Speech from centre

I have Mission FS1’s with a Sony 1070 amp.

Watching Exit Wounds on DVD last night I was missing speech during action scenes, so I have tried a few experiments. The scene used is near the beginning of the movie where Segal rescues the VicePresident on the bridge.

I have the results, but not the answers, so here goes.

On my amp you have the main volume, then can adjust the centre (and rears) up or down from -10Db to +10Db.

I have the Mission FS1 sub set at 12.00 which is about half way.

As the kids were away I cranked up the volume to –20Db, which is loud.

At –20db you cannot hear very much speech from the centre speaker during action scenes. If you turn the centre volume up to +10DB (maximum) you cannot hear any speech at all! (the opposite of what I would expect).

If you turn the volume down to –30Db and have the centre turned up to +10Db it is OK. –30Db with the centre on 0Db and the speech is quieter.

Turning up the centre speaker to +10Db at –30Db improves the speech but turning it the same amount with the main volume at –20Db ruins it completely!

Turning the centre speaker off improves it a bit at louder levels.

Tried this with the Matrix too with the lobby scene and “Dodge this” and the helicopter rescue (just an excuse to watch it again) and have similar results.

Help.

 

Peter,

Im guessing that you havent done any calibration ith your handy dandy sound pressure level! If you dont have one, you can get one from http://www.cornwallelectronics.co.uk/ Then you adjust those -10Db to +10Db settings for the surround channels so that they are at the same pressure level as your fronts. That should give you better results.

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