Weird balancing issues with L/C/R & Denon X1300

[ht_enthusiast]

I picked up a Denon X1300 and a set of Klipsch RP series L/C/R speakers recently and have been very happy with performance.

However, something I've noticed recently is that when I'm watching a very action-oriented bluray (for example Kong Skull Island) or something on Netflix that has a musical montage (for example, GLOW), the music/soundtrack suddenly plays very quietly through the left and right speakers. And when center channel content comes back in it's very loud.

I am not sure if this is a balancing issue in Audyssey or what but it's very distracting. I normally watch during evening hours and bump up the Dialogue setting about 1 or 2 dB - but this difference in sound seems much greater than 1 or 2 dB.

I also notice this when the center channel is doing a lot of heavy lifting - there may be lots of sound effects and dialog in the center channel, but then I barely hear the soundtrack coming out of the L/R speakers.

A good example is during Kong Skull Island, there is an action sequence with a chugging guitar riff in the background that is barely audible through my main front speakers. And at the final scene where the soundtrack is very heavy, and should swell quite a bit - it is very silent in the L/R speakers compared to the dialogue in the center channel.

The L/C/R speakers are matched well (150m L/R & 250c C). Is there a setting I accidentally switched somewhere that can be causing this mix issue?

 

[NINaudio]

Do you have an spl meter? You can always check the audyssey setting by using the manual speaker level setup with an spl meter.

If that is not an option, I would suggest running audyssey again and seeing if you get better results.

 

[ht_enthusiast]

Do you have an spl meter? You can always check the audyssey setting by using the manual speaker level setup with an spl meter.

If that is not an option, I would suggest running audyssey again and seeing if you get better results.

Thanks - I don't have an SPL meter, but I'll re-run Audyssey and see if it gives me better results. On the face of things, all Audyssey settings look okay.

 

[j_garcia]

Make sure you turn Dynamic Range Control off and check the audio settings on the player for something like that as well.

 

[ht_enthusiast]

Make sure you turn Dynamic Range Control off and check the audio settings on the player for something like that as well.

Thanks, will do - I have it on "Light" Dynamic Range control, I'll turn that off.

The issue was coming both from Netflix on the Smart TV app and the UHD bluray on the XBOX One S, so it doesn't seem source-related ... more like a processing issue within the Denon.