Voice sounds overpowered during movies.

[KETA144]

Hey guys,

I am going to start out by saying that I love Ascend. If you are looking at buying Ascends and you are trying to qualify the purchase, I fully support your decision. Please read further though...

I am not the biggest setup guru out there. I have to look up the how-to guides every time I setup. I have a SPL meter and calibration disks for video and audio. That's not to say that I am not screwing something up every time.

Ok.. with that out of the way, my room is pretty small (12x16). The reason I went with Ascend is, well, because they are (fill in the parenthesis with your favorite adjective) speakers. For the price, you literally cannot beat them. One of my biggest purchase decisions was the fact that I am in the Navy and I move a lot! The main rule of thought for me, being that I am more of a sound guy than a video guy, is the fact that I need to consider changing room dynamics (size, shape, texture, etc) every 3 years so I needed speakers that were capable of versatility and performance.

Finally: The problem/question... I am having issues with the presence of voice in my movies. It always seems like the soundtrack or the special affects are overpowering the dialog. I know people are probably cringing with the lack of technical industry descriptions
here but I am limited in vocabulary. I am wondering if this is a problem anyone has faced and is this common? I am wondering if I should try out the 170's as fronts to see if maybe the speakers are too big for the room. I know it is hard to answer questions online. I am just trying to get some fault isolation so I know what to try first.

Setup:

Three 340's (SE)
Four 170's
Onkyo TX-SR701
14 AWG speaker wire
HSU VTF-3 (MK3 I believe)

***There is placement issues with the center of course. I had to place it on the floor, elevated by "Auralex SubDude" (to give the back port room) with door stops aiming it up towards the listener*** FYI: I actually have one of the wall anchors recommended on the forums but I have a window in the way att.

Thanks guys/girls in advance!

-B

[KETA144]

I am wondering if I should try out the 170's as fronts to see if maybe the speakers are too big for the room.
-B

FYI: It seems like the only way I can hear dialog properly is when I turn up the volume a lot. This creates another problem which is the damn speakers are then too loud

I am really trying to avoid unhooking the center. I know that would probably fix the issue but it would totally defeat the purpose of avoiding **** ~LOL!

[Hksvr4]

This happens alot to DVD movies. TV, gamming, and Blu-ray is good. Good meaning well balanced. If you level match all your speakers then you should be fine. Different recordings will have a different sound. The sub should also be level matched.

[curtis]

how do you have the speakers set in the receiver?

[chas]

If you have level matched your speakers and still have an issue, try bumping up the level of just the center channel a couple db's.

Seating position, speaker location and room acoustics/reflections can also cause issues with dialog but start with calibration and go from there.

[KETA144]

This happens alot to DVD movies. TV, gamming, and Blu-ray is good.

Exactly. Sounds fantastic for Batman on (plug) PS3 but I can't seem to find a balance for movies that have loud noises.

I will give you all specifics when I get home and bust out the tape measure and SPL. Might drop some pics too to ease.
Unfortunately my setup was geared more for size constraints. More details otw.

[davef]

***There is placement issues with the center of course. I had to place it on the floor, elevated by "Auralex SubDude" (to give the back port room) with door stops aiming it up towards the listener*** FYI: I actually have one of the wall anchors recommended on the forums but I have a window in the way att.

Thanks guys/girls in advance!

-B

You should make every effort possible to get that center off the floor. You might even try to temporarily place the center on a chair just to listen to the differences in placement...