5.1 Audio Mix Centre Channel Saturation (1 Viewer)

[PhilBoy]

Are some Centre Channel levels oversaturated during audio mixing for 5.1 ?

I have noticed this mainly on some 'made for tv' series dvd's and some concert video dvd's.

Is this done on purpose ? I noticed this on my Sennheiser headphones and AR centre channel speaker from both digital out and analog out on my dvd player.

 

[Lew Crippen]

It is probably just my inability to understand, but I can’t figure out how you can tell ‘oversaturation’ in 5.1 on a pair of headphones.

I’m also not sure what you mean by the term. Can you give some examples?

Thanks.

 

[PhilBoy]

Crackle, distortion during loud sounds yelling etc.

I noticed this on The Sopranos discs and Elton John One Night Only.

It heard it on both analog out from my Tosh SD3900 and through the digital out as well (so I assume the distortion is on the disc).

The noise is only on the vocal tracks which leads me to believe it is the centre channel being mastered at too loud a level compared to the rest of the channels.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I don’t have those disks, so I can’t comment—but I have not noticed this on any of my DVDs.

Since you hear the exact same thing in both headphones and speakers, it must be the disk and it only occurs on some DVDs, not all (assuming that you have tried other DVDs with similar characteristics), it must be the individual DVDs.

It is surprising.