Need to improve home theater dialog

[dshreter]

It’s a very easy test to try your system with the center channel disabled (2.1). Center channel doesn’t do anything magical to improve intelligibility as much as anchoring the sound to the visual center. If dialogue is still hard to understand in stereo, it points to the issue being with the room - your L & R are placed just fine.

From the photo, I see concrete floors and sparse furniture. I’m guessing the room is overly reflective and that’s your issue. This significantly hampers intelligibility just like a conversation at a loud party. It makes sense to do this little bit of diagnosis before buying another speaker.

 

[phrwn]

From the photo, I see concrete floors and sparse furniture. I’m guessing the room is overly reflective and that’s your issue. This significantly hampers intelligibility just like a conversation at a loud party. It makes sense to do this little bit of diagnosis before buying another speaker.

I strongly suspect this is a big issue with this room too. Concrete floors, large windows, big spaces, hard surfaces everywhere. Moving to a somewhat more conventional place in a few weeks so it’ll be interesting to see how setting up from scratch (Audessy-wise) changes things.

 

[voodooless]

Good that you solved it for you.

I wouldn't call enabling Dynamic Volume really solving the problem.

@phrwn, you said your normal volume is 50-60. Do you mean -60 to -50? If so, that is very low. Then it would not surprise me that the dialog is hard to follow. In that case, Dynamic Volume may be used.

 

[phrwn]

I wouldn't call enabling Dynamic Volume really solving the problem.

Probably not the optimal solution, but it didn’t sound good, now it’s sounds fine, it didn’t cost anything, so I’ll take it.

 

[phrwn]

I wouldn't call enabling Dynamic Volume really solving the problem.

@phrwn, you said your normal volume is 50-60. Do you mean -60 to -50? If so, that is very low. Then it would not surprise me that the dialog is hard to follow. In that case, Dynamic Volume may be used.

No I had it set on the 1-100 mode, so that's a percentage if it scales linearly.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

I wouldn't call enabling Dynamic Volume really solving the problem.

@phrwn, you said your normal volume is 50-60. Do you mean -60 to -50? If so, that is very low. Then it would not surprise me that the dialog is hard to follow. In that case, Dynamic Volume may be used.

It solves it for the OP according to his post. (Doesn’t matter what the two of us think or would do - OPs decision ultimately after our input).

 

[Rednaxela]

Would like to understand why it worked though.

 

[voodooless]

Would like to understand why it worked though.

Probably because the listening level was very low to begin with. Dynamic range compression will raise the dialog level vs the music and effects, effectively making the dialog louder in relation.

 

[Rednaxela]

Right I see thanks.

 

[tehas]

Trying to get more intelligible dialog is a dangerous path for your wallet: it can lead to buying new front speakers, new center channels, new TVs, new subwoofers, room treatment, and new sources. Ask me how i know

in all seriousness, one thing to check is whether the avr is actually receiving a center channel input. I experienced something similar - poor dialog, from an htpc to a denon avr x3500, driving 2 KEF LS50s (no real center). Hitting the info button on the remote showed only FL and FR were lit up on a supposed 5.1 channel stream, so there was no center channel info to mix into the left and right. Couldn't figure out why, but eventually, updating windows and messing around in the sound panel seemed to fix it - the denon started reporting that it was indeed receiving 6 channels of input, and dialog was clearer. No idea why it got messed up in the first place.

 

[phrwn]

Trying to get more intelligible dialog is a dangerous path for your wallet: it can lead to buying new front speakers, new center channels, new TVs, new subwoofers, room treatment, and new sources. Ask me how i know

in all seriousness, one thing to check is whether the avr is actually receiving a center channel input. I experienced something similar - poor dialog, from an htpc to a denon avr x3500, driving 2 KEF LS50s (no real center). Hitting the info button on the remote showed only FL and FR were lit up on a supposed 5.1 channel stream, so there was no center channel info to mix into the left and right. Couldn't figure out why, but eventually, updating windows and messing around in the sound panel seemed to fix it - the denon started reporting that it was indeed receiving 6 channels of input, and dialog was clearer. No idea why it got messed up in the first place.

Yes I did check this and do see the center channel getting a signal when it should be. The display reliably says Stereo when it isn't sending anything to the center.

As for the money, oh I know. Having already spent quite enough on this system it was a bit annoying to still be having this issue, but it looks like I've resolved it adequately, if not ideally, for now with a simple setting change on the AVR.