Dialog wash out - Plz Help (1 Viewer)

[Lew Crippen]

Rick, is your center speaker rear ported? This could make a big difference if it is in some kind of shelving.

 

[John Kotches]

Terry,

While I agree with most of your points, especially with respect to room treatments, there are a few areas of your post I'd appreciate some clarification on....

This is fine for special listening situations, such as actual night listening so as not to annoy others. But it reduces the fidelity of your system to one of significantly lower quality. A real movie theater does not make such compromises in sound.

However, this is home theater, not a movie theater.

In purist terms, compressing the dynamic range is a reduction of fidelity. Other than decreasing the available dynamic range, how is this approach reducing the fidelity of reproduction?

Thanks (in advance) for your response.

Regards,

 

[Terry Montlick]

Hi John,

However, this is home theater, not a movie theater.

I think that's the fundamental difference between our points of view. It seems to me that home theater owners go to an awful lot of trouble to reproduce the move theater experience - high picture resolution, carefully balanced color, high quality sound, popcorn poppers, etc.

If the goal of a home theater ISN'T to provide an experience of equal quality (including dynamic range) to a movie theater, then you are right. If HT owners want to recreate the movie theater experience, then the sound conditions should be the same.

Of course, if you're just watching TV in your home theater, that's different. Broadcasters already adjust the sound range accordingly.

 

[Rick Bargerhuff]

Hello allm

First to answer Lew's question...

The center speaker is not ported. It is a sealed box.
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Terry, I think what John said is correct. And I also think what you said is also correct. That being said...

If the goal of a home theater ISN'T to provide an experience of equal quality (including dynamic range) to a movie theater, than you are right. If HT owners want to recreate the movie theater experience, then the sound conditions should be the same.

This is true if there are only 2 types of enthusiasts but I think the case is 3 types. First type are the audiophiles that create an actual movie theater in their home, which really can not be classified as a home theater because of what the theater consists of. Second type would be those who create a home theater that is pretty high end, and third type is those who just want good sound and a good experience without having to put their home on mortgage. The important thing here would be budget, how much are you willing to spend would most likely decide which type of enthusiast you are.

What John said about the listening levels I find true. Listening to an action movie at -20 db prevents the dialog from being washed out because the dialog is loud at -20 db. When a huge explosion takes place in the movie, it will be loud which may make the person listening to the movie, uncomfortable. Now this I would assume is how a movie theater is set up. But in a home theater set up by the 3rd type of enthusiast, the room is alot smaller than a movie theater, so it sounds 20 times louder than it might in a movie theater.

To some people, this is fine, and one would venture to say that , if the person is uncomfortable with such sound levels, why create a home theater area in the home, but you already know the answer to that one.

Now a trick to do is when dialog is present in a soft movie, adjust the volume to where you hear the dialog clearly, then remember this volume setting because most likely it will be your minimum volume when watching a movie give or take a few decibels.

The main problem with the above is the listener may not have the luxury to increase the volume to where the dialog is perfectly clear without having to change the volume during explosions, such as my case. I think what the problem boils down to is when the user has a home theater set up and wants to have a movie theater experience but has audio limits such as apartment's adjacent to the set up, neighbors near by, etc.

My problem will be fixed by bringing down the front and center speakers to around the listeners ear level instead of 6' off the ground, and scheduling to watch movies when I know I have no audio limit at that current time. I realized my problem is that the minimum volume I can listen to while watching a movie without disturbing others is too low to compensate for the dialog. Only way I can over come this drawback is to ride the volume - Constantly change it. I need a sound clipper that clips the volume to a specified cap

Thanks everyone for the help and you can continue to post for this thread because I'll keep reading as long as posts are posted

 

[John Kotches]

Terry,

I guess we'll continue to disagree, politely

Of course, if you're just watching TV in your home theater, that's different. Broadcasters already adjust the sound range accordingly.

This is true for SD broadcasts, with rampant compression, however the HD broadcasts seem to be much better produced. I'm assuming this isn't just because of the usage of DD.

Besides, the best PQ on HDTV is stunning indeed.

Regards,

 

[Terry Montlick]

Hi John,

Yup, I guess we will disagree.

I thought we were talking about dynamic range compression (night listening mode), not lowering the volume. Dialnorm stays the same with DRC, but everything above and below gets compressed toward it. The difference in quality with night mode "on" or "off" is quite dramatic.

Recently built commercial theaters have extremely good audio, because they have really good acoustics. And while I admire you for wanting to improve on the movie theater experience, I'm afraid that 35mm film still has significantly higher resolution than current DVD. But you do see the splices where the film has broken. :frowning:

 

[John Kotches]

Terry,

Disagreement and polite discussion is usually beneficial to all involved.

Besides splices, the prints pick up dust, dirt and other contaminants along the way which tend to be distracting if they are more than occasionally visible.

I saw T3 last weekend, and it already had a fair amount of contaminants (dammit!). Besides that, it was on the loud side

I quite understand the function / design of dynamic range compression. Taking the "it's not what the director intended" approach when talking about someone's personal choices for their own system is a bit over the top though IMO....

After all, the choice is the end users, no one is forcing it across the board generically. You still have access to the full dynamic range.... Rick can invoke DRC with minimal overall impact, and find that he doesn't have to "ride the volume control".

Regards,

 

[Lee Bailey]

Rick,

What physical size are your speakers, and are you using a subwoofer too? Are your speakers set to large or small? What crossover frequency are you set to for the center channel? It could simply be that you are trying to feed too much into a small speaker, and killing your dialog. Of course, some material is just recorded that way, and you have to adjust the center volume occasionally.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Thanks for the info Rick. There goes one theory down the drain.

I’ll be interested in your reply to Lee’s questions, as I had a similar experience with an earlier 5.1 setup, that consisted of 5 small satellite speakers and a sub. I crossed over at 150hz, because the satellites simply could not handle anything lower and would have crossed over even higher, but the sub could not handle that.

In practice what this meant was that the center channel was being asked to do too much, as indeed were all the front speakers. This was true even though the speakers were set to small. The problem was just most evident in the center channel due to the emphasis on dialogue.

In the end, I fixed the problem with new speakers. In my evaluation period, I placed a heavy premium on the center channel. I now feel that I no longer need to raise the volume to hear the dialogue properly.

It may be that you just need a center speaker capable of producing more detail, than your current center speaker.

 

[Rick Bargerhuff]

Hey Lew and Lee,

The speakers are small. So the center channel may be what you said. But I don't think that is it. I think the answer I came up with was the problem... the volume is too low because of such audio limits mentioned above.

Rick

 

[Lew Crippen]

I’ve read the discussion on audio limits with interest, but I don’t think that is the reason for your difficulty. Empirically, because I had the same problem and now the problem is gone and logically based on the following (somewhat random) thoughts:

Now we all know that Dolby recommends that all five speakers should be the same, but in practice many manufactures distinguish among their front mains, center and surrounds. Many systems use a somewhat downsized speaker for their center that closely resembles their main front speakers (the JBL Scenter of the well-regarded JBL S-series is an example). Usually the speakers are designed in a horizontal fashion, rather than a vertical one. This, plus the smaller size is often (though not always) because a good many like to place the center speaking on their display.

Except for those with front projection systems, where any size speaker can be hidden behind the screen (or smaller, monitor style speakers), most configurations with larger speakers up-front also provide for a different style center speaker, even if it is not technically smaller (taking cabinet volume into consideration). So usually only quite expensive systems have exactly the same center speaker as the other mains.

Or the smaller systems now popular, that consist of a sub and five small satellite speakers. The problem here, is that probably more than 60% of the sound in a 5.1 mix is destined for the center channel. So, it is likely that in these smaller systems that the center speaker is not up to its task, even though the other speakers are not having such problems.

And any difficulties that the center speaker is having is heightened by the fact that it is reproducing the sound that you most want to be crisp and clear—speech.

To address this problem, most of the well regarded, small, satellite systems now have a center speaker that is actually different that the other four satellites. The very fine Acoustic Research HC6 system, for example, has a center speaker that has the same tweeter as the other four speakers and two bass/mid-range drivers instead of the single driver found in the other speakers. This same philosophy is followed in the aforementioned JBL Scenter (except that it does not have the big woofer found in the S38s)—it does have two mid-range/bass to handle the voice duties. The design is carried out in many more expensive systems as well.

For myself, my single most expensive speaker is my center speaker. And I consider it a great investment. To the point that as I am considering a system for my bedroom, I will evaluate the center speaker first, then the rest of the system.

 

[Roger Dressler]

Terry wrote: >>I thought we were talking about dynamic range compression (night listening mode), not lowering the volume. Dialnorm stays the same with DRC, but everything above and below gets compressed toward it. The difference in quality with night mode "on" or "off" is quite dramatic.

 

[Wayne_T]

Dialog normalization explained:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...on-6-2000.html

 

[Terry Montlick]

I agree with both Roger's post and Brian Florian's fine article explaining dialog normalization. If you're going to listen at reduced volume, then Night mode is the right way to go. That's exactly what it was designed for.

- Terry

 

[Lee Bailey]

Rick, what exactly have you tried so far to remedy the problem? Has anything worked so far? Can you provide more information on what brand of speakers you are using, are the satellites a two-way, or a single small driver?

Lew, as long as you can keep the center channel timbre matched with the rest of your speakers, it doesn't really matter if it is smaller or larger than the other speakers. What is important is that you follow the manufacturers recommendation on whether it should be set to small or large in the bass management chain. Being able to set the crossover within the receiver to what you want is also important, though some receivers only provide one crossover frequency, which limits your tuning. It helps to have the specs for your speakers, and know where the -3db point is for the bass, so you can set your crossover above that point for a start.

 

[Rick Bargerhuff]

Hey all,

Ok here is what I have done to fix my problem...

Angled the front and center speakers to point down towards the listening position. This seemed to make the overall experience sound much better. I also tried night mode, and this seems to work well. I simply turn it off when I'm not watching the movie at a low volume level and it brings out the dialog much more.

Thanks for the suggestions!