I've got a bit of a problem with surround sound... Since I usually watch stuff with my wife, I don't sit in the sweet spot; we sit on opposite ends of the couch. I noticed in watching CSI:NY (which is extremely agressive in using surround and atmosphere sounds) that I was mostly hearing the right channel stuff, and I'm sure my wife was mostly hearing the left channel stuff. The dialog was plenty clear, but things seemed very unbalanced. When I sit in the middle of the couch, everything sounds right. Let me do a little ASCII diagram...
______________________
|.................................................|
|......LF.........TV/C.........RF......|
..................................................|
..................................................|
|.................................................|
|.................................................|
|LS......................................RS|
|...............W...........M..........sub|
|.................................................|
|..................................................
|..................................................
|................______________|
(W is her, M is me!)
So, I can move the fronts out a little bit. I could also move the couch back. However, the surrounds are kind of screwed into the wall, and couldn't really be moved back anyway, since there's a heater next to the sub, and then the doorway. Would having a real center help? I could see it helping with dialog intelligibility, but not with this particular problem.
Oh yeah, and selling the wife is not an option! (btw, the reason we sit on either end of the couch is a function of the couch cushions and the fact that we both like to sprawl...)
(stupid proportional or nonproportional fonts... anyway, you get the idea...)
