Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Low dialog levels

I need help with possibly settings in my receiver. I seem to be getting dialog volume levels that are too low relative to the rest of the audio. I’ve messed with channel levels to the point where I don’t think it’s part of the issue. What else should I be looking at?

I found your equipment list in your other thread and with a vp 160 you should have no problems with dialogue. Perhaps a hearing test is in order, i had mine done turns out my ears are shot. Does your receiver do atmos, i understand atmos gives you more control over dialogue.

Sure hope it’s not my ears. Could be though. I have 9.1 set up. Two height speakers. I have my center set to Large cause my sub is weak. Would that possibly drown out some of the dialog?

Have you tried playing with your center image from the mains?
Forget what it's called, though it's a phantom center setting on all AVRs.

Another thing may be the polarity check your wires are in correct orientation, red black match up. You can also set the proper phasing with a 9volt battery. Connect the opposite end of speaker wire to 9volt make sure the woofers move outwards.

I myself have a VP160 you should have more than enough center, to negate the phantom setting.

I’m not sure I understand “playing with center image from the mains”?

Can you elaborate?

To run a phantom center, turn off the center channel in the AVR settings and then the main speakers will image the center channel,referred to as phantom center.

When I used Onkyo it was a DTS setting for 2channel width on my current Anthem it's also a DTSX setting. Used to fill in a wider stereo image. When playing stereo modes.

I set my 160 to 40 or 60Hz. and it has a wonderful bold deep male dialog.

Have you felt to make sure all drivers are functioning?

I do that with my Qs10s almost weekly. They blend so well I end up thinking they're disconnected.

I cannot find a setting in my AVR Yamaha RX A3050 to change the Hz on my speaker. Only a small or large setting. I have it set to large

Did you use YPAO to set up the speaker levels? Can you check what is set for the centre volume level compared to the rest? Try increasing it by 3 or 6 dB and have another listen to see if that helps!

I had a professional calibration done by Lion AV. The center channel is already up well above the others. I’ll play with it some more.

Can you clarify if just the dialog is low, or the everything from the centre channel is low?

If everything, swap the CC with another full range speaker - like one of your fronts and test.

If the "volume issue" moves to the new speaker, you have an electronic issue (amp, source, cable), if you cannot produce a normal level of sound from the CC as a front channel, your speaker may be the issue.

It’s just dialog. All other sound from center is great. It’s not all the time but often. Sometimes I think it’s just that the source is not sending quality audio. Happens on multiple sources though, cable, Apple TV DVDs. When it at its worst the only fix is to switch to 9ch stereo. I hate doing that.

The RXA will have several settings for audio pass through, try pure direct mode when comparing the output from the center channel.
If its louder in pure direct mode its in the settings programmed in the avr. There should be a pure direct button on the front face of the avr and on the remote.
Have you tried removing and reinstalling or swapping your HDMI cable?

Hi,
I have to agree with you. I must be getting old or getting deaf but more and more tv shows seem to have a difficult time at getting the dialogue at the right volume level. Some movies also suffer from very bad case of poor dialogue intelligibility.

Wonder if theres an internal issue?
Swapping a speaker temporarily might be the better advice.

If you go into the general discussions and then gallery you can see my photos under Aarons home theater. My center is about 12 feet from my front row.

https://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php/galleries/422073/Aaron's_Home_Theater