ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Beosound Stage, Beovision 8-40, Beolit 20, Beosound Explore.
Eclipse 65V1-32Beosound M5Essence MK2BLI
Seanie_230:Wow my 7-55 with 7-4, BL9 & BL6000 is amazing The clarity is perfect and I never have an issue. Perhaps you need a detailed centre speaker in fact I'm sure of it. Centre is where the vocals etc go normally. SK BLGW - Rekindling the love of ML
I center channel speaker is important, about 70% of the sound comes out of the center channel. Unfortunately, too many movies and shows are poorly mixed and the center channel volume is not high enough to bring out the dialog. I found "Interstellar" to be one of these, I had to up the volume of the center channel significantly to be able to make out the dialog in the presence of overly loud L and R effects. If your TV/processor allows this, jack up the center channel volume. Even if it is setup to use only L and R and "phantom" center you should be able to increase the amount of center sound sent to the L and R by upping the volume of the center.
It's very annoying to not be able to hear dialog. Recently I encountered that watching "The Expanse" on Amazon Video. Fortunately it's fairly easy to go into the menu and play with volume settings on my Marantz AVR.
Jeff
I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus.
"You think we can slap some oak on this thing?"
I said it maybe ten times on this forum. On a 5.1 set up the only way to increase the sound of the center channel is by lowering the level of the front speakers.
I never add any issue with my several bv7.
There are real differences if you select speaker 5 instead of speaker 3 when you have only 3 speakers and a 5.1 source.
If you have only a 7.2 or 7.6 and your movie is in 5.1, your bluray player should be able to downmix the output in stereo.
4 beolab 5, beolab 9, beolab 10, beolab 5000, beolab 8000 mk2, beolab 6002, beolab 3500, beovision 7 55 mk2, 2 beovision 11 46 mk4, beotime, beosound ouverture, beosound essence, beoplay A8, beomaster 900 RG de luxe and the collection continues...
leogoeswild:Just to check, can you try to choose speaker 5? I had the same issue with my setup once, and for some reason it turned itself to speaker 4, so the center channel was actually missing..
You can set the distance and the level of the speakers. Reduce the level of the front and the center speaker will be louder.
I am pulling up a very old thread as the issue remains for me.
Speaker mode 1 and 2 are brilliant. But I have a 5.1 audio system (BV7 with 4 x BL8000, 1 BL2), so would love speaker mode 5 to work as well.
I reduced the speaker level of the two front speakers by 8 "ticks" which makes it better. I doubt that this is meant to be like this?
Can anyone post settings for levels?
BeoNut since '75
This is an issue more broadly though, and i agree its not ideal.
Look around on AV sites, and you will see that the sound mix on many discs causes many many people to struggle with the vocals. And it has become fairly common to hear of people using subtitles with native language content, which is just odd when you think about it.
Hence you have newer sound-bars with vocal boosting / speech clarifying modes. I think those modes have to be quite aggressive to get to a sensible result.
For my 5.1 set up (BV12-65 as centre, BL18's s fronts, BL19 sub, BL3s as rears) i have had to exaggerate the speaker settings quite a lot to get to a better understanding of the vocals. And whatever settings parameters work well for one movie, don't always work for the next disc.
steve1977:Why is your default speaker set to 2 and not to 5? with my basic understanding default speaker set 2 runs the front speakers in stereo, but turns off the center speaker and reaers.
Sandyb:This is an issue more broadly though, and i agree its not ideal. Look around on AV sites, and you will see that the sound mix on many discs causes many many people to struggle with the vocals. And it has become fairly common to hear of people using subtitles with native language content, which is just odd when you think about it. Hence you have newer sound-bars with vocal boosting / speech clarifying modes. I think those modes have to be quite aggressive to get to a sensible result. For my 5.1 set up (BV12-65 as centre, BL18's s fronts, BL19 sub, BL3s as rears) i have had to exaggerate the speaker settings quite a lot to get to a better understanding of the vocals. And whatever settings parameters work well for one movie, don't always work for the next disc.
Yeah, dont know the answer properly, beyond speculation.
But its a general industry issue i believe.
The problem it poses is this : it makes it a little trickier having a speaker / audio setup that works very well for both music and video i.e. the integrated setup. The inaudible speech issue is only part of this broader problem, the other being the changing surround formats, and their delivery (optical, HDMI, 1.4 vs 2.0 vs 2.1)
I'm not surprised that high end audio brands like Linn, Naim, (and Meridian to a degree) have emphasised 2 channel stereo much more in the last few years. Their setups are great for music, but might not tick every box on video surround.
And at the other end, look at the new Sonos Beam, which emphasises speech. Made for video, but not very good for music (according to some reviews)
Anyway, off topic a little - but just reminds me that finding a set up that is highly capable with both music and video is not getting easier.
I would be fine to let the 5.1 go. Currently, movies are better to watch with my Sony with crappy in-TV speakers than with my BV7 with BL surround setup. This obviously makes no sense. I can always put the BL in different use elsewhere, so I am fine to go change to a 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 or 2.1 setup. This would all be stereo setups? However, I am not sure how to best set this up in the BV menus and the ATV menus. Any thoughts? Would this solve the voice issue and get me superior quality to my Sony. If so, I could even move one pair of BL and connect it to my Sony instead?