Since these were not recorded in surround format it did not sound the same as DTS surround music, rather it sounded like you were in a concert hall or studio where the performance was taking place not in the middle of the band. It’s hard to describe, but the best complement that I can give it is that it was very, very natural sounding.
After the music we moved to some movies. We listened to the Apollo 13 take off scene on DVD and I was speechless. Bass that full and rich and surround sound that sounded like it was 5.1. Really, if I did not know that it was not DPL II I would have thought it was the DTS or DD 5.1 encoding! Moving on to the Matrix was just as thrilling as Apollo 13. Again, bass was very full and natural sounding with the surround sound just as impressive.
Conclusion: Last week the Dolby engineers were at his sound room and gave their final approval and the code for DPL II gets released today 9/1/00 to the manufacturers. Jim said that a few companies will have prototypes or even working models by January CES with production models to follow about 6 months after that. If you have a lot of ProLogic only movies and/or like listening to music in surround sound then this is an upgrade that you will not only want, but also need. Jim is very excited about this and acted like a proud father. He has every right to act this way because I would do just the same if I developed a product that works this well. By the end of the night (about 3 hours of demos) I had to pick up my jaw off of the floor and I think that you will to if the production models sound the same.
Pictures: http://www.homestead.com/richardsons...kylespics.html
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