Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Just got a Vp180 :grin:

Hey Cat,

That's a drag on the Pioneer if adjusting the center-channel level is that complicated. It should be made easy by all AV receiver manufacturers because it's one of the potential virtues of Dolby 5.1 or 7.1--the ability to independently control the center-channel volume. Turning up the overall master volume of all the speakers usually won't help with badly recorded or low-level dialog. You want to raise the dialog above the level of the effects and surrounding ambience.

Like Wid, I often run the center +5 dB hot. There is also an age factor at work here. Post age 50 and especially past 60, most males have difficulty separating speech from noisy surroundings. It's why we of the post-60 group hate noisy restaurants of all kinds. The same mechanism goes on with separating and hearing the dialog in movies above the ambient and surround information and the music score.

Cheers,
Alan

I may have the center up a couple of db, but don't remember. I'll be replacing my in/on-wall VP100 with an M2 bookshelf in about 3 weeks. I'll have to revisit that issue then because I believe that the M2 plays a couple of db lower than the M22's, which I'm sure the MCACC will adjust for, but then play around with center channel loudness above that also.

Cat you think that Pioneer is bad ... I'll adjust my H/K with the finely tuned 'speaker adjust' settings that pleases my (SPL meter also) palate and anytime there's any kind of a power interruption, or for no reason at all, it will default all of the settings back to -0 across the board. Fortunately it doesn't do this with the other system settings for X'over, distance, large vs small and etc...

Pizzer!

So I keep all of my setting written down (I'm old) and make it a habit to hit the setup screen and menu to re-adjust the settings back to my settings darn near every time I use the system. EZPZ.

Oh and BTW ... +3db on the center for me also.

Cheap ass, buy a new receiver already.

What kind of H/K do you have, Rick?

Rick I like my H/K ... that's nothing more than character.

Ken it's the AVR635, '05 model I believe. I've been meaning to ask if your H/K ever did that.

I know one thing, it sounds darn good.

It's something I never understood. Why in home movies, DVDs or Blu Ray, is there such a big dynamic range? You go through a soft passage where you can barely hear the dialog and a second later... BANG!, the whole house is shaking with extremely high volumes. The reason I say home movies is because this high dynamic range doesn't seem so high at the theaters for some reason, or at least not to me, the volume levels seem closer together than at home.

I don't think it does--I have it on a UPS, so it doesn't lose power very often. I have turned it off via the power button (not the standby button) a few times and didn't lose anything.

Yeah, that drives me batty, Bruno. Especially when I'm watching something at night when the kids are (theoretically) asleep.

There are settings to control the dynamic range, at least for Dolby soundtracks. I have all dynamic range compression disabled, so I do get the HUGE explosions.

You may want to look for the DRC setting in your player (if using PCM output), or receiver if being sent a bitstream.