Matterhorn

Specified, installed and calibrated as part of the room

Talk to us about your cinema The three models

Matterhorn is the cinema loudspeaker range from Audio Dynamics. We supply, install and calibrate it in India — it is what we specify when a room’s targets call for it.

Our work is the room: acoustic design, channel layout, screen and seating geometry, installation and calibration. Three models cover a complete cinema, and which of them a room needs is decided by its dimensions, its seating rows and its screen — not by a price list. What follows is what each model is for and where it goes.

  • Audio Dynamics Matterhorn 12 front channel loudspeaker
  • Audio Dynamics Matterhorn 12 cinema loudspeaker
  • Audio Dynamics Matterhorn 12 loudspeaker cabinet

Matterhorn 12

Front left, centre and right

In the rooms we build, the 12 goes behind the screen as a matched set of three. It is a sealed two-way coaxial, and the twelve-inch woofer is the reason we reach for it in a large room: reference level is defined at the seat rather than at the loudspeaker, so every metre you move the back row away, and every square metre of screen you put in front of the driver, has to be paid for in output. A front channel that measures well and then compresses on the loudest scene has failed the only test that matters.

Specifying it is a room decision. We work out the array from the screen width, the throw to the last row and the acoustic loss through the screen material, then verify the result at handover rather than assuming it. Where the room is small enough that the 12 would be over-specified, we use the 8 across the front instead and say so.

  • Type 2-way coaxial, sealed, passive crossover
  • Drivers 12-inch woofer, coaxially mounted two-way
  • Frequency response 79 Hz – 20 kHz, ±3 dB (in baffle wall, subwoofers below 80 Hz)
  • Sensitivity 97 dB (2.83 V at 1 m, half-space)
  • Max continuous SPL 125 dB at 1 m
  • Power handling 300 W AES, 600 W programme
  • Impedance 8 Ω nominal, 6.6 Ω minimum
  • Coverage 80° conical, symmetrical
  • Crossover 1.8 kHz internal (LR4, 24 dB/octave); 80 Hz to the Matterhorn 18S
  • Cabinet 18 mm MDF, 36 mm front baffle, heavily braced
  • Dimensions 711 × 525 × 228 mm (W × H × D)
  • Weight 18 kg
  • Installation Baffle wall, behind an acoustically transparent screen
  • RP-22 target 85 dB reference average, 105 dB peak headroom
  • Audio Dynamics Matterhorn 8 surround loudspeaker
  • Audio Dynamics Matterhorn 8 cinema loudspeaker

Matterhorn 8

Surround and surround back — or the front array in a smaller room

The 8 does two jobs, and which one it is doing changes how many you need. As a surround it carries a lower average level than the screen channels but the same demand for clean peaks, because effects steer through the surround field and any compression there is heard as the image collapsing toward the front. As a front channel in a compact dedicated room it takes over from the 12 entirely.

Count and angle come out of the room. Side positions sit between ±90° and ±110° from the primary seat and rears between ±135° and ±150°, but a room with three rows and a wide seating field needs more of them than those angles alone suggest — the point is even coverage across every seat, not a diagram. We set the count when we lay out the seating, not after.

  • Role Surround and surround back, or front LCR in smaller rooms
  • Driver 8-inch
  • RP-22 target 82 dB reference average, 102 dB peak headroom (surround)
  • Placement Sides at ±90° to ±110°, rears at ±135° to ±150°
  • Enclosure Sealed
  • Crossover 80 Hz to the Matterhorn 18S
  • Audio Dynamics Matterhorn 18S cinema subwoofer
  • Audio Dynamics Matterhorn 18S subwoofer cabinet

Matterhorn 18S

Subwoofer — LFE and bass management

The 18S carries the LFE channel and the bass-managed content from every other channel, which is more work than the name suggests: cross the system over at 80 Hz and the subwoofers are reproducing the bottom of the screen channels and the surrounds as well as the effects track. It is the part of a cinema system that most often falls short of its target, and the part a client notices first when it does not.

All three models are sealed designs, and on the subwoofer that decision earns its keep. A ported box stops loading the cone below its tuning frequency — which is the region an LFE track leans on hardest — and the port itself compresses and makes noise of its own at reference level. A sealed cabinet keeps the driver loaded all the way down and rolls off gently enough that the room’s own gain rises to meet it. What it gives up in efficiency down low is bought back with an eighteen-inch driver and a pair of them.

We specify a minimum of two per room, and the reason is the room rather than the loudspeaker. A single subwoofer excites the room’s modes from one position, so seat-to-seat bass response varies far more than any measurement at the primary seat reveals. Two or more, positioned deliberately and time-aligned during calibration, average those modes out — which is what makes the back row sound like the middle of the room.

  • Role LFE channel and bass-managed content from all channels
  • Driver 18-inch
  • RP-22 target 95 dB reference at the listening position, 115 dB peak headroom at 20 Hz
  • Enclosure Sealed
  • Recommended Minimum of two per room for reference performance
  • Crossover 80 Hz from the screen channels and surrounds

How a Matterhorn system gets specified

The models above are the easy part. What decides whether a room performs is the work around them, and that is what we do.

The room first

Dimensions, seating rows, screen type and the throw to the back row set the channel count and the models before anything is ordered. A specification written from a table rather than a room is a guess.

Placement and treatment

Screen channel height and angle, surround positions across the seating field, subwoofer positions chosen against the room’s modes, and the acoustic treatment that makes those positions work.

Measured at handover

Level, response and time alignment are measured at the seats when the room is finished, and the result is a number you can hold us to rather than an opinion.

Talk to us about your cinema

Tell us about the room and we will come back with a channel layout, the models that suit it and a current price. Rough dimensions are fine at this stage.

Prefer to talk? Call +91 99167 28013 or message us on WhatsApp.

Design it to a standard you can hear

Send us your room — dimensions, seating and screen — and we will come back with a channel layout and the Matterhorn models that suit it.

Talk to us about your cinema WhatsApp us +91 99167 28013
Call WhatsApp Enquire