The dreaded "muddy center speaker" question

[ryanosaur]

That picture is misleading. The fronts are quite a ways from the back wall - at least 2 feet and at least 1' from each side wall. I can move them even farther away from the wall close to the cabinet no problem.

The little satellites are set up as front presence or height as you said. This allows me to watch Atmos content, but obviously they are not as good as actual ceiling speakers. The rears are spaced apart quite strangely - but the room correction did a great job. They sound like I have speakers in the rear.

Pull your L/R speakers forward so the baffles are not even with the wall to the left where that nook ends. Try to get 1' from the baffle of left speaker to the closer wall. don't need to move side to side... just forward. This will help slightly with an obvious source of diffraction.

 

[TLS Guy]

Wow that's different. Your comment explains why I feel most center channels sound bad - even in *some* theaters. As much as I enjoyed Smaug's crazy deep voice in the Hobbit, I prefer the most natural sounding voice as I get when playing 2 channel audio. I always wondered why the center sounds so much worse in movies compared to singers.

My transmission line center speaker using coaxial drivers and active precise baffle step compensation.

FR

That one is a keeper, but it was a lot of work!

 

[Bookmark]

The BBC seem to agree with me as in their multi channel offerings no center channel signal is provided. Their reasoning is that far too many centers just muck everything up. I agree.

The BBC OTA output gathers, by far and away, the most negative complaints about intelligible dialog mostly in it's dramas. Mumbling is the common term frequently used and has done for over the last decade. Only the odd programs (films usually) on BBC 1HD and 2HD use 5.1 multi channel AAC, the rest is all stereo AAC and everything is a fairly low bitrate of 128kbps.

 

[TLS Guy]

The BBC OTA output gathers, by far and away, the most negative complaints about intelligible dialog mostly in it's dramas. Mumbling is the common term frequently used and has done for over the last decade. Only the odd programs (films usually) on BBC 1HD and 2HD use 5.1 multi channel AAC, the rest is all stereo AAC and everything is a fairly low bitrate of 128kbps.

Well I know nothing of over the air other than on visits to the UK and none of the systems are advance. The quality from iPlayer is excellent especially from downloads. I have a way of getting to the BBC. The Prom broadcasts especially are excellent. On the two systems that I have that can use iPlayer I have no issues with dialog at all. Do you download programs on Player? If you do and have dialog issues then your equipment is not up to it.

 

[Bookmark]

Apologies for derailing a thread

Normally I record the Freeview OTA channels to the HTPC, I use the internal TBS 6205 quad channel T/T2 tuner running NextPVR back-end and Kodi front. Works pretty reliably since the demise of Win 7 WMC. We switched over to digital in the UK around 10 years ago, completed in 2012. I used to be able to record both Freeview and Freesat. These channels are duplicated on Sky satellite (their own box) which at least has more terrestrial HD content, but that has cost beyond the BBC license fee, which is still required. I replaced Sky two years ago with Netflix, Prime and Sky Now and have access to far more content at about a 1/4 of the price. The BBC are trialing 4K and HLG but no word on what audio will be. They did stream the 2018 World cup final live in 4k, I lasted a minute or two before have to drop it as it was unwatchable.

I stopped using iPlayer last year and the majority of the commercial station apps, mostly down to their insistence on signing in for tracking purposes. I effectively run my own catch up service now. From what I've read, the majority of iPlayer content is stereo intended, for playback on phones and tablets. I've not seen any multi channel material on there before, but there could well be. I would have though the Proms would be a good bet and Glastonbury too, however this is music and that's normally stereo anyway. BBC Dvds normally sport DD 5.1 or Dolby stereo. They use Dts HDMA for the blurays and UHD so far.

I have no problems with the dialogue off any of the Tv channels whether in stereo or multi channel. Some of the Tv channels are down on the overall volume though, but not apparently the adverts. When the BBC showed Tommy (1975) that was in 5.1 OTA, a couple of years ago, originally Quintophonic in the cinemas.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073812/

I agree there are some bad centre speaker designs about, personally I am very happy with my Tannoy Eyris DCC.

 

[JerryLove]

Literally the first time I've truly liked a center in my HT setup has been with the Klipsch KL-650s I'm setting up now. Every other time, I've run into the "hard to understand" muddy center problem.

What I did was get rid of my centers [excepting the new KL setup] and switched to a phantom-center setting. That worked pretty well for me personally.

 

[Needa916]

Pull your L/R speakers forward so the baffles are not even with the wall to the left where that nook ends. Try to get 1' from the baffle of left speaker to the closer wall. don't need to move side to side... just forward. This will help slightly with an obvious source of diffraction.

Okay so I just had a chance to try this today. My receiver for some reason didn't put out sound yesterday, I was freaking out. It came back on after turning on FM radio. I'm not sure what that was all about.

I just tried your suggestion today, and didn't notice any difference. Which leads me to believe that I just have horrible room acoustics, with cheap speakers. I don't know anybody in this message board that uses the Sony speakers from Best Buy



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[ryanosaur]

Okay so I just had a chance to try this today. My receiver for some reason didn't put out sound yesterday, I was freaking out. It came back on after turning on FM radio. I'm not sure what that was all about.

I just tried your suggestion today, and didn't notice any difference. Which leads me to believe that I just have horrible room acoustics, with cheap speakers. I don't know anybody in this message board that uses the Sony speakers from Best Buy

If its not audible, cool... no harm no foul!
Until two months ago I was on an old Onkyo HTIB with speakers the size of kleenex boxes... and a rinky-dink Fisher-Price My First Subwoofer... in a 8000'3 room.
We all start somewhere.
Very glad you were willing to try it, though. Part of the process of learning is experimenting! And if you pursue stepping up at some point, and I hope you might choose to explore that, the world of audio and HT really open up! And you can do it without mortgaging the home, too!
Hopefully you'll get to experiment a little with that center channel of yours, and maybe something we suggested here will help it out.
And if you decide to upgrade sometime... Don't forget about us. We love to help people shop and spend their money wisely.
Cheers!

 

[Needa916]

We love to help people shop and spend their money wisely.
Cheers!

If I only had the knowledge but I have now, I would have picked up a different set of front and center speakers. Who knows, I would have maybe had other problems with those due to my room configuration.

Anyway, this group seems to be very friendly. Maybe someone in my area who's on this forum will lend me their center to try out for a few days


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