Added center channel to 2.0 setup = not what I expected

vadang

In my master bedroom, I have a pair of RTi10s with Behringer EP1500 to the 7" drivers and Pioneer VSX-9040TXH powering the midbass and highs. Originally ran them in stereo and was really happy with them except that I wished on some movies the dialogue would be more defined. So I figured, get a center channel and problem solved. Well I picked up mint CSi5 for almost nothing and hooked it up. Well, the dialogue is a little clearer, but my overall sound I am not happy with. The bass and midbass do not feel as loud or punchy. I've tried every listening mode and I am just not happy with it. I re-ran MCACC multiple times and messed with the EQs as well. Is that just a byproduct of adding the center channel?

I have a pair of RT800is and CS400i lying around so I hooked them up to an older onkyo receiver just to experiment and I noticed the same thing.

Am I missing something, or is 3.0 audio just not something that is typically done? Thanks

dnoyeB

Are you also changing your listening mode from 2.0 stereo to surround? That will make a significant audible change. Does your AVR have an all channel stereo mode?

Erik Tracy

vadang wrote: »

In my master bedroom, I have a pair of RTi10s with Behringer EP1500 to the 7" drivers and Pioneer VSX-9040TXH powering the midbass and highs. Originally ran them in stereo and was really happy with them except that I wished on some movies the dialogue would be more defined. So I figured, get a center channel and problem solved. Well I picked up mint CSi5 for almost nothing and hooked it up. Well, the dialogue is a little clearer, but my overall sound I am not happy with. The bass and midbass do not feel as loud or punchy. I've tried every listening mode and I am just not happy with it. I re-ran MCACC multiple times and messed with the EQs as well. Is that just a byproduct of adding the center channel?

I have a pair of RT800is and CS400i lying around so I hooked them up to an older onkyo receiver just to experiment and I noticed the same thing.

Am I missing something, or is 3.0 audio just not something that is typically done? Thanks

Is your complaint when you listen to music, or is it when you watch movies, or just in general for whatever you listen to?

vadang

I have went through all the listening modes (stereo and surround modes). I don't think the Pioneer had an all channel stereo, but the onkyo did and it did not make much of a difference.

And my complaint is mainly for movies, since I listen to music in stereo.

Thanks for the responses.

dnoyeB

Are you bi-amping with two different amps? If so, are you sure you have the levels balanced right?

mantis

Here is what I suggest. Sell all of your gear , all of it including the rt800i's , center and Onkyo receiver you got. Sell the Pioneer and all the RTI10 speakers and the next to nothing Csi5.

With all this money you now have I will spec you a nice clean balanced bedroom system.
if your TV is hung on the wall , lets go on wall speakers. I suggest Definitive Technology Mythos 8's. These speakers are killer clean and killer sounding all around.
Next lets use rears in the Mythos Gem XL's . Then why not add a small sub so you can feel everything you are trying to watch and give some punch. I suggest a Definitive Supercube III.
Ok now we have the speakers in order , lets go with a new receiver. Pick up the Pioneer ELite VSX32 , it's a nice bedroom receiver that will power the 8's nicely. You could go SC models but for a bedroom I'm not seeing the use.
For speaker wire use Audioquest Flex 14-2. This is very high quality wire and will keep things sounding the way they should. It's the very best 14-2 gauge wire I have ever used Cl3 style.
Also use Audioquest HDMI cables in the Forest or Pearl series. They are all you need and don't break the bang. HDMI 1.4 spec and full 3D support for now or into the future.

While you are at all this , Pick up a nice Blu ray player of your choice and maybe a Apple TV. This will give you some really nice features for bedroom use.

Last but most important a universal remote control like a Harmony. You can program this yourself with a online guide. They are fine for a non professional.

Having floor standing speakers in a bedroom when your watching in bed makes no sense. I have In walls in my bedroom that I'm completely happy with for all my music and in bed movie viewing. It's all about matching the room with the right system. I'm sure you couldn't place the center channel you have correctly and get a proper setup. The Csi5 and Rti10's are excellent speakers when set up correctly. I don't approve of the receiver you where using to run them but for a bedroom it should have been fine. Room acoustics also play a huge factor and MCACC should have helped IF you placed the mic correctly and ran the setup with no noise in or around the room.

2.0 or 3.0 systems for movies just suck most of the time. Movies for one are not recorded in this replay method so it has to cram all the sound track into those speakers. I personally would rather use a lesser properly setup system then what you are trying to do.

So rethink this system , take my advise for what it's worth and get a damn nice bedroom system and enjoy it instead of frankinteching it together.

vadang

dnoyeB wrote: »

Are you bi-amping with two different amps? If so, are you sure you have the levels balanced right?

I am biamping with two different amps. I read numerous times here that many people were happy doing it this way (powering mids/highs with AVR and lows with separate amp). I haven't scientifically determined if the system is balanced, but when listening in stereo mode, it sounds great, except for some movies, where I wanted to bump up the dialogue volume.

vadang

mantis wrote: »

Here is what I suggest. Sell all of your gear , all of it including the rt800i's , center and Onkyo receiver you got. Sell the Pioneer and all the RTI10 speakers and the next to nothing Csi5.

With all this money you now have I will spec you a nice clean balanced bedroom system.
if your TV is hung on the wall , lets go on wall speakers. I suggest Definitive Technology Mythos 8's. These speakers are killer clean and killer sounding all around.
Next lets use rears in the Mythos Gem XL's . Then why not add a small sub so you can feel everything you are trying to watch and give some punch. I suggest a Definitive Supercube III.
Ok now we have the speakers in order , lets go with a new receiver. Pick up the Pioneer ELite VSX32 , it's a nice bedroom receiver that will power the 8's nicely. You could go SC models but for a bedroom I'm not seeing the use.
For speaker wire use Audioquest Flex 14-2. This is very high quality wire and will keep things sounding the way they should. It's the very best 14-2 gauge wire I have ever used Cl3 style.
Also use Audioquest HDMI cables in the Forest or Pearl series. They are all you need and don't break the bang. HDMI 1.4 spec and full 3D support for now or into the future.

While you are at all this , Pick up a nice Blu ray player of your choice and maybe a Apple TV. This will give you some really nice features for bedroom use.

Last but most important a universal remote control like a Harmony. You can program this yourself with a online guide. They are fine for a non professional.

Having floor standing speakers in a bedroom when your watching in bed makes no sense. I have In walls in my bedroom that I'm completely happy with for all my music and in bed movie viewing. It's all about matching the room with the right system. I'm sure you couldn't place the center channel you have correctly and get a proper setup. The Csi5 and Rti10's are excellent speakers when set up correctly. I don't approve of the receiver you where using to run them but for a bedroom it should have been fine. Room acoustics also play a huge factor and MCACC should have helped IF you placed the mic correctly and ran the setup with no noise in or around the room.

2.0 or 3.0 systems for movies just suck most of the time. Movies for one are not recorded in this replay method so it has to cram all the sound track into those speakers. I personally would rather use a lesser properly setup system then what you are trying to do.

So rethink this system , take my advise for what it's worth and get a damn nice bedroom system and enjoy it instead of frankinteching it together.

Thanks for the response, but I am not looking to revamp the system. Running a 61"LED DLP, so it's not sitting on the wall and the bedroom is ~25x20x12 so I don't think floorstanding speakers is absurd for the bedroom. Center is sitting on top of the TV on an omnimount just slightly tilted towards the listening position and MCACC was run in a dead silent room with the mic at the listening position-ear level.

Maybe not comparable to the Mythos 8s, but I have paradigm 330 on walls in the living room and they sound nice, but I feel I get way better sound from the RTis. The 9040 is a rebadged Elite VSX-21/23, and from all reports is a nice receiver and good enough to do what I need it to do.

When I switch from stereo to any of the surround modes to use the center, I just feel that the overall sound gets thinner, except for more clearer dialogue. Perhaps I just prefer the stereo sound more...

mdaudioguy

You have a fairly powerful pro-amp in some sort of a bi-amp configuration with a pretty decent AVR running your mains and I'm guessing the center running directly off the AVR. You have made things far more complicated than they need to be. First, remove the Behringer from the equation and see if you can get all three speakers to sound ok off the AVR only. You probably won't have the low end you're used to, but then at least all three speakers will be on a level playing field. Once you get it sounding good, then think about integrating the amp - or not. Or find a 3-channel amp.

And, btw, Dan's advice is not a bad alternative, but I'm guessing you're determined to make what you have work for you.

20hz

mdaudioguy wrote: »

You have a fairly powerful pro-amp in some sort of a bi-amp configuration with a pretty decent AVR running your mains and I'm guessing the center running directly off the AVR. You have made things far more complicated than they need to be. First, remove the Behringer from the equation and see if you can get all three speakers to sound ok off the AVR only. You probably won't have the low end you're used to, but then at least all three speakers will be on a level playing field. Once you get it sounding good, then think about integrating the amp - or not. Or find a 3-channel amp.

And, btw, Dan's advice is not a bad alternative, but I'm guessing you're determined to make what you have work for you.

I ran the same thing with 4 amps and 1000+ watts , it got good and loud but needed but needed a good balance , so I hooked up the avr amp to the mains still ran the elec x-over to the subs and it sounded real good .
Its best to start out smooth and fine tune to liking .

vadang

I did take the behringer out of the equation as part of my experimenting and I did lose some of the lower end, but the overall sound change I was experiencing was the same. I will just probably go back to 2 channel listening and be done with it.

Another reason I like having the Behringer on the lows is that when the baby is asleep in the next room, I can just leave the amp off, essentially cutting out the loud bass for late night watching.

Thanks for all the help

starless

With my system it seemed to help a little to change the center speaker to "small" in the receiver. (The auto-setup had put it to "large".)

F1nut

I am biamping with two different amps

I realize that removing the amp did not solve your issue, but running two different power sources with different gain levels is a basic no-no. Just so you're clear on that.

20hz

vadang wrote: »

Another reason I like having the Behringer on the lows is that when the baby is asleep in the next room, I can just leave the amp off, essentially cutting out the loud bass for late night watching.

I too have sleeping kids in the next room I am not a fan of ANY compression circuit but at night I switch it to night mode and it keeps the volume consistant so when a movie whispers I can hear it and the lows are still there but not as thunderous .
I noticed my sony ES is not as smooth of a cut but my onkyo works well .
This system has no subs but a pair ok polk ls-50's in a small room are adaquate for night time stuff .

cnh

So, correct me if I'm wrong. You have no SUB in there, right? Add a sub and that center will sound like its 'mated' to something that will give you some lows...otherwise a 3.0 system won't sound that much better unless you have R/L full range speakers picking up the bottom end?

Good Luck.

Also, I don't understand Dan's comment about the Elite...isn't the 9040 really a lot like an entry level Elite?

cnh

20hz

cnh wrote: »

So, correct me if I'm wrong. You have no SUB in there, right? Add a sub and that center will sound like its 'mated' to something that will give you some lows...otherwise a 3.0 system won't sound that much better unless you have R/L full range speakers picking up the bottom end?

Good Luck.

Also, I don't understand Dan's comment about the Elite...isn't the 9040 really a lot like an entry level Elite?

cnh

I love my subs but in that room (office) with kids close by I dont have any .
I cant run a sub at ANY volume in there .
If I want real movie experiance I go into the living room
center=kef 100
main/satalittes=polk moniter 5
subs= 2 home built beasts
rears = energy take 2

vadang

Thanks for all of the replies. I've played around with the system a bit and I think I am happy now. It might not be what is considered standard, but like I said, I'm happy

The best way I can describe my initial complaint, is after I set it up, and I switch from 2 channel stereo to any surround mode, the AVR does some "processing" and the mid and lows drop a bit (no amount of tweaking fixed this). Maybe it was the distribution of the power to an additional speaker...I really do not know.

But what I ended up doing (probably a no-no, but I like it) is running center, mid/highs off AVR and lows off the behringer, but instead of feeding the behringer with the front R/L preouts, I used the sub pre out. To me it is ALMOST perfect.

20hz

vadang wrote: »

The best way I can describe my initial complaint, is after I set it up, and I switch from 2 channel stereo to any surround mode, the AVR does some "processing" and the mid and lows drop a bit (no amount of tweaking fixed this). Maybe it was the distribution of the power to an additional speaker...I really do not know.But what I ended up doing (probably a no-no, but I like it) is running center, mid/highs off AVR and lows off the behringer, but instead of feeding the behringer with the front R/L preouts, I used the sub pre out. To me it is ALMOST perfect.

This is much like my setup I use a energy Eac elec x-over , I just run the preouts from the mains to the Energy spilt it to a sub and mains (through externall amps) , maybe there is a more simple hookup but I like the adjustments I get .
Vadang I noticed going to multiple amps will give a preamp gain reduction from a AVR ( I guess thats one idea to get a processor) .
I never noticed a perticular los in mids/higs but if you have a center/rear on "large" it will rob bass from the mains to fed it (and that is no good) .
Even though I would like a full range center I prefer the bass to the subs more !

McLoki

You don't accidentally have the sub turned to "on" in the dolby modes do you?

Try mains = large, center = small, sub=off. (try center crossover at both 80 and 100hz to see which you like better)

Also try

Mains=large, center=large, sub=off.


hope you get things sorted.

Michael

vadang

McLoki wrote: »

You don't accidentally have the sub turned to "on" in the dolby modes do you?

Try mains = large, center = small, sub=off. (try center crossover at both 80 and 100hz to see which you like better)

Also try

Mains=large, center=large, sub=off.


hope you get things sorted.

Michael

Yeah I tried every combination of large/small sub on/off there was as well as moving the crossover frequency around.

Thanks