Dialogue/vocals completely absent from center channel

[RCA Dimensia]

I was messing around setting up my home theater for summer (it's in my barn-we call it the Barn Theater), and i was listening to music when a Beatles song came on. Now if you have any experience with Beatles music (and 1960s music in general) you will realize that they are usually panned hard left and right, as stereo was still a fairly new concept, and thus it was abused a little.

Anyway, I was using my laptop connected to my receiver through a low end aux cord. The receiver was set on Pro Logic-I (yes the one that's been around since 1987). The song was Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da and the vocals were solidly not in the center channel. In fact they seemed to be even in every other channel besides it. Front left, right, and surround. It was neat to hear as it was the first song that came on after I turned it up.

Does anyone else know of any songs with a similar effect. And with what decoder. Also, how is it that ALL stereo signals are able to be decoded into surround. I mean EVERY one.

 

[RCA Dimensia]

It surprised me because I had just switched from the reciever's DVD player to my laptop and was anticipating what some older songs would translate to in Pro Logic 1. And obviously when the vocals came in from all directions it was like "super-surround-y", almost like an exaggerated effect that one would use to boast the surround sound. It really surprised me how fully and cleanly absent the vocals were from the center channel. There was none of that indiscreteness and sloppiness that Pro Logic One is usually plagued with.

 

[highfigh]

I was messing around setting up my home theater for summer (it's in my barn-we call it the Barn Theater), and i was listening to music when a Beatles song came on. Now if you have any experience with Beatles music (and 1960s music in general) you will realize that they are usually panned hard left and right, as stereo was still a fairly new concept, and thus it was abused a little.

Anyway, I was using my laptop connected to my receiver through a low end aux cord. The receiver was set on Pro Logic-I (yes the one that's been around since 1987). The song was Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da and the vocals were solidly not in the center channel. In fact they seemed to be even in every other channel besides it. Front left, right, and surround. It was neat to hear as it was the first song that came on after I turned it up.

Does anyone else know of any songs with a similar effect. And with what decoder. Also, how is it that ALL stereo signals are able to be decoded into surround. I mean EVERY one.

What other surround mode options do you have? Why not use one of the other modes?

Actually, stereo had been demonstrated in the '30s and the main reason the Beatles music used hard right and left is that the recorders they used were only 2 and 4 track, so they had to bounce tracks from three down to one in order to add other tracks. also, there was no placing a vocal track somewhat to the left or right until stereo mixing boards were more available.

 

[RCA Dimensia]

LOL that receiver has PL1, Dolby Digital for movies (in the DVD drive), and Dolby 3 stereo. It's a low end receiver. It has different listening options for each- phantom, wide, etc. It's interesting becuase it's a six channel setup-Dolby Digital, and it uses all five in PL1 decoding mode, but the two surround channels are the same of course. In my fairly good looks-no-issue setup, PL1 isn't that bad. I've played surround sound tests with it and the untrained ear wouldn't notice that the surrounds are mono-just a little more proof that more surround channels are not the way to go (PLIIx, DD Ex). I can't belive 7.1 uses as many, no MORE, surround channels as front channels. Front widths and height channels are the way to go.