Quiet voices from center channel

[SithSolo1]

During movies voices from the center channel seem quiet. Sound effects sound fine. I've boosted the channel level, angled it up to ear level, and I recently changed receivers and the problem persist. An example of the problem is about 23mins into Batman Begins where Bruce is talking to Rachel in the kitchen. I can hear Rachel ok but can barely hear Bruce at all. I've pretty much narrowed it down to the speaker, the speaker wire, or the blu-ray player. Any tips or suggestions are very welcome.

Klipsch RC-3
Denon AVR-590
Sony BDP-S360

 

[blackangst1]

What receiver do you have? Is it calibrated correctly?

 

[SithSolo1]

A Denon AVR-590. I ran the Audyssey MultEQ but outside of bumping the center channel up some more I haven't messed with it.

I had this same issue with my Pioneer VSX-1014TX after running the Auto MCACC.

 

[Corn]

Check to make sure the tweeter in the center speaker isn't blown......My buddy across the street has a Polk speaker setup that can be bi-wired and one day he was telling me how he thought his center channel speaker really sucked. Well, after a quick inspection he was right, no sound from the tweeter. When I turned the speaker around I noticed the the bridge connectors were missing (he did not bi-wire his speakers) and was only driving the woofers. I bridged the tweeter and woofer speaker connections with some speaker wire and he was happy. I face palmed......

 

[Howard]

Wire the center channel to one of the L/R speakers and see if it sounds more normal. Do check that the sensitivities of the center and L/R speakers are similar; if they aren't, adjust in EQ.

 

[SithSolo1]

The tweeter is working. Hooked up one of the RF-3s in the center position. It seemed louder and a lot more "open". I put the RC-3 back in the center and bumped up the channel level some more. The loudness is there now but it still lacks the openness of the RF-3. It sounds a little stuffy if that makes sense. I guess a different speaker would solve that.

 

[Howard]

Was the center always like this?

Try playing a test sweep (or a variety of test tones from 80 Hz to 500 Hz) and see if there are any frequencies which are OK vs which ones are quiet.

 

[CubanlB]

Does the receiver say it's getting surround sound? Make sure the BluRay player isn't outputting stereo. This sounds a lot like dolby pro logic to me.

I assume when you do the setup sound come from the center speaker?

 

[wirednuts]

this happens on my setup, and all i do to remedy it is turn on "loudness equalization" in the soundcard's control panel. this is, of course, if youre running windows... but some stereos have a similar option too