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Audio advice needed
This thread has 13 replies. Displaying all posts.
Post 1 made on Saturday May 4, 2019 at 11:13
Barry Gordon
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I am approaching my 80th year and my hearing is not what it used to be. I have a custom home theater with excellent equipment and am thinking of making some changes and therefore am seeking advice. I am either watching movies with a Dune player from BR disks ripped to a large server, or I am watching TV with a feed (Spectrum is the ISP) coming through a Tivo Premiere. I have no issue with the movies, my problem is with the TV.

The speaker array is 7.4.1 and the audio processor is an Anthem AVM60. It seems that modern TV production likes to have music with the dialog to heighten the "feel" of the scene. The music often overpowers the dialog. Programs that don't do this give me very little problem and I hear the dialog adequately.

I have been thinking of setting up an audio mode for the TV which is boosting the center channel volume but I am concerned that the center channel will be carrying more than just the dialog but also the annoying background music effectively defeating my plan.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
Post 2 made on Saturday May 4, 2019 at 11:43
Fins
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Bump up he center. Also, make sure you have he right audio mode selected for tv. And that Dolby digital is enabled on the TiVo. Center channel should only have dialogue, but who knows what Hollywood has done for sure

Last edited by Fins on May 4, 2019 12:31.
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Post 3 made on Saturday May 4, 2019 at 11:46
osiris
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I’m assuming you have also run the ARC calibration?

Bumping the center channel up a few dB would be a good place to start. Most likely the music is largely mixed into the left and right front channels.
Post 4 made on Saturday May 4, 2019 at 12:16
tomciara
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“I can’t hear the dialogue when I’m watching movies, especially British ones“ is one of my most common complaints.

Bumping up the center channel is the primary improvement that we can make.

Watching the basketball playoffs is a huge irritation. The crowd noise is so over amped that you can barely hear the announcers. And if a series shifts from ESPN to ABC to NBC Sports, it is amped on all but much less on some.
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Post 5 made on Saturday May 4, 2019 at 12:29
Fins
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The more that I think about that movies are fine but tv is not, I go back to check the audio settings on the TiVo. I can’t tell you how many systems I’ve gone to that have been in for years and found the cable or sat receiver had Dolby disabled.
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Post 6 made on Saturday May 4, 2019 at 15:18
buzz
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Some units provide a "dialog lift" function that some listeners find is helpful. If you have individual channel equalizer settings, emphasize the vocal range for the center channel and boost its level.

Since your ears are not "flat", don't worry about "flat" settings on the equipment.

You may find that there are several optimal settings, depending on the channel and content. Setting this on a per channel or per program basis will be messy, but I know that you can deal with mess.

Last edited by buzz on May 4, 2019 16:03.
Post 7 made on Saturday May 4, 2019 at 18:27
Mac Burks (39)
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This happens in a lot of TV shows. Its quite annoying because my GF and I work different shifts. When i am watching TV she is sleeping. If i put the volume up loud enough to hear dialogue she can hear everything. If i put it low enough so that she cant hear it then i cant hear the dialogue. Most nights im sitting there reading CC.

I have tried every audio setting. The only "solution" is to bump the center channel up...which does sometimes bump other sound that they are sending down the center channel.
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Post 8 made on Saturday May 4, 2019 at 20:35
roddymcg
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I've been bumping up the center channel for older folks damn near as long as we have had this option. This may likely is you best option. It's been a while since I used an Anthem so I am not sure if they have a dialog enhancement feature.
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OP | Post 9 made on Saturday May 4, 2019 at 20:37
Barry Gordon
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Thanks for all the replies so far. They have been most helpful. I am planning on playing with the audio tomorrow and will let all know what the results are. I would have done it today but I got involved reading Daniel Silva's new book "The Mark of the Assassin" and I can't put it down.

The AVM60 does have good flexibility in allowing for different audio modes (settings) to be associated with inputs. I just downloaded their new ARC Gensis program and will probably do a pass with that.
Post 10 made on Sunday May 5, 2019 at 02:14
ErikU
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Coming from the broadcast engineering side.. I agree, bumping up the center channel is a good option. Generally, for productions originating in the USA, the center channel will be only dialog, so this will work.

I can confirm that in the audio mix suite of the studio or production truck the sound mix is superb. Unfortunately there are many places this can go wrong, starting with static dolby metadata that is overwritten at some place in the broadcast chain resulting in a mix the engineer had not intended. Mostly we have settled on static dialnorm of -24db, but this still varies some and can cause this problem when the dolby metadata is overwritten with the wrong value, confusing the receiver on how to mix in the center channel.

The cable box can also introduce additional audio processing making things worse. I'd double check that anything that sounds like an audio "feature" in the cable box is turned off. Be sure the box is set to pass the audio bitstream without any additional processing.
Post 11 made on Monday May 6, 2019 at 11:03
Roper777
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Barry - With your processor, you should be able to achieve very good center channel audio. Another change you can try in addition to setting the output level is to add a dedicated sub to the center channel. I recently changed my subs to Rels. I use their large one for the main sub and have one of the smaller ones dedicated to the center. The improvement was profound.
Post 12 made on Tuesday May 7, 2019 at 06:46
jrainey
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ARC Genesis will give you the opportunity to do exactly what you want which is to bump the overall level and tweak the curve a bit on just the center channel and have that be a separate profile.
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Post 13 made on Tuesday May 14, 2019 at 16:33
Soundsgood
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In addition to increasing the volume and adjusting the eq curve of the center channel try using the night mode if that is available. It will lower the dynamic range so you can listen at louder levels without the audio becoming annoyingly loud.
Post 14 made on Friday May 24, 2019 at 18:39
Krassyg
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On my AVM60 Late Night and Dolby Volume works quite well to bring out the dialog.


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