2015. What's your "go-to" blu-ray to show off your surround sound system?

Not exactly sure where this thread should go but I'll try it here. What blu-ray title do you use to show off your home theater surround sound system. ​

 

Any particular aspect? Video? Surround? Bass?


Bass/Surround
U-571 (depth charge scene)
War of the Worlds (Pod emerges)
House of Flying Daggers (Drum Dance)
The Haunting (Bedroom and footsteps)

Avatar: Video & Ambiance (opening scene coming out of hibernation and where Jake is introduced to the Living Forrest)


....there are many. Good lists at AVS (One of the few things they are good for)

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/150-blu-ray-software/1190265-new-audio-tier-thread.html
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/150-blu-ray-software/858316-new-pq-tier-thread-blu-ray-discussion.html

 

Before I ditched my surround setup I liked to use the opening of Watchmen or the government lobby scene in The Matrix.

 

The explosions in Munich are mind blowing.

 

One of my favorites.

 

Yellow Submarine

 

I'm a big fan of the motorcycle vs. truck chase scene in Terminator 2.

 

This is a great sounding CD too. Even for showing of on a cheap boom box.

 

I'll let you know...still deciding...decisions, decisions.

 

The opening scenes of Valkyrie are great. Low level dialogue for a bit and them BOOM the tank starts firing at the plane. Never fails to make people jump!

 

Gravity

Star Trek (2009) or Into Darkness


I have a feeling that Interstellar will be taking the #1 spot when it drops in a couple weeks.

 

I like how Terminator Salvation sounds. I like Star Trek (2009) and Into Darkness also.

 

Ratatouille - the lightning strike scene and the shotgun blasts
The Incredibles - several scenes but my favorite is when a couple missiles are launched at a plane Elastigirl is flying.
Iron Man 1 and 2 have several great scenes, in particular in 2 when Stark and Rhodes have a "fight" at his birthday party.
Lord of the Rings - the Balrog scene
Tron: Legacy - the lightcycle scene is great audio and video

i'll 2nd the opening of Valkyrie

lots of others

 

I use to use the motorcycle and truck scene from T2, the Jurrasic Park T-Rex, True Lies scene when Jamie Leee Curtis drops her machine gun down the stairs and Apocalypse Now ride of the Vallkyrie scene back when I had laserdisc. When DVD came out I started to use Saving Private Ryan normandy beach on a DTS disc and The Matrix lobby scene. These days I use Avatar 3d into the jungle scenes and Flight movie crash scene and sometimes scenes from Gravity 3d. I am going to buy Das Boot one of these days now that had a great soundtrack with sound all around you with popping metal and rivets etc.

 

The Last Waltz

 

Twister. D-Day in Saving Private Ryan. Quadrophenia (album). Star Trek TOS. Aqualung.

 

The beginning of LOTR Two Towers
There's a lot of swirling sound, words in the wind, as the camera moves toward the mountain and then explodes as you get to the gandalf fight inside.

 

Forgot to mention one. First introduced to this one at THE Show Newport Beach in the Seaton Sound room.

The Art of Flight
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Bull-Art-...=1426185350&sr=1-3&keywords=the+art+of+flight



Was so impressed I bought it and took it home. Not nearly the same, and I thought I had pretty good bass. This is a test of output more than extension. If your ears (or those whom you are trying to impress) can take this with a bit of volume (and you like Electronic music), truly truly impressive.

 

Some of mine:
Mono:
Jaws
Star Wars
Matrixed surround:
Apocalypse Now-1991 WS LD
Raiders of the Lost Ark-WS LD
Temple of Doom-WS LD
Batman-WS LD
Batman Forever-WS LD, better overall than the discrete. Not joking.
T2 extended LD
DD 5.1:
Mission Impossible ac3-rf LD
T2 original DVD, as the 5.1 track is the original CDS mix
DTS:
The Shadow DTS LD

Otherwise many BDs feature higer-res versions of the original discrete mixes. Of course a modern title will be far advanced beyond what could be achieved in earlier times, so a good mix will not compare to something more modern. Many of the superhero BD's such as the X-Men series have great lossless audio tracks, or Pixar material. But for pure sound demonstration they lack that magic of the older stuff, especially when you go back far enough to have the original dialogue panning etc. I hate how some films lose certain things like this in their sound or how previously great mixes get reduced in dynamic range or effect over time.

The 5.1 bump for matrixed audio should not change anything but with the added dynamic range compression it sucks a lot of the punch out. Then original mixing can be undone because it either is too hard for crummy TV (or gasp-phone speakers) speakers to reproduce or it is viewed as a "mistake". This is why we lose all the old dialogue panning and score panning across channels, or dramatic effects such as the big score reveals in the opening titles for both Superman and Batman. (The former goes mono to full stereo, while the latter has the hugely dramatic increase in volume with the title appearance. Both gone in 5.1.) However the remixing was doen on Batman, it made the sound tinny on an already mediocre at times audio track. The LD's PCM matrix goes a long way in fixing this, and even the Blu's lossless rendering doesn't quite match up IMO.

What I secretly hope for on new releases is someone simply reproducing original mixes in all their glory...perhaps one day there could be a 70mm playback option for titles released in that format.

 

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos 1-6 / Abbado, Orchestra Mozart [Blu-ray]
Bach,J.s. / Abbado / Carmignola / Orchestra Mozart
Release Date: 10/28/2008
Label:EuroartsCatalog #: 205673

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=206861