THX's Deep Note

Everybody who isn't a cabin-dwelling techno-bomber is familiar with the usually-unnamed crescendo of noise that appears before THX-certified films. Of course, this means that most films begin with this eargasm of a sound, the perplexingly-titled "Deep Note."

"Deep Note" doesn't really get as loud as it seems - apparently it has something to do with the number of voices involved in the clip, its dissonance as well as the continuously-rising volume which sweetens at the end.

Good luck, though, trying to find a high-quality clip of the twenty second some-odd sound - THX is pretty anal about their copyright and tends to throw their legal muscle around in removing it; Dr. Dre was even sued in 2000 for sampling it, as if THX has anything to lose from the further dissemination of an already-infamous sound. Some YouTube facsimiles exist, but YouTube keeps their audio bitrate low for legal reasons so, as always, you'll be more successful with the parodies and the tributes (including this neat a cappella rendition).

Sigh. . . I'll keep looking, under the hopes that I can find a high-quality mp3 of the file and really give my speakers a test. . .