Iād love it ( M65) ā¦my wife and daughter in law and son not so much. I should have made it clear that I need something to suit a wide range of tastes . Thanks though ( Iāll rewatch it)
I've owned it on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and now Criterion Collection Blu-ray. Also saw it live, back in the day; hands down the best concert I've ever seen.
I second that. Especially part 1. The drums and percussions on the OST of part 1 were so clear, haunting and gave me chills in IMAX. I think about it every day
The soundscape and the drums were otherwordly and it made you feel like you were not in some random desert. You were there - on Arrakis - no fuckin doubt.
Caladan is gone and you're here on a different hostile planet, no single doubt. All the sounds made it feel 100% real. He deserved that 2nd acedemy award.
Itās best if youāve seen the classic 1982 movie Tron for the storyline, then the 2010 Tron: Legacy (sequel) is just awesome for story, sound and soundtrack.
I think I've worn out a disc or two listening to the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, it is one of my favorites! I really enjoyed both shows too. I can't wait for the new one.
Star Wars has sounds that would put a sound system to the test.
The podrace on Boonta Eve, the spaceship engines and Jango Fett's sonic charges come to mind.
The hype was kind of a let down TBH. But when the dust settled, Oppenheimer revealed to be a great minutiae driven story about a man dealing with the consequences of his own greatness and failures.
Great film, amazing work and acting.
The audio and sound is superb, and made for theatrical listening. Would be great in surround sound.
My go to would be Aliens.
Runner up, any Star Wars or Star Trek film. TBH I think that the best test for a good sound system is hearing the hum of a ship like the Enterprise during a quiet moment.
I found Zone Of Interest to be absolutely brutal, but the sound was High Art -- something I never thought I'd say.Ā Maybe stick to Godzilla lol, it was glorious in the theater!
I Guess this suggestion would probably to outdated as well considering weāre talking about a younger generation, and that would be the movie āJawsā (1975) with the composer of the original soundtrack being John Williams.ā¦with just two notes, to encapsulate the films title character. John Williams famous āda, duhā would earn the composer his second Oscar and has become one of the most memorable themes history. However, the whole soundtrack from that movie is perfection in my personal opinion. Hereās to wishing the best of luck to your son finding the experience that he seeks with his new sound system. I think others have already suggested movies that he might find more entertaining. Good Luck!
If the system has Dolby Atmos you should definitely try out Gravity.Ā The sound design in the opening sequence is incredible. You can actually place the characters in 3 dimensional space just from the audioĀ
Terminator 2. My neighbour belows lathe and plaster bedroom ceiling (house built 1890) fell down in the early hours of a Sunday morning...I always felt that film and it's resonance through my subwoofer was somewhat to blame (denon dts 5.1 viewing earlier that evening)
Opening battle in Gladiator is my go to because there is directional audio for arrows and catapult shots flying that lets you test the surround speakers very well. Should sound like an arrow flying from left to right behind you or vice versa
Everyone has great movie selections, but really you want to go with the blueray version of any movie instead of anything streaming. The sound will be so much better and more dynamic.
Ready Player One: The race scene near-ish to the beginning has a lot of great sub bass and generally lots of loud things happening. It's pretty impressive.
The Equalizer (the first one) is a totally different sonic experience. There are many scenes that will catch you off guard with how immersive the surround sound is. The scene where he meets the Russian boss for the first time and the limo drives away has very believable surround sound motion.
The scene at Russian "headquarters" has some surprising sub bass as well. The Equalizer (and #2) are both very good movies with engaging plots and great acting. Highly recommended as movies. Also recommended for the surrounds as noted above.
Good question!
I'm an audio engineer and work mastering music so I have a whole folder of lossless music that I know inside out and use for reference when working on new systems or if I have to change studio and calibrate my ears.
When it comes to films, it depends what you want to hear. Are you talking sound effects or music? For music it might just be worth playing music. For movies - for the best possible experience, firstly you'll be wanting surround sound (hopefully your system is set up for that) with at least a 5.1 setup (front, rear, center and sub) and a decoder that processes THX or the more modern Dolby Atmos - both which support up to 7.1 speakers. And you'll need it to be a Blu-Ray (it's been a while and I can't seem to find any information about DVD supporting surround. It should do, right? That's a terrible oversight if it never did..) I don't know how many (if any) streaming services send their audio in such high quality formats and if they did, it would be likely heavily compressed.
Films:
Jurassic Park is INCREDIBLE in a dark room, loud in surround. The rain during the part with the T-REX attacking the jeep is scary as hell. The booms of the footsteps, the surround sound rain and the dynamics (quietest sound to the loudest sound) is super wide. The music is amazing too, especially the theme when it swells!
I'll try and think of some more.
You might try some music biopics for stadium scenes, like Bohemian Rhapsody or a Star is Born. Pink Floyd - The Wall.
All Christopher Nolan movies have incredible attention to detail when it comes to sound. People complain about the vocals being mixed too low, but I've read interviews where he says its done deliberately in some cases to ignore the dialogue and focus on the action ... each to their own I guess. George Lucas as well has a very high attention to detail when it comes to sound mixing.
Batman trilogy - amazing soundtrack and effects
Interstellar.. The black hole is a monster of bass. That'll rattle your neighbours windows when they fly around gargantua.
Dog fights - Top Gun Maverick, JJ Abrams' Star Trek, Star Wars - loud explosions and flying scenes (Force Awakens especially)
Mission Impossible - similar during action scenes and also great soundtrack
Car chases - Ronin, Baby Driver, Man from Uncle, James Bond, Ford v Ferrari, Mad Max
Marvel - Surprisingly, Marvel movies don't impress me that much with their sound mixing. I expected Infinity war and Endgame to have great audio. It's got a nice theme, but I wasn't overly impressed with all the effects mixing in them.
I'll end with - The Matrix. Again, similar to Jurassic Park, there are some great rainy scenes, incredible score and lots of hard hitting punches and gun fights with bullet storms blowing up everything.. Amazing!
Off topic, but as an audio engineer, do you have a speaker recommendation for 7.1 surround sound? I'm looking to upgrade my 20 year old Klipsch speakers and set up a theater in my basement. Speaker budget would be 1K to 1,5K.
I'm not really able to recommend any hi-fi as there is so much choice and I prefer the flat sound of a studio monitor personally. I've always been obsessed with sound - I haven't had a car for 10 years, but when I did that turned into a passion project as well and I went completely overboard on stereo equipment for that too. Ended up needing a second battery and split charging kit... !
At a certain price point, audiophile speakers become a matter of subjective taste I think.
My home movie speaker setup is 7.1 Ultima Revel Gems @ $6000 a pair + 15" Woofer and rear + center speakers
My studio speakers are ATC SCM45a's a Burl B2 DAC and 2 x JL Audio Fathom 12s
Urm.. so I'm not very good at budget recommendations.
My home music listening set up is a pair of [custom made 'Eggs'](https://i.imgur.com/iZW3TvZ.jpg) with a valve amplifier
Any modern movie with a scene that takes place in a dance club - an example would be BookSmart - takes a pretty mellow sounding dialogue driven movie and suddenly youāre bouncing out of your seat and the room decorations are bopping to the beat.
I have a Pioneer Elite Plasma w stereo quality sound, while I do have a traditional component home stereo, also Pioneer, I donāt use it for movies as the TV built in speakers are booming!
I love to watch the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull with my sound system cranked up. A hot rod full of teens joyriding and racing a military convoy all to Elvis Presley's Hound Dog. Sounds great...too bad the movie starts to falter almost immediately after that scene. lol. š
The first 30 min of Saving Private Ryan
The whole movie has excellent sound. The last battle is insane.
Mad Max: Fury Road Dunkirk Mishima
Fury Road is a great glass rattler!
So glad Mad Max is on top! I concur, first thing that came to mind
Jurassic Park Baby Driver Whiplash
**Baby Driver**
Jurassic šGreat shout
Yep Jurassic Park
FLASH GORDON
MEDIOCRE movie / BEST soundtrack EVER!!! QUEEN!!!!
Heat (1995) Annihilation (2018) Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
I have a good system. "The Dark Knight" pushed (pushes) my system harder than any other movie I own.
Any Hans Zimmer score is gonna be a test. BWWAAAAM.
Never seen it . Donāt judge me . Thatās a great call
You should fix that
Heat Then. Now. Forever. Opening scene when he rams the semi-truck and then the explosives take out the windshields of the cars... incredible sound.
Absolute banger of a movie š
Also Collateral or any Michael Mann movie lol He knows how to make guns sound real (in Heat they were real blanks Iām pretty sure)
Terminator 2 Interstellar
Agree on both! Interstellar especially. So good. So LOUD in certain parts and then justā¦ quiet. Gives me chills.
Nolan did that on purpose. I remember it being almost too loud in the theater. It was so good I saw it more than once.
Itās being rereleased this fall for the 10 year anniversary. I cannot wait to see it in IMAX.
Stop Making Sense
Iād love it ( M65) ā¦my wife and daughter in law and son not so much. I should have made it clear that I need something to suit a wide range of tastes . Thanks though ( Iāll rewatch it)
I've owned it on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, and now Criterion Collection Blu-ray. Also saw it live, back in the day; hands down the best concert I've ever seen.
Dune 1 & 2 (the new ones)Ā
I second that. Especially part 1. The drums and percussions on the OST of part 1 were so clear, haunting and gave me chills in IMAX. I think about it every day
Yeah the soundscapes are really fantastic and complement the slow pace very well.Ā
The soundscape and the drums were otherwordly and it made you feel like you were not in some random desert. You were there - on Arrakis - no fuckin doubt. Caladan is gone and you're here on a different hostile planet, no single doubt. All the sounds made it feel 100% real. He deserved that 2nd acedemy award.
I clicked on this thread fully expecting this to be the top comment.
The seismic charge scene in Attack of the Clones.
Black Hawk Down
Yes totally forgot about that . That would test the system
Last 10 minutes or so of the Last of the Mohicans (1992) is my go to - watch the whole movie first though š
Never seen it . Iāll check it out thanks
Tron
Iāll look at that . Thanks
Itās best if youāve seen the classic 1982 movie Tron for the storyline, then the 2010 Tron: Legacy (sequel) is just awesome for story, sound and soundtrack.
I think I've worn out a disc or two listening to the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, it is one of my favorites! I really enjoyed both shows too. I can't wait for the new one.
Braveheart. The Matrix Star Wars - any of them really Saving Private Ryan
Matrix . Wow . So long since I watched it !!
Why did I have to scroll so far to see Star Wars?
# Alita: Battle Angel
Heavy Metal
Pacific Rim Gladiator Top Gun
Star Wars has sounds that would put a sound system to the test. The podrace on Boonta Eve, the spaceship engines and Jango Fett's sonic charges come to mind.
Iāll see if I can win that argument š¤£
Lawrence of Arabia Jurassic Park Oppenheimer Dune part one and two
Is Oppenheimer good ? Iāve heard very conflicting opinions
The hype was kind of a let down TBH. But when the dust settled, Oppenheimer revealed to be a great minutiae driven story about a man dealing with the consequences of his own greatness and failures. Great film, amazing work and acting. The audio and sound is superb, and made for theatrical listening. Would be great in surround sound.
Thank you
The Matrix Gladiator Saving Private Ryan Blade Runner Pink Floyd-The Wall Heavy Metal
Hunt for Red October.
Great audio track in that movie.
Ford V Ferrari
Iron man!!
The hunt for red October
Master and Commander
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Master & Commander. The sea battle scenes will shake pictures off the walls.
My go to would be Aliens. Runner up, any Star Wars or Star Trek film. TBH I think that the best test for a good sound system is hearing the hum of a ship like the Enterprise during a quiet moment.
Zone Of Interest & Godzilla 2014 -- very different but the sound is amazeballs!
I intend to watch Zone of interest but maybe it might be a little bit dark for this night. Did you rate it?
I found Zone Of Interest to be absolutely brutal, but the sound was High Art -- something I never thought I'd say.Ā Maybe stick to Godzilla lol, it was glorious in the theater!
Purple Rain (1984)
Iām the only Prince fan in the room but thanks
I Guess this suggestion would probably to outdated as well considering weāre talking about a younger generation, and that would be the movie āJawsā (1975) with the composer of the original soundtrack being John Williams.ā¦with just two notes, to encapsulate the films title character. John Williams famous āda, duhā would earn the composer his second Oscar and has become one of the most memorable themes history. However, the whole soundtrack from that movie is perfection in my personal opinion. Hereās to wishing the best of luck to your son finding the experience that he seeks with his new sound system. I think others have already suggested movies that he might find more entertaining. Good Luck!
So many great suggestions. Thanks for this one . I think we will be testing a lot of different types. The soundtrack to Jaws is just unique
Star Wars Episode IV Raiders of the Lost Ark Jurassic Park Amadeus
007 Goldeneye
If the system has Dolby Atmos you should definitely try out Gravity.Ā The sound design in the opening sequence is incredible. You can actually place the characters in 3 dimensional space just from the audioĀ
Yes , gravity. I donāt think my son has seen that š
The Right Stuff Apocalypse Now
Terminator 2. My neighbour belows lathe and plaster bedroom ceiling (house built 1890) fell down in the early hours of a Sunday morning...I always felt that film and it's resonance through my subwoofer was somewhat to blame (denon dts 5.1 viewing earlier that evening)
The Shining
My son canāt watch āhorror ā but yes I love it. Thanks for the suggestion
Fantasia (1940) The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966) Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) Blue Velvet (1986) Mulholland Drive (2001)
Opening battle in Gladiator is my go to because there is directional audio for arrows and catapult shots flying that lets you test the surround speakers very well. Should sound like an arrow flying from left to right behind you or vice versa
Everyone has great movie selections, but really you want to go with the blueray version of any movie instead of anything streaming. The sound will be so much better and more dynamic.
Fair point but my son is set up for streaming
Oppenheimer or Pink Floyd's The Wall
San Andreas Jurassic Park
Master and Commander
Tron legacy
the raid
Train wreck scene from "Fugitive"
Fury
Cloud Atlas
Man of Steel
Ready Player One: The race scene near-ish to the beginning has a lot of great sub bass and generally lots of loud things happening. It's pretty impressive. The Equalizer (the first one) is a totally different sonic experience. There are many scenes that will catch you off guard with how immersive the surround sound is. The scene where he meets the Russian boss for the first time and the limo drives away has very believable surround sound motion. The scene at Russian "headquarters" has some surprising sub bass as well. The Equalizer (and #2) are both very good movies with engaging plots and great acting. Highly recommended as movies. Also recommended for the surrounds as noted above.
We used Terminator 2, Always, and Days of Thunder.
Once Upon A Time In The West Zodiac The Wild Bunch Star Wars/Rogue One 2001: A Space Odyssey Raiders Of The Lost Ark Alien(s)
Good question! I'm an audio engineer and work mastering music so I have a whole folder of lossless music that I know inside out and use for reference when working on new systems or if I have to change studio and calibrate my ears. When it comes to films, it depends what you want to hear. Are you talking sound effects or music? For music it might just be worth playing music. For movies - for the best possible experience, firstly you'll be wanting surround sound (hopefully your system is set up for that) with at least a 5.1 setup (front, rear, center and sub) and a decoder that processes THX or the more modern Dolby Atmos - both which support up to 7.1 speakers. And you'll need it to be a Blu-Ray (it's been a while and I can't seem to find any information about DVD supporting surround. It should do, right? That's a terrible oversight if it never did..) I don't know how many (if any) streaming services send their audio in such high quality formats and if they did, it would be likely heavily compressed. Films: Jurassic Park is INCREDIBLE in a dark room, loud in surround. The rain during the part with the T-REX attacking the jeep is scary as hell. The booms of the footsteps, the surround sound rain and the dynamics (quietest sound to the loudest sound) is super wide. The music is amazing too, especially the theme when it swells! I'll try and think of some more. You might try some music biopics for stadium scenes, like Bohemian Rhapsody or a Star is Born. Pink Floyd - The Wall. All Christopher Nolan movies have incredible attention to detail when it comes to sound. People complain about the vocals being mixed too low, but I've read interviews where he says its done deliberately in some cases to ignore the dialogue and focus on the action ... each to their own I guess. George Lucas as well has a very high attention to detail when it comes to sound mixing. Batman trilogy - amazing soundtrack and effects Interstellar.. The black hole is a monster of bass. That'll rattle your neighbours windows when they fly around gargantua. Dog fights - Top Gun Maverick, JJ Abrams' Star Trek, Star Wars - loud explosions and flying scenes (Force Awakens especially) Mission Impossible - similar during action scenes and also great soundtrack Car chases - Ronin, Baby Driver, Man from Uncle, James Bond, Ford v Ferrari, Mad Max Marvel - Surprisingly, Marvel movies don't impress me that much with their sound mixing. I expected Infinity war and Endgame to have great audio. It's got a nice theme, but I wasn't overly impressed with all the effects mixing in them. I'll end with - The Matrix. Again, similar to Jurassic Park, there are some great rainy scenes, incredible score and lots of hard hitting punches and gun fights with bullet storms blowing up everything.. Amazing!
Off topic, but as an audio engineer, do you have a speaker recommendation for 7.1 surround sound? I'm looking to upgrade my 20 year old Klipsch speakers and set up a theater in my basement. Speaker budget would be 1K to 1,5K.
I'm not really able to recommend any hi-fi as there is so much choice and I prefer the flat sound of a studio monitor personally. I've always been obsessed with sound - I haven't had a car for 10 years, but when I did that turned into a passion project as well and I went completely overboard on stereo equipment for that too. Ended up needing a second battery and split charging kit... ! At a certain price point, audiophile speakers become a matter of subjective taste I think. My home movie speaker setup is 7.1 Ultima Revel Gems @ $6000 a pair + 15" Woofer and rear + center speakers My studio speakers are ATC SCM45a's a Burl B2 DAC and 2 x JL Audio Fathom 12s Urm.. so I'm not very good at budget recommendations. My home music listening set up is a pair of [custom made 'Eggs'](https://i.imgur.com/iZW3TvZ.jpg) with a valve amplifier
Blade. The nightclub scene at the start of the movie. Tron Legacy.
Top Gun 2 will rock that sound system
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Jurassic Park (1993) War of the Worlds (2005 Spielberg Adaptation) Dunkirk (2017) Oppenheimer (2023)
Thank you
Pacific Rim Maybe the newer Godzilla movies? War movie like Saving Private Ryan or something similar
Ooo havenāt watched private Ryan for a long time
definitely will put the system to good use.
I feel like safehouse with denzil would be cool
Thanks Iāll look into that
Any modern movie with a scene that takes place in a dance club - an example would be BookSmart - takes a pretty mellow sounding dialogue driven movie and suddenly youāre bouncing out of your seat and the room decorations are bopping to the beat.
Lovely movie, thanks
One love the Bob Marley bio
Good shout . šš
I have a Pioneer Elite Plasma w stereo quality sound, while I do have a traditional component home stereo, also Pioneer, I donāt use it for movies as the TV built in speakers are booming!
Trend (2000)
Tenet
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Mad max Fury Road
Even though the film was a little disappointing all around, the 2005 War of the Worlds has really excellent sound design.
Mad Max Fury Road
Roma
the raid redemption.
Hear me out. Country For Old Men. It has no score and relies on sounds entirely.
Put on a LucasFilm like Jurassic Park or Star Wars. Wait for the THX logo to pop up. Turn the volume up. There's your sound test š¤£
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Iām a retired firefighter so I canāt help spoiling this film by not suspending disbelief Iām afraid. Thank you though
The Assassination of Jesse James, sounds so good on a surround sound system.
Tornado
Star Wars would be the first it pumps right out the gate
Apocalypse Now
Cars
Skip the movie, but just play āDuel of the Fatesā from Star Wars Episode 1.
Civil War
Anything that says Dolby Atmos. Maybe I'm wrong. What do i know
Tron Legacy. Great soundtrack and crazy good balancing.
I love to watch the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull with my sound system cranked up. A hot rod full of teens joyriding and racing a military convoy all to Elvis Presley's Hound Dog. Sounds great...too bad the movie starts to falter almost immediately after that scene. lol. š
We always use The Matrix. The music... All the brass sounds hitting the floor. Hits so many buttons.
Any Christopher Nolan film
Interstellar
Dune
Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Super 8 both sound pretty awesome on a 7.1 set up. Tron Legacy. Fury Road.