Adjusting Receiver for movie dialogue?

[player9]

I have a Denon 3801 receiver hooked up to some Eosone 1000 towers (for the front speakers) that have built-in powered subs, but I guess my center channel is too weak for these speakers, cause I notice that when I watch movies, the dialogue is too low and worse there is a delay at the end of words, especially "S" sounds, tend to sound very slurred, almost giving the impression of lipse or slur. I am assuming it is the digital delay, but I've set it to match the size of the room on the receiver.

My center channel is an older model CambridgeSoundworks 150 model. I have not yet gotten around to doing adjustments with a SoundLevel Meter, but I'm wondering if that would help at all with the dialogue volume and delay. I've used the fader on the Denon to turn up the center channel by +2 which helps, but the dialogue still sounds slurred.

Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[Dan]

You must tell the receiver the distance each speaker is from the listening position so it can set the delays appropriately. In addition, the SPL meter is key to getting the output from each speaker balanced. It is surprisingly hard to do this by ear. Only when the system is fully calibrated can you evaluate your center channel. Also if assuming you sit in the "sweet spot" to watch a movie, you may not need the center. If your receiver can be set to 4 channel with the mains playing R+C and L+C the voice should be natural. At least it wotks that way for me. If I am off axis or there are more than two people(sitting very close) watching I need the Center channel though.

 

[player9]

I think I figured out where the dialogue distortion was coming from. It's the Sony DVD player. There is an option called AUDIO FILTER which can be set to SHARP or SLOW with sharp being the default. I had set it to SLOW and it caused the problem. I checked Matrix Reloaded and Lord of the Rings, and it definitely made the difference.

I am still going to get a soundlevel meter and optimize the speakers though.

Thanks for your reply.