User Manual

Multichannel Monitoring Tutorial Booklet (M2TB) rev. 3.5.2

Masataka Nakahara : SONA Corporation

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Preface

As one whose profession is the acoustical design of studios, I place great value on the parting ceremony

of handing over to its new owner my creation (studio) whose playback environment and acoustical

response I have ensured.

In order to actualize these characteristics in a multichannel studio, it is necessary to collect the

fragmentary technical information provided by various standards organizations and manufacturers, and

then to organize and understand this information.

Doing so takes an enormous amount of time, but one of the most valuable things I gained from the

process has been friendships with many superb professionals in the field, including Mr. Steven Martz

from THX.

As the lessons I learned from them began to take root in me, I have been acquiring valuable new strategies

and techniques for studio design.

Initially, I had doubts regarding techniques that seemed at first glance to conflict with a professional

approach, such as bass management and diffused surround, but as I spent time with professionals of

multi-channel audio, I came to see why many top-ranked experts with far more experience than myself

held these opinions and requirements for surround studios. In the process, I gradually obtained a glimpse

of various problems and aspects of surround playback that lie behind such questions.

This publication is a valuable booklet that brings together much valuable information obtained from first-

rate professionals such as Steven from THX. I consider myself to have been a “ghost-writer” for these

experts, and think of them as the real authors of this booklet.

I would like to take this opportunity to extend my thanks to each of them.

In view of these intentions, portions of this booklet dealing with various standards have been written so as

to list the various multichannel formats as broadly, fairly, and accurately as possible.

I beg the indulgence of the reader for allowing me to include material that represents my own opinion as

an acoustic designer.

In my opinion, user experience as a listener is of great value in the production process.

In order for this to be so, a space for hearing multichannel audio in a correct playback environment is a

requirement not only for commercial applications but also for personal applications.

This is a case of “one hearing is better than a hundred views.”

It is my hope that this booklet will be a step toward obtaining the “hundred views” that will give you the

confidence to construct your own multichannel playback environment.

Masataka Nakahara, author

SONA Corporation