Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater 3.0 system for the parents

Hey all- My folks are in their 70's and have become the stereotypical elderly tv veiwers- with the windows open you can hear the tv accross the street. They can hear ok, but have trouble understanding dialog. My dad will bitch about the music bed often put under narration on pbs. Often they'll have it so loud it's distorting-no wonder they can't understand the dialog. They've got a stereo zenith console from 2000 or so.
I'm thinking of donating my vp150 to the cause and getting a pair of m3's or 22's to go with it. Hopefully we can dial down the non-dialog a bit and clear things up with a big honkin vp150. If they don't go for it I've got a new pair of axioms and if they do, I'll buy myself a new 150.
My sister has offered her recently replaced '01 vintage sony htib avr. I rarely watch broadcast tv on my system so my question is- what surround format, avr brand, whatever else is the best at extracting dialog from 2ch network broadcasts?
Another thing- they're not big on the mute button, so when the commercials come on all jacked up over the level of the program, it gets seriously loud . I read that the "night" mode on some recievers could combat this- anyone have experience with that?
The tv has variable level output jacks- not quite sure if thats good or bad. I got them an mx500 a while back and I'll have to make this reciever invisable in that respect.
Anyone have thoughts? Seems like Mark s Johnson of sucking room fame went through something like this awhile back.

Duck, one thought is to also have them try the VP150 set vertically(even if it has to be in an off-center position)to see if they experience clearer dialog. As far as listening modes for TV as they would affect the dialog, both DPLII and Neo:6(but your sister's 2001 Sony likely has neither)have center width or center image adjustments to vary the proportion of center sound which is directed to the center speaker. Then of course, there'd be the possibility of simply setting the center speaker level a few dB louder than the mains.

Another option would be to just get 3 M2s across the front. I am sure one M2 centre will be more than enough for their ears (unless their room is more than 2000cu.ft.)

M2s can pump out pretty good vocals.

Thanks for the ideas guys. It hadn't occured to me to try the 150 verticaly, what is the advantage? another idea your responses just gave me was using dual vert. centers to the sides of the set. The room is about 35x20, the veiwing area is roughly 20x20. They sit 10-15 ft from the set. The curveball is the seating is spread out such that someone is usually off-axis to some extent. I'll have the sony next week and decide if it's worth using. I fear it's dpl 1, not sure how that stacks up center wise. I'm not wanting to break the bank but am willing to spend what it takes if it'll help them. Of course they would crap if I told them what it cost. I'll play with the dpl II and neo6 settings on my system a little- Id forgot about those!

Hi duckman,

If it's DPL1 on the old Sony, that puts everything into the center channel, which may make for less intelligibility rather than more, so it's probably not a good option unless the Sony has DPLII, which it might.

Any AV receiver with DPLII will let you boost the dialog levels and reduce the surround and mains levels so that dialog should be quite prominent. I routinely run my dialog channels about +5 dB over the other channels, especially with movies whose surround effects have been mixed too hot or have poorly recorded dialog.

The Night modes work. It's a compressor that reduces the dynamic range of movie and TV soundtracks, so that also might be helpful.

Regards,

Duckman,

Speakers have a wider horizontal dispersion when vertically orientated. I think using 2 M2s wired in series with that old amp should work for a centre channel, put one on each side of the TV. Also, M22 mains would match those M2s perfectly.

I am currently running 2 M2s wired in parallel (for a 4ohm load, if run in series it will be 16ohm). I love the centre channel dialog with the M2s.

Just something to chew on