Hard to hear dialog

lildodoo

Hello, I have set up my HT and have the following:

Pioneer VSX-92TXH
Parasound A51
Polk Audio Rti A7 (front) set to large
Polk Audio Csi A6 (center) set to large
Polk Audio Fxi A6 (rears) set to small
Polk Audio PSW 1000 (sub) crossover @80Hz

I have ran the MCACC and find that always have to turn up the volume when there is dialog going on then have to turn it back down during action scenes. Is there any settings that I should try to change to help this??

Thanks for any help or advise.

zarrdoss

have you just tried turning your center up? It might also be one of your surround sound settings or center settings.

dubradio

lildodoo,

This unfortunately is a common issue with any surround sound system. The main reason for this occuring is that production companies have been recording the center channel effect track (vocals) at a somewhat lower level when compared to the rest of the system.

One way to offset this is the increase the center channel level by +3 or +4 db, this should help to bring the vocal level back up without altering the balance of the system as a whole.

nguyendot

This is also because your unit is THX certified, meaning it's optimally set to work at reference level (0db). Turn that thing to 0db and dialog will be clear as day, but everything else will make your ears bleed.

I'm not sure if your receiver has the dynamic compression option - it's not a great option but it minimizes the difference between soft and loud sounds so that vocals are easier to hear.
Unfortunately it disturbs the balance of sound too...but if you can't hear the movie that's worse in my opinion.

lildodoo

Thanks for the suggestions. I have turned up the center before and it helped a lot, but the system just didn't sound as balanced when doing that. I always thought that maybe I just set it up wrong, but if its a common issue for surround sound systems, then I'll just turn up the center and forget about it.

Thanks

txcoastal1

Set your speakers to small then run your MCACC then note your MCACC settings. Take your time with tweeks and a couple or three different movies moving the settings till your happy. I spnt a couple stents playing till I was satisfied. PLay aound raising .5 to 1db at a time

Good luck

lildodoo

When I run my MCACC it sets all my speakers to large. I have manually set the rears to small, but left the fronts and center as large. Is it better to have the fronts and center set to small also? If so why would that be, if you don't mind me asking?

tonyb

lildodoo wrote: »

When I run my MCACC it sets all my speakers to large. I have manually set the rears to small, but left the fronts and center as large. Is it better to have the fronts and center set to small also? If so why would that be, if you don't mind me asking?

Less strain on the receiver to push the lower bass, means more power is available for the top and mid sections of the speakers. Personally,I find this less than satisfying with big floorstanders. Makes them sound too thin.
Sometimes it's just the way the disc was recorded, can be annoying at times I'll agree. Thats why I like to have a button on the remote to adjust speaker levels on the fly for just this type of situation. With bluray, it's more dynamic. When action scenes come up, it gets loud, then in quiet passages you can hardly hear the dialoge. I just turn the volume up on the whole system, that is until the wife says, can you turn it down,it's too loud.

nguyendot

Have you tried turning the DRC (dynamic range control) setting on?

Page 71 of your manual, bottom right. Set it to MAX and see how you like it.

Mon40CSMM10

Turning up the center channel is one option that has been mentioned.

For the Pioneer receiver, also try using the Dialogue Enhance, which should be available as an option. This feature mixes the center channel partly into the front left and right mains for a wider dialog soundstage and also effectively provides a slight dialog volume increase without changing any of the channel volumes in the receiver. If this effect is not desirable simply turn off the Dialogue Enhance feature.