5.1 Surround Sound - Correct Settings? (1 Viewer)

[jrubenol]

Hi All,


I have a Yamaha HTR-3063 (http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-HTR-3063BL-Receiver-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B003CP0KFU). It has a ton of different pre-configured 5.1 settings but all but one don't sound quite right - specifically voices are drowned out by music/effects.


The stereo has "movie" settings such as Standard, Adventure, Video Game, etc.... these are all (from what I understand) true 5.1 where voices come out of the front 3 speakers, rear speakers are for background sounds. They sound nice other than the fact that often times we are forced to put subtitles on in order to really hear what people are saying.


The setting we default to "5ch Enhanced" which doesn't seem to be true 5.1 - instead it's more "all sounds pushed through all speakers." Not to say that it doesn't sound nice, but...it's not true 5.1.


I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong. Our home theater setup is pretty nice but I'd like to make it true 5.1 if possible - ideally where I don't need subtitles and I'm not forced to turn up the speakers when it's "pure talk" and then frantically turn it down when there is music/fight scenes/etc... going on.


Any advice appreciated.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Yamaha (and probably other manufacturers) adds digital signal processing to basic 5.1 surround sound to get the enhanced modes you’re talking about (“Adventure,” “Video Game,” “Enhanced,” etc.” It’s not uncommon for Yamaha not reserve their best processing for their upper-tier models.


There’s nothing says you have to use the processed surround sound modes. If you don’t like them, then just use the “Standard” option, which should be straight-up, unprocessed 5.1 (check the manual to be sure).


Alternately, if there are options in the menu for modifying the DSP settings, try reducing the DSP Level and/or Liveness settings. This will make them less “severe” and perhaps more enjoyable.


Regards,

Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[jrubenol]

Yamaha (and probably other manufacturers) adds digital signal processing to basic 5.1 surround sound to get the enhanced modes you’re talking about (“Adventure,” “Video Game,” “Enhanced,” etc.” It’s not uncommon for Yamaha not reserve their best processing for their upper-tier models.


There’s nothing says you have to use the processed surround sound modes. If you don’t like them, then just use the “Standard” option, which should be straight-up, unprocessed 5.1 (check the manual to be sure).

Standard option has the same issue - where voices sound drowned out by the intense scenes/music. Each of the real 5.1 options have the same issue - the only way for us to really hear everything (in particular voices) is by using the 5ch enhanced which isn't 5.1 at all....

 

[jrubenol]

A thought just came to me. Could it be because the rear speakers are about 2' from our ears while the front speakers are about 15' away?

 

[Race Bannon]

Could be. Manually balance them by just cranking up the center channel till you can hear it. It has most of the dialog.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Standard option has the same issue - where voices sound drowned out by the intense scenes/music. Each of the real 5.1 options have the same issue - the only way for us to really hear everything (in particular voices) is by using the 5ch enhanced which isn't 5.1 at all....

A thought just came to me. Could it be because the rear speakers are about 2' from our ears while the front speakers are about 15' away?

I think there are two potential issues here.


One is speaker setup. Does that receiver come with Audyssey or any other type of setup program, preferably something that came with a microphone? It's definitely important to get the speakers EQ'd for the room you're in. In my setup, my rear speakers are slightly closer to me than the front speakers are, but the EQ is correctly set to compensate for that, so I get balanced sound out of each. So that might be part of the issue you're having.


The other one may be more about what you're watching. I don't think you mentioned if you were watching Blu-rays or something else, and if you had volume issues with everything you watched, or movies in general. I mention this because Blu-rays have what's called a very wide dynamic range. Basically this means that Blu-rays can handle there being a huge range between the quietest sound and loudest sound possible on the same recording. The range is much bigger than on DVDs or TV broadcasts. I definitely noticed that when I first got Blu-ray that there were more sudden jumps to higher and louder volumes than it had been with DVD or TV shows. You might want to look into the settings on your receiver to see if there's anything called "dynamic range compression" or "dialogue normalization" or something like that -- what those settings are designed to do is limit the huge swings in volume so that explosions and music effects aren't drowning out the dialogue.

 

[jrubenol]

Could be. Manually balance them by just cranking up the center channel till you can hear it. It has most of the dialog.

Thanks! This helped *quite a bit* - there are so many settings in the damn options that it's hard to figure out which to play with when. But, we just got through an hour of LOTR Two Towers without having to frantically change volume which was a nice change Still playing to get it perfect but this is a massive improvement.

 

[jrubenol]

I think there are two potential issues here.


One is speaker setup. Does that receiver come with Audyssey or any other type of setup program, preferably something that came with a microphone? It's definitely important to get the speakers EQ'd for the room you're in. In my setup, my rear speakers are slightly closer to me than the front speakers are, but the EQ is correctly set to compensate for that, so I get balanced sound out of each. So that might be part of the issue you're having.


The other one may be more about what you're watching. I don't think you mentioned if you were watching Blu-rays or something else, and if you had volume issues with everything you watched, or movies in general. I mention this because Blu-rays have what's called a very wide dynamic range. Basically this means that Blu-rays can handle there being a huge range between the quietest sound and loudest sound possible on the same recording. The range is much bigger than on DVDs or TV broadcasts. I definitely noticed that when I first got Blu-ray that there were more sudden jumps to higher and louder volumes than it had been with DVD or TV shows. You might want to look into the settings on your receiver to see if there's anything called "dynamic range compression" or "dialogue normalization" or something like that -- what those settings are designed to do is limit the huge swings in volume so that explosions and music effects aren't drowning out the dialogue.

1) I'm not sure about the equalizer setup - from playing with the options it seems like it's entirely manual and there are an abundance of settings :-/ There was even settings for the distance to each speaker which was set correctly but that apparently did not correct enough.


2) These are all dvds and streaming services like hulu/netflix - not blue ray


3) I'll check the settings for those options to see if I have them - it's significantly better now but now the voices are a bit too much and the music a little low....


Are there other settings I should be looking for? I can't believe how many there are

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The equalizer setup is supposed to take care of distance measurements and all of that. I am not the most experienced HTF when it comes to receivers - there are some people on here who have an encyclopedia's worth of knowledge stored in their brains, and I'm more of a "Hey, it works, I'm gonna let it be" kinda guy. So there's probably someone here who can better answer whether your particular unit has an EQ software built in, or whether there's a meter or some other bit of hardware or software you could pick up if your receiver doesn't have it built in.


I disagree with Jay (Race Bannon)'s suggestion to just turn the center channel up. If you've done that, that's probably why you're getting too much voice and not enough everything else. It's a quick easy solution, but you lose balance if you just do it blindly. A program like Audyssey, which is built into a lot of receivers, is designed to do the heavy lifting towards finding that balance.


Definitely look for some kind of dynamic range adjustment. From the Amazon link you gave above, it looks like the feature you'd want may be called "Adaptive DRC (Dynamic Range Control)" on your Yamaha.


I'm afraid that's about all I've got as far as suggestions - but stick around, browse a few of the threads, see if anyone else has something else to offer - I think this is solvable.

 

[schan1269]

No to the 3063 does not have YPAO. Only Denon and Marantz have Audyssey. Nobody else uses Audyssey.

What speakers are you using? My guess is tiny.

 

[jrubenol]

No to the 3063 does not have YPAO. Only Denon and Marantz have Audyssey. Nobody else uses Audyssey.

What speakers are you using? My guess is tiny.

Yeah just the ones that came with the system - I like a nice sounding system but not willing to drop thousands to get the best of everything :-b But, after turning on the dynamic range control and tinkering with the equalizer I think I could be set Going to play with the other settings a little to see if I can make it better but I'm happy with where it is now.