improving center channel for dialog

A

alternapop

Enthusiast
I have a mild/moderate hearing loss in the upper range and am having a hard time hearing dialog for many things. Despite my attempts to adjust the config reasonably, the dialog for some things still sounds too muted/muffled. This is my current set up:

Onkyo 656 av receiver
AV123 x-statik (left and right)
  • System: Three way, five driver open baffle/sealed hybrid
  • Drivers: 1" treated fabric dome and 4x custom 6.5" curvilinear shaped treated paper cone woofers with polymer chassis
  • Crossover: 200Hz and 1800Hz
  • Frequency Response: 65 Hz to 20 KHz (± 3 dB)
  • Impedance: 8 Ohms nominal
  • Efficiency: 90.5dB (@ 1 watt / 1 meter)
  • Dimensions: 46.7" H x 8.5" W x 16.5" D
AV123 x-cs (center)
  • System: Two way, three driver direct-radiating system, sealed enclosure.
  • Drivers: 1" treated fabric dome and two custom 6.5" curvilinear shaped treated paper cone woofers with polymer chassis
  • Crossover: 2100Hz, 2nd order
  • Frequency Response: 65 Hz to 20 KHz (± 3 dB)
  • Impedance: 8 Ohms nominal
  • Efficiency: 90.5 dB (@ 1 watt / 1 meter)
My speakers are about 10 years old but still in very good shape. I'm willing to get a new center speaker, or less than ideally new left/right/center speakers if it'll help substantially.

I've turned up the volume a touch and tweaked the EQ for the center channel, and it has helped, but I still feel like I need to turn up the volume of the whole system too much for my neighbors (condo building) and guests.

My living room is carpeted and has a vaulted ceiling, 8 feet to the left increasing to probably 15 feet to the right.

What would your recommendations for improved dialog clarity be?

Thanks!
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
How is the center speaker currently placed/positioned?
 
A

alternapop

Enthusiast
also, to be honest, I find the center speaker too big for my current room, size-wise/visually, and wouldn't mind finding something that is both smaller and perhaps helps with the dialog. (price under $150)
 
Last edited:
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
With it sitting on the floor, that's the real issue IMO. The X-CS is a pretty good speaker actually, but it definitely isn't small. Smaller unfortunately is not going to help with making center dialog clearer IMO. I'd probably look for something brighter and more sensitive, though not really sure what will realistically blend with the x-statics.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
I think placement changes would be the first step rather than replacing. Do you have room to put it under the tv and angle it towards your ears? I use a stand like this
 
A

alternapop

Enthusiast
I think placement changes would be the first step rather than replacing. Do you have room to put it under the tv and angle it towards your ears? I use a stand like this
My place is a small 1 bedroom condo with one large room for the kitchen and living area. Placing the large x-cs horizontally is really not preferred either with my current small entertainment console or the one I'll likely order. It's a bit overkill space-wise for what I now have.

What would be a decent smaller center speaker that would likely be a good fit for the x-statiks?
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
My place is a small 1 bedroom condo with one large room for the kitchen and living area. Placing the large x-cs horizontally is really not preferred either with my current small entertainment console or the one I'll likely order. It's a bit overkill space-wise for what I now have.

What would be a decent smaller center speaker that would likely be a good fit for the x-statiks?
If you're going to put it on the floor I think your setup would only get worse with a lesser speaker. How about a pic of your console for ideas? If you place aesthetics ahead of audio there's a price....
 
A

alternapop

Enthusiast
I'm leaning toward something like a mid-century styled wooden cabinet, exact one to be determined.

I'm guessing not but are there any decent small, wall mounted center speaker options that could be mounted on the wall below/above the tv? Or sit horizontally inside one of the small cubbyholes of the cabinet if it has one?
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Why not mount your current speaker on a shelf above the tv? Or put the tv on a riser and the speaker inside the riser? Can look nice and would give you better aiming options....not a fan of sticking a box speaker in a cabinet myself.
 
A

alternapop

Enthusiast
Considering the size of my condo, those options aren't the direction I'd like to go but I appreciate the suggestions.

I'd rather go with an in-the-wall center speaker aesthetically instead of putting my current center speaker horizontally but realize it may reduce the center speaker sound quality. Maybe installing an in-the-wall speaker horizontally versus the current setup might improve dialog clarity?
 
Last edited:
William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
Lots of good ideas so far. Getting it off the floor should be a great help. I'm also a little suspicious of the soft fabric tweeter. Brighter and more sensitive is right. Maybe something by klipsch?
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
The fabric tweeter on the X-CS is pretty good. The midbass drivers are 6 1/2" though and I found the X-LS booskshelf from that line to be a bit muddy at times unless you pushed it pretty hard and I figure the center would be similar. That's a bit large of a driver for dialogue IMO.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I have a number of observations about this. I will frame the issues.

The first is do you use hearing aids?

Do you know what your audiogram shows if you have had one? Of particular importance is the frequency at which your hearing starts to decline. This is known as the turnover frequency.

The next issue, is your main speakers.

Finally your center and general issues concerning center speaker, and issues in general regarding speakers and speech intelligibility.

Knowing the answers to the first two questions would be of enormous value value in offering you help and advice.

Now concerning your open baffle main speakers. I have to say these speakers are not a good design at all. When these speakers were introduced I had a vigorous argument with the designer. The fact there is NO passive crossover solution for that arrangement. Any speaker like that has to employ electronic crossovers and multiple amplifiers.

The fact there is multiple reflections from the rear of the cones, will add to speech intelligibility issues for someone hard of hearing. I think changing out those speakers is job 1 for you.

The fact is that many speakers have poor speech intelligibility. This is a frequent complaint. The BBC are frequently inundated with complaints about this. Currently there is a high action series running called SS/GB. This is a dramatization of a novel imagining what would have happened had Britain lost the Battle of Britain in WW II. People have been complaining that they have to watch the programs with subtitles turned on. There have been numerous articles in the press about it.

We have been watching the series and have heard every word. My center gain has not been turned up and no special adjustments have been made.

The ugly fact is that a speaker can measure well with the usual measurements and actually sound good on music and still have problems with speech. You seldom hear reviewers even mention speech reproduction, even in this era of HT. Speech intelligibility is now a critical performance criterion for speaker evaluation in my view.

My researches using volunteers have shown that crossovers, even well designed ones muck up speech discrimination if the crossover is in the speech discrimination band. The higher the order of the crossover the more harm is done. Horizontal centers have a very bad lobing problem that enhances floor and ceiling reflections. This horizontal MTM idea needs to be abandoned.
The bass Q of the speaker needs to be low. High Q resonant speakers really cause trouble.
Having the sub too hot is another problem creator in this area.

Now your center has a crossover at 2.1 KHz. I have found this to be a very bad region for a center speaker to have a crossover as far as speech is concerned.

I have three main systems and all have very good speech intelligibility indeed whether the center speaker is used or not and one does not have a center.

My main system uses a coaxial driver, in a damped transmission line and is non resonant. I have taken great care with the 2.9 KHz crossover to get the FR smooth. The main speakers cross at 2.5 KHz. Great care is taken in these crossovers to minimize phase and therefore time aberrations.

The system with no center, uses Dynaudio D76 dome midranges crossed at 400 Hz and 4 KHz, so there is no crossover on the speech discrimination band.

The other system uses mains with a 3 Khz crossover, first order low pass and first order high pass transitioning to second order. So this has very linear phase. The center of this system is a full range 4" Jordan Watts driver and no crossover. Again speech intelligibility is excellent.

So from what I have learned I would look for some nice bookshelves with a wide bandwidth bass/mid, and the higher the crossover point the better.

For a center I would use the SEAS Loki, with the coaxial driver, or buy a Mark Audio full range 4" aluminum cone driver, and make the sealed enclosure yourself, or have a carpenter make it for you. This speaker could certainly be made in wall.

That will give you the best speech intelligibility.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
I have a mild/moderate hearing loss in the upper range and am having a hard time hearing dialog for many things. Despite my attempts to adjust the config reasonably, the dialog for some things still sounds too muted/muffled. This is my current set up:

Onkyo 656 av receiver
AV123 x-statik (left and right)
  • System: Three way, five driver open baffle/sealed hybrid
  • Drivers: 1" treated fabric dome and 4x custom 6.5" curvilinear shaped treated paper cone woofers with polymer chassis
  • Crossover: 200Hz and 1800Hz
  • Frequency Response: 65 Hz to 20 KHz (± 3 dB)
  • Impedance: 8 Ohms nominal
  • Efficiency: 90.5dB (@ 1 watt / 1 meter)
  • Dimensions: 46.7" H x 8.5" W x 16.5" D
AV123 x-cs (center)
  • System: Two way, three driver direct-radiating system, sealed enclosure.
  • Drivers: 1" treated fabric dome and two custom 6.5" curvilinear shaped treated paper cone woofers with polymer chassis
  • Crossover: 2100Hz, 2nd order
  • Frequency Response: 65 Hz to 20 KHz (± 3 dB)
  • Impedance: 8 Ohms nominal
  • Efficiency: 90.5 dB (@ 1 watt / 1 meter)
My speakers are about 10 years old but still in very good shape. I'm willing to get a new center speaker, or less than ideally new left/right/center speakers if it'll help substantially.

I've turned up the volume a touch and tweaked the EQ for the center channel, and it has helped, but I still feel like I need to turn up the volume of the whole system too much for my neighbors (condo building) and guests.

My living room is carpeted and has a vaulted ceiling, 8 feet to the left increasing to probably 15 feet to the right.

What would your recommendations for improved dialog clarity be?

Thanks!
Does the receiver have manual EQ? I'd crank 2khz and 4khz up 6dB if it does since that's the range where most hearing loss occurs. You could look for something bright, but you'd have to be careful with that because some bright speakers like the polk audio OWM5 are bright at 16khz, and I find its hard to hear dialogue on it with perfect hearing. I'd look for something with an accentuated upper midrange.
 
Last edited:
Halon451

Halon451

Audioholic Samurai
Does the receiver have manual EQ? I'd crank 2khz and 4khz up 6dB if it does since that's the range where most hearing loss occurs. You could look for something bright, but you'd have to be careful with that because some bright speakers like the polk audio OWM5 are bright at 16khz, and I find its hard to hear dialogue on it with perfect hearing. I'd look for something with an accentuated upper midrange.
I can't comment on this specifically in the context of hearing loss so I'll take your word on that, but IME boosting 4khz is often a bad idea for overall sound quality. It may bring the vocals out a bit but 4khz is a rather unpleasant frequency on most ears if boosted too high. I mix music a lot, and I always end up cutting a few db out of this range. It's a harsh range on the ears, and can be quite fatiguing. In his case maybe a slight boost in this range would help though but I wouldn't recommend too much.

Anywhere from 1 to 2 kHz would give dialogue a bit more separation and clarity without adding too much harshness. Likewise I might consider cutting back on the lower freq ranges, as they could be muddying up his sound and obscuring speech. As a rule of thumb with EQ, I prefer to cut frequencies rather than boost.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Does the receiver have manual EQ? I'd crank 2khz and 4khz up 6dB if it does since that's the range where most hearing loss occurs. You could look for something bright, but you'd have to be careful with that because some bright speakers like the polk audio OWM5 are bright at 16khz, and I find its hard to hear dialogue on it with perfect hearing. I'd look for something with an accentuated upper midrange.
Not the right idea. You need to keep the sound as natural as possible. I have noticed that crossovers seem the biggest impediment in this area.

Usually people do not notice hearing loss to any great degree until the loss starts at 2.5 KHz.
Generally tough people do not turn up in the doctors office until the turnover frequency is 1.5 KHz or less. After that point symptoms increase exponentially. With inner ear/nerve type deafness then crowds and parties present especial difficulty, while normal one to one speech may be OK.

I have a hunch that the time delays of crossovers also cause scatter. I do know that if you can avoiding crossover in the 400 to 4KHz range helps, as long as it is still a decent speaker. Avoiding time delays and advances also comes into the picture. In addition the lower the crossover frequency, the greater the time shift due to wave length. We have got into lazy habits because we express these crossover effect in degrees. However if you have a second order crossover at 1.5 KHz or 3 KHz, the phase shift is the same 180 degrees. This masks the real effect as the time shift has doubled going down from 3 KHz to 1.5 KHz. There is a big push now to think and express these effects as time and not phase. They both are different ways of expressing the same thing, but expressing these aberrations in time drives the point home with much more force of the extent of the trespass of crossovers.
 
A

alternapop

Enthusiast
I have a number of observations about this. I will frame the issues.
Thanks for your reply...

I tried hearing aids for a brief time but found them too annoying to use daily so I got away from using them at all. I can hear conversation fine if you're in front of me and facing me. If you're across the room and facing the other way then it's harder for me to decipher everything.

For the SEAS Loki recommendation, I see this online but it looks to be a kit only. Does anyone sell this already built? If not, what would you recommend for an off-the-shelf small center?

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/coaxial-speaker-kits/seas-loki-mkii-coaxial-kit-parts-only-each/

For the left/right, I listen to a lot of music too so would like something that is a good fit for both television/movies and music. What's a good entry level bookshelf for my situation?

thanks!
 
Last edited:
newsletter

  • RBHsound.com
  • BlueJeansCable.com
  • SVS Sound Subwoofers
  • Experience the Martin Logan Montis
Top