Well, I was yesterday invited (thanks to a friend at animalspinkfloydmagazine.com) to the 5.1 premiere of Animals in Warner’s HQ in Madrid. Warner is has restored a long unused railway station in Madrid (Principe Pio) and stablished there their main offices plus recording booths, a disco, a concert hall and listening rooms.
The audience was a small set of people, some of them invited by Warner, some others by most likely the only decent rock radio station in Spain (RockFM).
We were all warmly greeted and invited to enter the foyer where cold beer was waiting for us. After a short chat, we came into the listening room, who was said to be a state-of-the-art space by Warner guys. One the one hand it was, with a nice 11.2.6 setup. The two subwoofers were impressive, fronts were mid-sized and all the rest of the speakers were kind of small satellites (I couldn’t tell the brand). I was looking for room treatment (could see none, apart from the noise proof door) and there were window glass planes in one of the largest walls. This kept me wondering about the acoustics, but more on that later.
Views from the room were impressive and could not be more fitting, as you could see the active part of the station -industrial design-.
There were no proper seating places, but some tall tables with snacks. I placed myself where I thought the sweet spot was going to be and after some more chat from Warner and RockFM people and taking a first look at the Animals boxset, the playback began.
After tenths of listens at home, I was very curious to hear something being played in surround in what should be a demo room. I’ve never heard any recorded music in surround (apart from some few live gigs and the excellent last room of the Pink Floyd exhibition) out of home, so I don’t have a reference about how good or bad my system is.
Open minded, Pigs on the Wing started and it was quite loud. Knowing the crescendo that comes shortly after in Dogs, I prepared my ears for the extra boost of tinnitus I have today. This is where the nasty surprise came, as the system didn’t appear to have been properly calibrated. The fronts were dominating the rears and drums drowning down most of the synths in the rears. Only in the more quiet sections you could clearly distinguish the two rears. Moving yourself backwards helped though. The treble was boosted like hell, and vocals and cymbals sounded quite bad. The bass, on the other hand, was excellent, and the moments when the subwoofer kicks in during P3TO and Sheep were chest shattering. I’m never able to play the music that loud at home and while I appreciated the wonderful bass, the way the highs sounded spoiled a little bit the experience.
I was to shy to say anything about the sound quality to the Warner guys and didn’t want to sound pedantic either, so I kept my mouth shut. It left me wondering how people on the top of the game who should have access to the best equipment and technicians don’t have a perfectly calibrated demo room. Either that or I cannot trust my ears, who knows.
After a bit more of chat (Warner, RockFM and attendees could not have been nicer), I headed back home. I tried to get some hints from Warner guys about what’s to come, but I got just poker faces when I mentioned Steven Wilson mixing first David’s record, Dark Side in Atmos and The Wall in 5.1. Not a response, just a plain poker face. They only confirmed that something big is being prepared for the Dark Side anniversary in March next year and they only let slip that they plan to do some projection in the railway station façade.
A very nice evening and a heartfelt thanks to the people that invited me. Next listening session should be Dark Side of the Moon, or so they said.
Some pics attached were you can see the room (and the speakers) plus the railway station views from the demo room windows. If you play the video attached here:
Así nos los pasamos en la escucha de la reedición del 'Animals' de Pink Floyd, you will be able to see me (the tall, bald guy in while T-shirt). Enjoy!
