Dolby Atmos technology gives moviegoers powerful new listening experience

You could entrance audiophiles with descriptions of its trajectories, mathematical algorithms or EQ curves.

But if you want to get regular moviegoers excited about Dolby Atmos, there’s a real-world anecdote that’s hard to top.

"The first time we played the sound system," Jay Jay Coulter says, "it knocked two of the light fixtures off of our ceiling because it was so powerful."

Coulter, house manager of Brenden Theatres at the Palms, 4321 W. Flamingo Road, says the response from patrons has been overwhelmingly positive. (And, she’s quick to add, nothing else has fallen since the theater was reinforced.)

"We were hoping that it would set us apart," she says of the decision to upgrade to the new format. "That people would recognize that we have something that they can’t get somewhere else."

Locally, that’s certainly the case. The Palms location is one of only 15 theaters in the world showing "Taken 2" in Dolby Atmos.

After an early test with "Brave" in June, the Liam Neeson action tale is just the second movie released in the format. The surf drama "Chasing Mavericks" opens Oct. 26, with additional films scheduled for November and December.

Each movie’s sound must be specially mixed for Atmos. The technology is so new that, with every new release, a Dolby technician must visit each theater to calibrate it.

But while the additional power is noteworthy, that’s not its selling point.

"The biggest change is we can now place sounds over the audience," says Stuart Bowling, senior worldwide technical marketing manager at Dolby Laboratories.

With traditional Dolby 5.1, sound can come from the front as well as either the left or right half of the theater. With Dolby 7.1 – the most recent upgrade, available locally at the Palms, Red Rock and Cannery – speakers along the rear wall are split into two additional zones. But with Dolby Atmos, sound can emanate from each of as many as 64 speakers – including the ones placed for the first time on the ceiling.

"It’s almost kind of like an arms race. We’re making incremental changes," Bowling says of previous upgrades. "With Dolby Atmos, it’s literally redefining what surround sound is."

With 5.1 and 7.1, as long as you sit directly in the center, he says, it "kind of creates this sensation of sound being over you. But as soon as you migrate several feet to either side of what we call that sweet spot," the effect dissipates.

To showcase the Atmos capabilities, Dolby engineers remastered a sequence from "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" in which a helicopter spirals out of control.

"We now bring that helicopter (sound) off the screen," Bowling says. "It goes into the overhead surround, it goes into the side surround, it kind of swirls around and then it goes back into the screen."

In the case of "Taken 2," whether it’s birds chirping in a marketplace, the ringing of a hidden villain’s cellphone or a bullet casing bouncing off a tile floor – sounds that once would have originated from an entire wall of speakers – each noise seems to come from a specific point in the theater. And when water drips during a scene set in a Turkish bath, your first reaction will be to look at the ceiling.

"Now we’re trying to basically take sounds and images off the screen to kind of really present you as a viewer in the middle of the action," Bowling says.

Dolby Atmos has been described as 3-D for your ears. And Coulter says her customers have compared its sounds to what IMAX can do with visuals. Like those two premium formats, Atmos is designed to offer consumers an experience they can’t get at home.

But unlike 3-D and IMAX, Brenden Theatres doesn’t add a surcharge for Atmos.

Another major difference is that Dolby has no plans for Atmos to remain a niche product.

The company’s goal is to have Atmos, which is still in its testing phase, in 1,000 theaters worldwide by the end of 2013.

For now, though, Brenden Theatres is offering local moviegoers a glimpse of the future. And, so far, Coulter says they like what they’re hearing.

"They loved it. They all thought it was amazing," she says of comments overheard from patrons. "They’ve never heard anything like it."

Although the best review may have come from one of her studio contacts.

His description? "An eargasm."

Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567.