Can't hear dialogue

33661 Views 18 Replies 10 Participants Last post by vidiot33, Dec 12, 2013

jeffconn

Discussion Starter · Dec 18, 2011

I am having a hard time hearing spoken dialogue with my new system unless I have the volume turned really high. Is there a setting I can adjust besides just turning up my center channel?

I use a Yamaha RX-V667 with Energy Take Classic 5.1

Any suggestions appreciated!

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tonyvdb

· #2 · Dec 18, 2011

In the receivers speaker setup menu there should be a level adjustment for the centre channel.
Be aware that the Yamaha will only output about 50watts per channel all channels driven so if your in a large space your possibly driving the system into distortion at loud levels. You may want to turn down the other channels instead of boosting the centre channel.

Kal Rubinson

· #3 · Dec 18, 2011

jeffconn said:
I am having a hard time hearing spoken dialogue with my new system unless I have the volume turned really high. Is there a setting I can adjust besides just turning up my center channel?

I use a Yamaha RX-V667 with Energy Take Classic 5.1

Any suggestions appreciated!

Sent from my iPhone using HTShack

This is a common problem that is usually due to poor center speaker placement and/or room acoustics. Can you describe your setup more specifically?

jeffconn

Discussion Starter · #4 · Dec 18, 2011

Kal Rubinson said:
This is a common problem that is usually due to poor center speaker placement and/or room acoustics. Can you describe your setup more specifically?

My room is 19 x 14 with my front placement being on the 19 foot wall. Speaker placement is: front L&R wall mounted 12 feet apart. Center is mounted below TV. Center is mounted exactly in line with front of TV. L&R are about 6 inches behind. Main listening position is 17 feet back. Rear surrounds are wall mounted at 12 feet apart. All wall mounted are at 7.5 feet high and are mounted away from walls to allow room for the rear port. Sub is mounted right hand corner of room.

Only adjustment I have made after the automatic YPAO settings was to increase sub level from the -9 it set it at, I went to -4 on the level.

Isn't the dynamic range setting supposed to help with dialogue? When I adjust it there seems to be little difference.

Watched Inception last night and was almost unintelligible voice dialogue unless I really kicked up the volume.

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Kal Rubinson

· #5 · Dec 18, 2011

If the center is significantly lower than the main speaker and/or your ear level, try angling it up to your ear position. What about furnishings? If the center is a lot closer to the floor, you could be getting cancellations from floor reflection or absorbtion from a carpet.

GranteedEV

· #6 · Dec 19, 2011

jeffconn said:
Isn't the dynamic range setting supposed to help with dialogue? When I adjust it there seems to be little difference.

Watched Inception last night and was almost unintelligible voice dialogue unless I really kicked up the volume.

It boils down to what the dynamic range setting does. There's two versions of these.

One is a dynamic EQ. It will alter the actual sound at low SPLs so that the tonality more closely mimics "lifelike" tonality. Movies are mixed with the intent of being listened to loud, but turning the volume up in most home theaters will lead to issues with ability to accurately reproduce, from the speakers, amplifier, and room, the dynamic range. It also means that if a very loud, LOUD sequence is used, at lifelike SPLs will in fact be very, very LOUD. In a movie theater this is impactful, but at home sometimes we don't want the loudest of the loud. Inception is a very dynamic film. It wants to be played loud(hence why speech is difficult to decipher at lower SPLs), and yet most rooms and equipment don't want to play it loud.

The other version of a dynamic range setting is a "Night Mode". What this is supposed to do, is "squash" dynamic range. You still have to turn the volume up, but you'll find the "loudest of the loud" isn't that much louder than the speech.

Now I agree with Kal that the room impacts speech intelligibility, but it is my opinion that if speakers are decent in their off axis behavior, a more lively room's negative impact rises as SPL goes up, but rises as they go down. The vice versa would be true for a more HT oriented room designed to increase direct to reverberant ratio.

And that's a big thing too. Movies are mixed for a high direct-to-reverberant ratio - treated theater rooms with controlled direcitivity speakers. Living rooms with typical speakers have a much higher reverberant-to-direct ratio. So by treating your room, you should be able to withstand the "high SPL dynamic onslaught" of a film like Inception, while speech doesn't seem to loud at high volumes.

There's a lot of factors at play and no there's no single solution. It's a long process and there's things you can do that may have a positive or negative impact... depending on how you perceive it. But the film itself is meant to be played a lot louder than we're accustomed to. Blu Rays in particular seem to have infinite dynamic range! :hsd: :hsd:

As an aside, just as an experiment, try disconnecting your center channel speaker and listening to a film with a phantom center. It's possible that may make things much more clear and natural sounding.

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Jungle Jack

· #7 · Dec 21, 2011

Hello,
That is a pretty large Room. Especially when using a 5.1 Speaker Package from a box, they often preform poorly in large Rooms. While the Energy's are a quality product, I think it might not be able of achieving anything near Reference Level.
Cheers,
JJ

jeffconn

Discussion Starter · #8 · Dec 21, 2011

Jungle Jack said:
Hello,
That is a pretty large Room. Especially when using a 5.1 Speaker Package from a box, they often preform poorly in large Rooms. While the Energy's are a quality product, I think it might not be able of achieving anything near Reference Level.
Cheers,
JJ

I was starting to think the speakers might be too small for the room. Since my new receiver supports 7.2 I was thinking of using the Energy's for the front presence and rear surrounds. Can you recommend something under $500 total that would work for front and surrounds?

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tonyvdb

· #9 · Dec 21, 2011

Just re quoting my early post,

tonyvdb said:
Be aware that the Yamaha will only output about 50watts per channel all channels driven so if your in a large space your possibly driving the system into distortion at loud levels. You may want to turn down the other channels instead of boosting the centre channel.

Adding more speakers is only going to make this issue worse as the Yamaha just cant drive the speakers to near reference in a room your size.

Jungle Jack

· #10 · Dec 21, 2011

Hello,
Though I initially missed it, I am per usual, in full agreement with Tony. Something like Klipschs would be the best call as they play really loud with little power thanks to being Horn Loaded. Newegg often has them On Sale for awesome prices. I will try to see what is out there.
Cheers,
JJ

hornman

· #11 · Dec 22, 2011

Have you checked to see if the center channel is out of phase? This could cause cancelation between the front L+R and the center and make dialog hard to decipher.

tonyvdb

· #12 · Dec 22, 2011

hornman said:
Have you checked to see if the center channel is out of phase? This could cause cancelation between the front L+R and the center and make dialog hard to decipher.

Thats a good point, check to see that you have the + and - hooked up correctly on your front L C R speakers.

jeffconn

Discussion Starter · #13 · Dec 22, 2011

hornman said:
Have you checked to see if the center channel is out of phase? This could cause cancelation between the front L+R and the center and make dialog hard to decipher.

The Yamaha has an auto setup with a microphone that is supposed to tell me one of the speakers is out of phase... So I don't think it is that.

I am getting that maybe my new receiver might be somewhat to blame for some of this. When I got this one I was waffling over a Denon 1712. I still have the opportunity to send the Yamaha back and get the Denon. What do y'all think?

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tonyvdb

· #14 · Dec 22, 2011

The Denon 1712 is not likely to improve your situation as its power ratings are no better. Thats the big issue with going with a receiver/speakers thats underpowered for given room size.
You would be better off going with a refurbished unit from Accessories for less. You will get far more receiver for your money. This Onkyo 609 would do you much better as its rated for 100watts per channel but whats more important is it was bench tested to do 85+watts per channel all channels driven. Thats fantastic for a sub $500 receiver.

WooferHound

· #15 · Dec 24, 2011

You could possibly increase the treble
or turn the subwoofer down
to clear it up a bit

parsley

· #16 · Dec 26, 2011 (Edited)

jeffconn said:
I am having a hard time hearing spoken dialogue with my new system unless I have the volume turned really high. Is there a setting I can adjust besides just turning up my center channel?

I use a Yamaha RX-V667 with Energy Take Classic 5.1 ...

tonyvdb said:
In the receivers speaker setup menu there should be a level adjustment for the centre channel. ..

I used to use a Yamah AX861 and an awful centre speaker. I had a similar problem. Turning up the centre channel helped in the amp menu, but for me additionally voices still sounded boxy (for want of a better word).

The three improvements for me were
* Getting better front and centre speakers : AE Radiance 1 in my case. Pretty low - mid end I guess by the standards here? Were about $750 equivalent in total as factory 2nds from their shop on Ebay. Tiny imperfections in the veneer.
* Getting an amp with better room correction. (Fitting in with one of the other posts on page 1). The old YPAO in the 861 messed with the stereo image and didn't solve bass problems well. I've got an Anthem mrx-300 now which has tidied things up. I checked it using REW. Not perfect in measurement of overall bass response, but much better.
* Putting the speakers in places that fitted my compromises (off the floor) but measured better using REW (about 12" away from wall on small TV arms)

Results: So far I've not needed to change any settings about speaker levels etc. on any of the movies I've watched : I've not had problems hearing dialogue. Really enjoying the quality of music reproduction too (as well as the music itself). Things sound punchy and clean. My sub doesn't go very low, so I can't comment on how that changes things, but this is a lot better already.

My room was particularly bad for resonance I think as it's small and because of the speaker placement. I don't play stuff loud (typically below -30 on the amp). Hope this helps, though maybe your symptoms are for different reasons.

Some things to try:
* If your room is mostly hard surfaces, that can make the sound unclear. So the more soft furnishings the better, up to a point anyway.
* If you've got flexibility to move the speakers around, that might help. Can you turn YPAO off and play a movie with a good dialogue track (and nothing else going on at the same time) and get someone to move the speaker around while you listen (or vice-versa)? Does one place sound better than another? Even better if you can put the time in to learning how to use REW, but it might not be worth it. If speech in the centre speaker always sounds bad you might want to try a different brand / model at least for it. That was the 1st problem with my system.
* Once the centre speaker is in the best place, try running YPAO if you've not used it yet, and then turning up the dialog channel.
Hope this helps.

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Jungle Jack

· #17 · Dec 26, 2011

Hello,
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced you need to replace both the AVR and especially the Speakers. The most cost effective thing to do would be to purchase Klipsch Horn Loaded Speakers. Thanks to their insane efficiency, they will output super high SPL's with a pittance of amplifier power. Again, Newegg often has some fantastic deals on Klipschs and they really would do a great job of filling your room with sound.

Some are not particularly fond of Horns for Music Listening, but I do not find them to be that bad. I definitely recommend auditioning before purchasing them. However, without question, it is the most cost effective solution.
Cheers,
JJ

asere

· #18 · Jan 22, 2012

Audyssey multieq and dynamiceq will let you hear the dialog much better at lower volume. Receivers that have Audyssey are Denon, Onkyo, Marantz, and Integra.

vidiot33

· #19 · Dec 12, 2013

Hi: I wonder if you'd be open to an unconventional center channel option. Since horizontally oriented centers are inherently sonically compromised, and the center channel is far and away the most critical for home theater, I think a good option is dual vertical centers with your 2 best speakers. You would split the center channel output, toe the speakers appropriately and you should be rewarded with greatly improved dialogue intelligibility and imaging. You would of course, need to add a second amp, but I believe this approach is worthwhile. Even the best horizontal centers don't compare with a good floor stander. is there any interest in trying this?

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