What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?
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You don't have a center on any normal system, where does the dialogue come from? Everything you use in normal life from headphones to televisions to stereo systems plays mono channels through both stereo channels.
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@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
Simple surround sound improvement tip... if you don't need it due to crappy seating, simply remove the center speaker for improved sound quality. The extra center channel is the biggest source of audio quality loss in those setups.
Well.... it's a detriment to 2 channel music. I would recommend getting a center channel that is a grade or two better than the other speakers, because that's where the dialog comes out when you're watching TV/movies. Placement is still key, so it depends on the seating arrangement as Scott said. But if you can mount all the speakers in the "right" places, a good center channel will improve things greatly.
My surround system has 4x Polk towers, 1x dual 6" + tweeter center, also Polk, and 1x Polk 150w / 12 inch powered sub. My cheap Harmon/Kardon receiver is soon to be replaced because the display died. Music system is an old Fisher receiver/amp (cheap and sounds amazing), some old JVC 3-way towers with 12" woofers and an old pair of Castle Durhams (audiophile grade bookshelf speakers from UK. I picked them up for $100 because they're beat up and they didn't know what they had).
Even that the voice comes from there, you want it as high quality as possible and the center channel detracts from that. The human ear doesn't work in such a way as to make it sound better even with the speaker, even with the intention of it coming from there. You can get better blending and clarity from removing the speaker.
Disagreed. I've tested it extensively, with many setups, many different speakers. For surround sound encoded TV/movies, excluding the center channel makes me need to turn on captioning because the front center dialog disappears. You certainly don't want the center channel cranked up, but I have zero complaints about clarity, blending, or sound placement in my current setup. Without the center, you mostly just get the reverb from the dialog, which makes it washy and hard to distinguish.
The center cannot, it's impossible, have the same placement as the fronts. There is no way to make it sound as good with a center. It's impossible. You can make it "good", but you can't make it "as good".
Well then, like Rojo I must have shit equipment. When my center channel was out for a while, I had a hell of a time hearing the speech track - it was washed out, at best even with the other sounds, but generally much more muted, meaning I had to turn the volume up higher than normal to hear the talking.
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@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
Simple surround sound improvement tip... if you don't need it due to crappy seating, simply remove the center speaker for improved sound quality. The extra center channel is the biggest source of audio quality loss in those setups.
Well.... it's a detriment to 2 channel music. I would recommend getting a center channel that is a grade or two better than the other speakers, because that's where the dialog comes out when you're watching TV/movies. Placement is still key, so it depends on the seating arrangement as Scott said. But if you can mount all the speakers in the "right" places, a good center channel will improve things greatly.
My surround system has 4x Polk towers, 1x dual 6" + tweeter center, also Polk, and 1x Polk 150w / 12 inch powered sub. My cheap Harmon/Kardon receiver is soon to be replaced because the display died. Music system is an old Fisher receiver/amp (cheap and sounds amazing), some old JVC 3-way towers with 12" woofers and an old pair of Castle Durhams (audiophile grade bookshelf speakers from UK. I picked them up for $100 because they're beat up and they didn't know what they had).
Even that the voice comes from there, you want it as high quality as possible and the center channel detracts from that. The human ear doesn't work in such a way as to make it sound better even with the speaker, even with the intention of it coming from there. You can get better blending and clarity from removing the speaker.
Disagreed. I've tested it extensively, with many setups, many different speakers. For surround sound encoded TV/movies, excluding the center channel makes me need to turn on captioning because the front center dialog disappears. You certainly don't want the center channel cranked up, but I have zero complaints about clarity, blending, or sound placement in my current setup. Without the center, you mostly just get the reverb from the dialog, which makes it washy and hard to distinguish.
The center cannot, it's impossible, have the same placement as the fronts. There is no way to make it sound as good with a center. It's impossible. You can make it "good", but you can't make it "as good".
Well then, like Rojo I must have shit equipment. When my center channel was out for a while, I had a hell of a time hearing the speech track - it was washed out, at best even with the other sounds, but generally much more muted, meaning I had to turn the volume up higher than normal to hear the talking.
Did you tell the system that your center was out? Or did you have it set to continue sending the dialogue to an amp that wasn't powering a speaker so that was filtered out from the audio?
I've done this a lot, it's always better, always. Take any setup, remove the center (really remove it, don't just unplug it) and it improves.
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@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
you have a false assumption and that X will not happen. Then you tell me that that is not helpful. Then we go round and round
/sigh - ok my assumption was that the audio has to be blended into the mains.
OK sir - please, inform me where the speech track will come from so we can hear it if there is no center channel?
The fronts, of course. The things that produce all of the sound. The ones pointed at your ears instead of at your face. The ones that, in theory, have equal placement so that they have matching colour.
So what - you disagree with my use of the word blended? If the normal sounds that come out the mains have the audio from the speech track added to it - how would you describe that? would they not be blended together? If you have a better term, I will endeavor to use it instead.
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@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
...but generally much more muted, meaning I had to turn the volume up higher than normal to hear the talking.
And you never decided to fix it, you turned it up and played the echo of voices from the fronts instead of making the dialogue get played?
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@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
you have a false assumption and that X will not happen. Then you tell me that that is not helpful. Then we go round and round
/sigh - ok my assumption was that the audio has to be blended into the mains.
OK sir - please, inform me where the speech track will come from so we can hear it if there is no center channel?
The fronts, of course. The things that produce all of the sound. The ones pointed at your ears instead of at your face. The ones that, in theory, have equal placement so that they have matching colour.
So what - you disagree with my use of the word blended? If the normal sounds that come out the mains have the audio from the speech track added to it - how would you describe that? would they not be blended together? If you have a better term, I will endeavor to use it instead.
It doesn't. It's pulled out and sent to the mono center. There's no special handling here. You just... stop having the front. The channels are often not discrete, traditionally in the audio used by most television, the front is pulled out of the mains, it doesn't need to be blended back into them.
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@scottalanmiller I was referring to the placement of sound in the surround field. What is called panning in stereo. Surround sound is mixed and encoded on 6 (or 8 or more) separate channels. Therefore, movies and TV made in the last while have been specifically designed for the center channel to be there, as well as the sub. Excluding one of those channels is listening to only part of the whole sound. So you can continue to prefer no center speaker, while I will continue to prefer having one. All the sounds and voices on my system move around where they are supposed to. Before I got the center channel, I was watching without it, and I had to tweak the speaker levels all weird to hear anything. Add good center speaker = now I can hear everything, before I only had 5/6 of the sound. Yes, the center channel got mixed in with the front, which is a bandaid way of outputting that channel.
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@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
You don't have a center on any normal system, where does the dialogue come from? Everything you use in normal life from headphones to televisions to stereo systems plays mono channels through both stereo channels.
In those cases, we aren't playing 5.1, 7.1 etc versions of audio. We're playing 2.1 or just 2. I have to assume (though completely willing to be wrong) that the collapsing of sounds from all sources (since you didn't like the term blending) to simple stereo is probably done with more emphasis on the speech track, making it louder, therefore easier to hear. By extension, this makes me assume that a center channel in a 5.1, etc, system also plays the speech channel a bit louder than the rest.
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@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
You don't have a center on any normal system, where does the dialogue come from? Everything you use in normal life from headphones to televisions to stereo systems plays mono channels through both stereo channels.
You're mixing apples and trucks. Of course stereo systems don't have center channels. Nobody here is talking about a center channel with a stereo system. That's why my first post said "SEPARATE YOUR MUSIC AND SURROUND SYSTEMS". 2 different animals. No reason (or speaker output) for a center speaker with a music system.
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@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
Simple surround sound improvement tip... if you don't need it due to crappy seating, simply remove the center speaker for improved sound quality. The extra center channel is the biggest source of audio quality loss in those setups.
Well.... it's a detriment to 2 channel music. I would recommend getting a center channel that is a grade or two better than the other speakers, because that's where the dialog comes out when you're watching TV/movies. Placement is still key, so it depends on the seating arrangement as Scott said. But if you can mount all the speakers in the "right" places, a good center channel will improve things greatly.
My surround system has 4x Polk towers, 1x dual 6" + tweeter center, also Polk, and 1x Polk 150w / 12 inch powered sub. My cheap Harmon/Kardon receiver is soon to be replaced because the display died. Music system is an old Fisher receiver/amp (cheap and sounds amazing), some old JVC 3-way towers with 12" woofers and an old pair of Castle Durhams (audiophile grade bookshelf speakers from UK. I picked them up for $100 because they're beat up and they didn't know what they had).
Even that the voice comes from there, you want it as high quality as possible and the center channel detracts from that. The human ear doesn't work in such a way as to make it sound better even with the speaker, even with the intention of it coming from there. You can get better blending and clarity from removing the speaker.
Disagreed. I've tested it extensively, with many setups, many different speakers. For surround sound encoded TV/movies, excluding the center channel makes me need to turn on captioning because the front center dialog disappears. You certainly don't want the center channel cranked up, but I have zero complaints about clarity, blending, or sound placement in my current setup. Without the center, you mostly just get the reverb from the dialog, which makes it washy and hard to distinguish.
The center cannot, it's impossible, have the same placement as the fronts. There is no way to make it sound as good with a center. It's impossible. You can make it "good", but you can't make it "as good".
Well then, like Rojo I must have shit equipment. When my center channel was out for a while, I had a hell of a time hearing the speech track - it was washed out, at best even with the other sounds, but generally much more muted, meaning I had to turn the volume up higher than normal to hear the talking.
Did you tell the system that your center was out? Or did you have it set to continue sending the dialogue to an amp that wasn't powering a speaker so that was filtered out from the audio?
I've done this a lot, it's always better, always. Take any setup, remove the center (really remove it, don't just unplug it) and it improves.
No - I guess I assumed it was smart enough to do that itself.. I'll see about giving that a try this weekend, assuming my receiver supports that.
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@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller I was referring to the placement of sound in the surround field. What is called panning in stereo. Surround sound is mixed and encoded on 6 (or 8 or more) separate channels. Therefore, movies and TV made in the last while have been specifically designed for the center channel to be there, as well as the sub. Excluding one of those channels is listening to only part of the whole sound.
Even when they are designed for that, it's not how it works. Anything more than four channels takes away from the sound quality no matter what, period. This is acoustic physics. Panning stereo is hurt by having the center as you can't match the colour, it's impossible.
It is for exactly this reason that you want fewer channels.
Even when the original is designed for more channels, like in extreme low fi like movies, it still gets improved when you, and yes Dash is correct here, blend it to the proper four channels. It fixes color problems.
You can improve by removing the sub as well by going to full range speakers.
Excluding the DATA from those channels reduces sound quality, but excluding extra speakers improves it.
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@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
Simple surround sound improvement tip... if you don't need it due to crappy seating, simply remove the center speaker for improved sound quality. The extra center channel is the biggest source of audio quality loss in those setups.
Well.... it's a detriment to 2 channel music. I would recommend getting a center channel that is a grade or two better than the other speakers, because that's where the dialog comes out when you're watching TV/movies. Placement is still key, so it depends on the seating arrangement as Scott said. But if you can mount all the speakers in the "right" places, a good center channel will improve things greatly.
My surround system has 4x Polk towers, 1x dual 6" + tweeter center, also Polk, and 1x Polk 150w / 12 inch powered sub. My cheap Harmon/Kardon receiver is soon to be replaced because the display died. Music system is an old Fisher receiver/amp (cheap and sounds amazing), some old JVC 3-way towers with 12" woofers and an old pair of Castle Durhams (audiophile grade bookshelf speakers from UK. I picked them up for $100 because they're beat up and they didn't know what they had).
Even that the voice comes from there, you want it as high quality as possible and the center channel detracts from that. The human ear doesn't work in such a way as to make it sound better even with the speaker, even with the intention of it coming from there. You can get better blending and clarity from removing the speaker.
Disagreed. I've tested it extensively, with many setups, many different speakers. For surround sound encoded TV/movies, excluding the center channel makes me need to turn on captioning because the front center dialog disappears. You certainly don't want the center channel cranked up, but I have zero complaints about clarity, blending, or sound placement in my current setup. Without the center, you mostly just get the reverb from the dialog, which makes it washy and hard to distinguish.
The center cannot, it's impossible, have the same placement as the fronts. There is no way to make it sound as good with a center. It's impossible. You can make it "good", but you can't make it "as good".
Well then, like Rojo I must have shit equipment. When my center channel was out for a while, I had a hell of a time hearing the speech track - it was washed out, at best even with the other sounds, but generally much more muted, meaning I had to turn the volume up higher than normal to hear the talking.
Did you tell the system that your center was out? Or did you have it set to continue sending the dialogue to an amp that wasn't powering a speaker so that was filtered out from the audio?
I've done this a lot, it's always better, always. Take any setup, remove the center (really remove it, don't just unplug it) and it improves.
No - I guess I assumed it was smart enough to do that itself.. I'll see about giving that a try this weekend, assuming my receiver supports that.
They all support that.
Given that you describe it not working when it should have sounded better and the audio just vanished, it seems an odd assumption to think that it would "just do that." that's like assuming your car will drive you to the store, sitting in it and it not going anywhere, then complaining that the car was really slow instead of accepting that it didn't actually have an auto-pilot feature.
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@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
You don't have a center on any normal system, where does the dialogue come from? Everything you use in normal life from headphones to televisions to stereo systems plays mono channels through both stereo channels.
You're mixing apples and trucks. Of course stereo systems don't have center channels. Nobody here is talking about a center channel with a stereo system. That's why my first post said "SEPARATE YOUR MUSIC AND SURROUND SYSTEMS". 2 different animals. No reason (or speaker output) for a center speaker with a music system.
You only separate them if you want your movie system to be less than ideal. If you want the best sound from your movies, you still use good audio concepts. They don't change just because they are a movie, but you have to deal with less than ideal sources and adjust for that, that's all.
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@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
You don't have a center on any normal system, where does the dialogue come from? Everything you use in normal life from headphones to televisions to stereo systems plays mono channels through both stereo channels.
You're mixing apples and trucks. Of course stereo systems don't have center channels. Nobody here is talking about a center channel with a stereo system. That's why my first post said "SEPARATE YOUR MUSIC AND SURROUND SYSTEMS". 2 different animals. No reason (or speaker output) for a center speaker with a music system.
and this thread has only ever been about Surround, it was never about music listening.
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@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
You don't have a center on any normal system, where does the dialogue come from? Everything you use in normal life from headphones to televisions to stereo systems plays mono channels through both stereo channels.
In those cases, we aren't playing 5.1, 7.1 etc versions of audio. We're playing 2.1 or just 2. I have to assume (though completely willing to be wrong) that the collapsing of sounds from all sources (since you didn't like the term blending) to simple stereo is probably done with more emphasis on the speech track, making it louder, therefore easier to hear. By extension, this makes me assume that a center channel in a 5.1, etc, system also plays the speech channel a bit louder than the rest.
I'm not talking about those times, I'm talking about all the times you use video games, movies, etc. on anything less than a full surround system. Are you saying you've never watched TV on anything but surround sound, ever?
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@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
you have a false assumption and that X will not happen. Then you tell me that that is not helpful. Then we go round and round
/sigh - ok my assumption was that the audio has to be blended into the mains.
OK sir - please, inform me where the speech track will come from so we can hear it if there is no center channel?
The fronts, of course. The things that produce all of the sound. The ones pointed at your ears instead of at your face. The ones that, in theory, have equal placement so that they have matching colour.
i hate to disagree with you here but this is the same argument as having separate vm's, separate audio components. you want separate audio channels too. Having the center speaker separates the voice channel from the channels that go to the left and right fronts. separating them makes everything sound better in my opinion
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@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
You don't have a center on any normal system, where does the dialogue come from? Everything you use in normal life from headphones to televisions to stereo systems plays mono channels through both stereo channels.
You're mixing apples and trucks. Of course stereo systems don't have center channels. Nobody here is talking about a center channel with a stereo system. That's why my first post said "SEPARATE YOUR MUSIC AND SURROUND SYSTEMS". 2 different animals. No reason (or speaker output) for a center speaker with a music system.
and this thread has only ever been about Surround, it was never about music listening.
And I've never talked about anything else. I'm just talking about how you can reduce costs AND improve sound quality by not giving in to the marketing of the speaker and amp companies.
Their systems are designed to sound "ok" for lots of people, which might be your goal. But if you have just one or two well placed viewers, you get far better sound from just four speakers over any other possible configuration.
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@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
Simple surround sound improvement tip... if you don't need it due to crappy seating, simply remove the center speaker for improved sound quality. The extra center channel is the biggest source of audio quality loss in those setups.
Well.... it's a detriment to 2 channel music. I would recommend getting a center channel that is a grade or two better than the other speakers, because that's where the dialog comes out when you're watching TV/movies. Placement is still key, so it depends on the seating arrangement as Scott said. But if you can mount all the speakers in the "right" places, a good center channel will improve things greatly.
My surround system has 4x Polk towers, 1x dual 6" + tweeter center, also Polk, and 1x Polk 150w / 12 inch powered sub. My cheap Harmon/Kardon receiver is soon to be replaced because the display died. Music system is an old Fisher receiver/amp (cheap and sounds amazing), some old JVC 3-way towers with 12" woofers and an old pair of Castle Durhams (audiophile grade bookshelf speakers from UK. I picked them up for $100 because they're beat up and they didn't know what they had).
Even that the voice comes from there, you want it as high quality as possible and the center channel detracts from that. The human ear doesn't work in such a way as to make it sound better even with the speaker, even with the intention of it coming from there. You can get better blending and clarity from removing the speaker.
Disagreed. I've tested it extensively, with many setups, many different speakers. For surround sound encoded TV/movies, excluding the center channel makes me need to turn on captioning because the front center dialog disappears. You certainly don't want the center channel cranked up, but I have zero complaints about clarity, blending, or sound placement in my current setup. Without the center, you mostly just get the reverb from the dialog, which makes it washy and hard to distinguish.
The center cannot, it's impossible, have the same placement as the fronts. There is no way to make it sound as good with a center. It's impossible. You can make it "good", but you can't make it "as good".
Well then, like Rojo I must have shit equipment. When my center channel was out for a while, I had a hell of a time hearing the speech track - it was washed out, at best even with the other sounds, but generally much more muted, meaning I had to turn the volume up higher than normal to hear the talking.
Did you tell the system that your center was out? Or did you have it set to continue sending the dialogue to an amp that wasn't powering a speaker so that was filtered out from the audio?
I've done this a lot, it's always better, always. Take any setup, remove the center (really remove it, don't just unplug it) and it improves.
No - I guess I assumed it was smart enough to do that itself.. I'll see about giving that a try this weekend, assuming my receiver supports that.
They all support that.
Given that you describe it not working when it should have sounded better and the audio just vanished, it seems an odd assumption to think that it would "just do that." that's like assuming your car will drive you to the store, sitting in it and it not going anywhere, then complaining that the car was really slow instead of accepting that it didn't actually have an auto-pilot feature.
I assumed it would detect the center channel is not in use, and auto correct/update for the new situation. Tons of things do that. Sadly, it appears my receiver might not.
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@jmoore said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
you have a false assumption and that X will not happen. Then you tell me that that is not helpful. Then we go round and round
/sigh - ok my assumption was that the audio has to be blended into the mains.
OK sir - please, inform me where the speech track will come from so we can hear it if there is no center channel?
The fronts, of course. The things that produce all of the sound. The ones pointed at your ears instead of at your face. The ones that, in theory, have equal placement so that they have matching colour.
i hate to disagree with you here but this is the same argument as having separate vm's, separate audio components. you want separate audio channels too. Having the center speaker separates the voice channel from the channels that go to the left and right fronts. separating them makes everything sound better in my opinion
It's a totally different animal and the human ear does not work that way. It's literally physically impossible for extra channels to improve sound quality. Four is the max that the human ear can gain benefit from in a plane. If you wanted to argue for above and below, that would be different.
The center does NOT separate the voice, it plays a channel in the center. In the analogue surround world, it filtered OUT mono sound to play at lower quality.
Basic acoustic physics in play here. The center is impossible to add audio benefits if the placement of listeners is good.
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@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@dashrender said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@rojoloco said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
@scottalanmiller said in What do you like for a non expensive audio setup for surround sound TV/movies?:
Simple surround sound improvement tip... if you don't need it due to crappy seating, simply remove the center speaker for improved sound quality. The extra center channel is the biggest source of audio quality loss in those setups.
Well.... it's a detriment to 2 channel music. I would recommend getting a center channel that is a grade or two better than the other speakers, because that's where the dialog comes out when you're watching TV/movies. Placement is still key, so it depends on the seating arrangement as Scott said. But if you can mount all the speakers in the "right" places, a good center channel will improve things greatly.
My surround system has 4x Polk towers, 1x dual 6" + tweeter center, also Polk, and 1x Polk 150w / 12 inch powered sub. My cheap Harmon/Kardon receiver is soon to be replaced because the display died. Music system is an old Fisher receiver/amp (cheap and sounds amazing), some old JVC 3-way towers with 12" woofers and an old pair of Castle Durhams (audiophile grade bookshelf speakers from UK. I picked them up for $100 because they're beat up and they didn't know what they had).
Even that the voice comes from there, you want it as high quality as possible and the center channel detracts from that. The human ear doesn't work in such a way as to make it sound better even with the speaker, even with the intention of it coming from there. You can get better blending and clarity from removing the speaker.
Disagreed. I've tested it extensively, with many setups, many different speakers. For surround sound encoded TV/movies, excluding the center channel makes me need to turn on captioning because the front center dialog disappears. You certainly don't want the center channel cranked up, but I have zero complaints about clarity, blending, or sound placement in my current setup. Without the center, you mostly just get the reverb from the dialog, which makes it washy and hard to distinguish.
The center cannot, it's impossible, have the same placement as the fronts. There is no way to make it sound as good with a center. It's impossible. You can make it "good", but you can't make it "as good".
Well then, like Rojo I must have shit equipment. When my center channel was out for a while, I had a hell of a time hearing the speech track - it was washed out, at best even with the other sounds, but generally much more muted, meaning I had to turn the volume up higher than normal to hear the talking.
Did you tell the system that your center was out? Or did you have it set to continue sending the dialogue to an amp that wasn't powering a speaker so that was filtered out from the audio?
I've done this a lot, it's always better, always. Take any setup, remove the center (really remove it, don't just unplug it) and it improves.
No - I guess I assumed it was smart enough to do that itself.. I'll see about giving that a try this weekend, assuming my receiver supports that.
They all support that.
Given that you describe it not working when it should have sounded better and the audio just vanished, it seems an odd assumption to think that it would "just do that." that's like assuming your car will drive you to the store, sitting in it and it not going anywhere, then complaining that the car was really slow instead of accepting that it didn't actually have an auto-pilot feature.
I assumed it would detect the center channel is not in use, and auto correct/update for the new situation. Tons of things do that. Sadly, it appears my receiver might not.
Right, and many do. But it depends on a lot of things. They can't always detect not in use, depending on what has happened. And the decoder has to detect it, not the amp, so the amp would have to tell the decoder.
But you detected it. That's the key thing I'm saying. You noticed that something was wrong that it wasn't playing the audio that it was supposed to.
