Issue Setting up Phantom Center for Surround Sound Content

J

JohnnyN

Audioholic Intern
I'm having an issue trying to set up a phantom center for surround sound content. Works just fine for 2 channel TV content, but when switching over to 5+ channel content, for some reason my receiver is favoring the front right channel. I've already tried:

- cables: not the cables
- room acoustics/speaker placement - it's not room acoustics or speaker placement (I've put my ear next to both front channels - it's very noticeable; even checked with a decibel meter app to be sure)
- levels and distance - both speakers at 0 (and both set at proper (same) distance from the center listening position)

When using for 2 channel content it creates a center image just fine, but when switching to 5+ channel content the effect is essentially it sounds like the dialogue, etc is coming from the front right channel.

Anyone come across this before or have any idea on what might be causing this/how I can further troubleshoot?

*I have a Sony STR-DN1080 receiver.
 
T

Trebdp83

Audioholic Ninja
Howdy. Are you using eARC/ARC or optical output from TV? Have you tried converting the audio to PCM in the TV sound settings?
 
J

JohnnyN

Audioholic Intern
My receiver and TV are connected via eARC, so I'm using eARC to output from smart TV to receiver for Netflix and the like. And this issue is also happening with blu-ray player, which is connected to directly to the receiver, since I have everything connected via eARC. If I watch an older DVD on 2-channel stereo, then no issue--they play at the same level.

When using receiver to do test tones on front 2 speakers, they're at the same volume.
 
Kingnoob

Kingnoob

Audioholic Samurai
I'm having an issue trying to set up a phantom center for surround sound content. Works just fine for 2 channel TV content, but when switching over to 5+ channel content, for some reason my receiver is favoring the front right channel. I've already tried:

- cables: not the cables
- room acoustics/speaker placement - it's not room acoustics or speaker placement (I've put my ear next to both front channels - it's very noticeable; even checked with a decibel meter app to be sure)
- levels and distance - both speakers at 0 (and both set at proper (same) distance from the center listening position)

When using for 2 channel content it creates a center image just fine, but when switching to 5+ channel content the effect is essentially it sounds like the dialogue, etc is coming from the front right channel.

Anyone come across this before or have any idea on what might be causing this/how I can further troubleshoot?

*I have a Sony STR-DN1080 receiver.
Other then getting a speaker for your center I’m not sure how to fix this.
What main speakers you using ?
You could run all channels stereo mode or something, but surrounds always going to sound bad no center .

Or try turning the volume down on your right front . Until it’s same spl as left
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
J

JohnnyN

Audioholic Intern
Yeah, raising the level on the L channel wound up fixing this issue. Glad I sorted it out--really preferring phantom center over the center channel that I own.
 
J

James Sokol

Audiophyte
I just recently experienced this with a Yamaha receiver which I hadn't run YPAO yet. You have to make sure the center channel is "off" in the speaker config otherwise the DSP will send all signals to the center that doesn't exist.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
By any chance was the right speaker in a corner and the left wasn't? Might also try running a reset of the avr to clear out any glitches....
 
J

JohnnyN

Audioholic Intern
Yeah, my receiver has auto-calibration, so I started from scratch and re-calibrated and that did the trick. Turned out the level of the left channel just had to be raised. Both L&R channels are in the middle of the room (along the long wall of a room, so plenty of room to the left and right of each). But I should have known the right would play louder--for some reason the acoustics in that part of the room make things play louder (and I should have known because the R channel is right next to my subwoofer, which was the best spot for the sub after doing the sub crawl).

I lived with the phantom center (2x Jamo S 803s) for a bit and it was definitely better than using the center channel I had at the time (Jamo S 83). But I just recently got a Hsu CCB-8 for the center and I'm preferring that over the phantom center--even with the timbre issue across the front, it's just a better experience. Not too surprising, I guess--it's just a much better home theater speaker than the Jamos. But I was a bit surprised when my receiver set the CCB-8 at -8.5 db--I knew it was a more powerful speaker, wouldn't have guessed that big of a difference though.
 
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