Home Theater / Audio Question.

averageguy · Mar 29, 2008

Hi. For twenty years I've enjoyed watching movies in stereo.
My hearing is likely failing me and it's possible DVDs are featuring audio formats that require other than stereo - but I am unable to hear dialog clearly without turning up the volume to a level that makes the rest of the audio track obnoxiously loud.
I have no desire to add many speakers to my living room but I would very much like to have more pronounced dialog.
I assume I need a center speaker. I noticed the JVC line of receivers because they are very low profile. Upon examining the manual I noticed that you can tell the receiver how many speakers you are running. This may be unique to JVC and / or modern receivers.
What exactly am I looking for? Will an older pro-logic receiver do? Do I need a receiver with Dolby Digital? Will they all adapt to a three speaker set up and give me improved dialog?
Any input or suggestions greatly appreciated.

Psychopomp · Mar 29, 2008

Three speakers will work just fine. In fact I'm running three speakers right now (two large floor speakers with 10" subs, 6" mids and 1.5" tweeters) and a large center channel speaker (two six inch mids and a tweeter).

All of my system (TV, CD, iPod, ps2, DVD) is running through a Yamaha natural sound amp and the CD player is running through an old Natural Sound EQ.

Any receiver that can handle multi-channel input will work just fine. Most of the more recent amps will, like you mentioned, let you tailor it to the number of speakers you have. My Yamaha will give you settings for two, three (2 plus center), four, five (4 plus center) and five plus sub, and lets you easily control the volume for each speaker individually. But the amp knows what it's doing and will direct most of the mid range audio (vocal ranges) to the center channel.

Movies with 5.1 sound will sound better with a newer receiver that has that capability, but will still sound just fine through an older amp.

I have a large center channel speaker but a lot of the newer smaller speakers will perform very well for movies (turn the center off when you listen to music though).

averageguy · Mar 30, 2008

Psychopomp, let me confirm my understanding.
Any pro-logic or better / newer multi chanel receiver will adapt to a left - right - center set up and provide me with the enhanced dialog I'm looking for?

CrawlinYJ · Mar 30, 2008

i am probably the biggest car audio freak you have ever come across. i have touched a little on home audio/theater. i recently did my parents living room. all in ceiling (moms wishes of not seeing the speakers comes before the needs of the system), pioneer 50" plasma on an adjustable mount, denon, veoldyne, a lot of higher end stuff. granted, not your full mcintosh setup, but it meets their standards.

anyway, at my brothers house, he uses a bose 3-2-1 setup. it is great for the TV viewer. not the hardcore guys, but the average guy that wants something very easy to use, easy to install, and a minimalist design. great dialog (the hardest thing to achieve in a theater), great stereo sound, and decent LFE (low frequency effects). definitely sounds like its right up your alley. you should head over to your local electronics store and listen to one. he bought his from ebay and got a great deal on it.

sorry for some of the picture quality. camera phone..

averageguy · Mar 30, 2008

That's gorgeous.

CrawlinYJ · Mar 30, 2008

thanks. definitely look into that 3-2-1 system.

kenk · Mar 30, 2008

I'm not an expert at home theater systems, but I honestly don't think a multi-speaker home theater system will provide any better hearing capability than a high-quality two-speaker stereo system.

Still, a medium-priced home theater system will provide nice sound. I bought a 7-speaker Yamaha "theater-in-a-box" from Best Buy (Consumers Report rated it high) and it has done us very well. We just installed the sub-woofer, center, front side, and rear side speakers. We didn't include the rear center due to arrangement of our room.

If you go to Bestbuy.com and look up their lowest cost Yamaha home theater system - that is about what we have though it looks like a slightly updated version - the speakers look the same though. Not fancy but sounds real nice and easy enough to install.

I have no doubt that if you ran just the sub-woofer, center, and front side speakers it would sound just fine. Fairly rarely do we notice sounds coming from the rear side speakers - though when we do it is pretty cool - usuallly background noices like crickets or similar. The center speaker does most of the work by far.

CrawlinYJ · Mar 30, 2008

kenk said:
I'm not an expert at home theater systems, but I honestly don't think a multi-speaker home theater system will provide any better hearing capability than a high-quality two-speaker stereo system.

Still, a medium-priced home theater system will provide nice sound. I bought a 7-speaker Yamaha "theater-in-a-box" from Best Buy (Consumers Report rated it high) and it has done us very well. We just installed the sub-woofer, center, front side, and rear side speakers. We didn't include the rear center due to arrangement of our room.

If you go to Bestbuy.com and look up their lowest cost Yamaha home theater system - that is about what we have though it looks like a slightly updated version - the speakers look the same though. Not fancy but sounds real nice and easy enough to install.

I have no doubt that if you ran just the sub-woofer, center, and front side speakers it would sound just fine. Fairly rarely do we notice sounds coming from the rear side speakers - though when we do it is pretty cool - usuallly background noices like crickets or similar. The center speaker does most of the work by far.

the center speaker in a home theater probably does 85% of the work. if you upgrade to a system system with a dedicated or very well simulated center channel (3-2-1) you will notice a huge difference.

trestle · Apr 1, 2008

You're all missing the point. The amount of speakers make no difference if you're not in the right audio mode. Pro Logic is completely different from Dolby Digital which is completely different from 2-channel stereo. All of these formats are different and if you listen to a 5.1 soundtrack through a 2-channel setup or 2-channel setting on your amp, it will sound muddy and you won't hardly hear any dialogue. And your amp does not know what it is doing. The encoding of the soundtrack tells the amp what to do. If you are listening to a movie encoded with surround through only a few speakers, you must select a multi-channel stereo setting for your audio mode; this way you will actually send a signal with dialogue to your speakers. With DVD's and anything mastered in 5.1, around 85% of the dialogue is dedicated to the center channel(by the encoding of the soundtrack done by the audio engineers), so listening to 5.1 on a 2 speaker system, you will never hear any dialogue unless you select a multi-channel setting or switch the output from the DVD player to 2.0 ouptut, not 5.1 which is the default setting for most DVDs. So, to wrap it up, it's not your ears that are giving you trouble, you're trying to listen to something designed for 6 speakers through 2 and the processor can't or is unable to make the change.

I have spent all of my life around custom audio and home theater. My dad was a big A/V nut and ran his own custom business in SoCal and I worked as an installer/system calibrater for a number of years. Email me if you have any other specific questions, some of the advice offered may need more explanation. I may also be able to help you optimize your existing setup; I live in a retirement community and have several clients with similar issues.

brewthunda · Apr 1, 2008

crm3137 said:
You're all missing the point. The amount of speakers make no difference if you're not in the right audio mode. Pro Logic is completely different from Dolby Digital which is completely different from 2-channel stereo. All of these formats are different and if you listen to a 5.1 soundtrack through a 2-channel setup or 2-channel setting on your amp, it will sound muddy and you won't hardly hear any dialogue. And your amp does not know what it is doing. The encoding of the soundtrack tells the amp what to do. If you are listening to a movie encoded with surround through only a few speakers, you must select a multi-channel stereo setting for your audio mode; this way you will actually send a signal with dialogue to your speakers. With DVD's and anything mastered in 5.1, around 85% of the dialogue is dedicated to the center channel(by the encoding of the soundtrack done by the audio engineers), so listening to 5.1 on a 2 speaker system, you will never hear any dialogue unless you select a multi-channel setting or switch the output from the DVD player to 2.0 ouptut, not 5.1 which is the default setting for most DVDs. So, to wrap it up, it's not your ears that are giving you trouble, you're trying to listen to something designed for 6 speakers through 2 and the processor can't or is unable to make the change.

I have spent all of my life around custom audio and home theater. My dad was a big A/V nut and ran his own custom business in SoCal and I worked as an installer/system calibrater for a number of years. Email me if you have any other specific questions, some of the advice offered may need more explanation. I may also be able to help you optimize your existing setup; I live in a retirement community and have several clients with similar issues.

I agree 100%. Center channel speakers are over-rated. Their only benefit is that they help make dialog sound like its coming from the tv for viewers who are sitting way off to one side. Anyone else sitting between the stereo speakers shouldn't hear much of a difference. Just make sure your receiver is getting a 2 channel signal from the DVD player.

I have two home theater setups.

One is a Sony 36" WEGA XBR tube tv, with a Marantz surround receiver and a good quality NHT surround setup, including a center speaker.

The other is a Vizio 42" plasma tv, with a Rega stereo integrated amp (a nice simple English stereo setup for music) and some nice home built stereo speakers and sub.

With the stereo setup, I don't even notice that there's no center channel, since the two stereo speakers create the perfect illusion of a central speaker.

CrawlinYJ · Apr 1, 2008

crm3137 said:
You're all missing the point. The amount of speakers make no difference if you're not in the right audio mode. Pro Logic is completely different from Dolby Digital which is completely different from 2-channel stereo. All of these formats are different and if you listen to a 5.1 soundtrack through a 2-channel setup or 2-channel setting on your amp, it will sound muddy and you won't hardly hear any dialogue. And your amp does not know what it is doing. The encoding of the soundtrack tells the amp what to do. If you are listening to a movie encoded with surround through only a few speakers, you must select a multi-channel stereo setting for your audio mode; this way you will actually send a signal with dialogue to your speakers. With DVD's and anything mastered in 5.1, around 85% of the dialogue is dedicated to the center channel(by the encoding of the soundtrack done by the audio engineers), so listening to 5.1 on a 2 speaker system, you will never hear any dialogue unless you select a multi-channel setting or switch the output from the DVD player to 2.0 ouptut, not 5.1 which is the default setting for most DVDs. So, to wrap it up, it's not your ears that are giving you trouble, you're trying to listen to something designed for 6 speakers through 2 and the processor can't or is unable to make the change.

I have spent all of my life around custom audio and home theater. My dad was a big A/V nut and ran his own custom business in SoCal and I worked as an installer/system calibrater for a number of years. Email me if you have any other specific questions, some of the advice offered may need more explanation. I may also be able to help you optimize your existing setup; I live in a retirement community and have several clients with similar issues.

of course with a center channel he would need a new processor/amplifier. any decent head units these days have auto formatting and the latest surround formats aside from those pretty much only available in higher end models. that really isnt that important since 95% of the recordings are in dolby digital.