Why Does Cinema Sound Quality Mostly Fail to Realize Its Potential?

In late 2014, SMPTE issued a substantial report titled “Frequency and Temporal Analysis of Cinema Sound Systems,” which has become an important milestone for SMPTE’s review of the B-Chain systems. Presented in the report are detailed measurements of the time- and frequency-domain performances of the multichannel sound systems in four commercial cinemas and two dubbing stages as well as a detailed commentary about the process and results. This paper examines some of the interesting results and trends in those measurements, which point to reasons why cinema sound is currently far from ideal.