Problem with center volume

LandShark

Ok , I have a Sony STRDE895 receiver (at the time I thought Sony had the best receivers for the price) Monitor 40 mains Polk satellite surrounds CS1 center and a velodyne subwoofer.

All my front components are in a armoire/entertainment center. The mains are to the right and left of the TV and the center is on a shelf directly above. The sub is behind the entertainment center and the satellites are at the top of the wall in the back left and right of the room.

Ok , here in lies the problem. When I'm watching a movie , at times I have trouble hearing the dialog and when I crank it up a little the action scenes blow you away. Is this a problem from the Sony receiver? I want the great sound I'm getting from the action scenes but I don't want to hold the remote in my hand the entire time turning the volume up and down.

I have my center setting all the way to 10. My sub is at 2 and my surrounds are at 5. Even if I cut all these down I can't control the volume of my mains. Thanks to anyone that can help me watch a movie without my wife yelling "Turn that down!"...

LandShark

It does have pre-outs but I have the wires hooked up to the terminals. This would help? I have very good speaker wire in a heavy gauge but if hooking it up another way would help then that might be the route I need to go although I think i'd rather buy a new center than climb in the attic again and run new wires....:)

LandShark

The audio connections I stated were "Pre-Outs" are actually labeled as Multi Channel In...is this the same thing and do I need to try this hook up for a more powerful sound from my center?

mark090852

LandShark wrote: »

The audio connections I stated were "Pre-Outs" are actually labeled as Multi Channel In...is this the same thing and do I need to try this hook up for a more powerful sound from my center?

No, "multi channel in" is not the same thing as pre-outs. Pre-outs give you a processed (decoded) signal but it is not amplified by the onboard amp in your receiver. You would need a separate amplifier if your receiver had pre-outs and you wanted to increase the power to your center channel. I have a B&K 3 channel amp rated at 220 wpc that I use to power my front right and left speakers and my center channel speaker. I let my HK receiver power the rear surrounds.

In your case, if your receiver had preouts, you could get a single channel amplifier like the Outlaw 2200 monoblock for your center channel and that just might give you the increase in output that you are looking for.

Here's a link to the Outlaw amp. http://outlawaudio.com/products/2200.html

Taurus574

On your reciever settings, do you have the center channel set to small or large? If you have it in small, try setting it to large and see what happens. If that doesn't help, your mains might be overpowering the center causing you to not hear the dialog. I have a pair of RT1000i's and a CS1 for my center. I really had to lower the mains because they were killing my center's dialog output. But I did upgrade the center afterwards to a CS400i which is a really big center and it was a 1000% improvement in sound.

I would try the setting first on the reciever before dropping big bucks on a new center.

LandShark

I believe I do indeed need a larger center speaker although I did download my owners manual and found out about alot of setting that helped more than I could imagine. Since I've owned my Sony receiver I've used the Neo:6 cinema setting because I thought the better setting the better sound. This setting is only for DTS decoded sound. I need to have the setting on Auto or Dolby when not using DTS or other digital sound fields. This is much, much better although I do think I'd like to have the bigger center speaker although I think my wife would kill me if I went and bought a $800 amp to push more power into something she already thinks is too loud. But it would be nice to have, thanks!:D