Centre speaker (vocals) help

[minesaturbo]

Hi everyone i have been lurking on this forum a good fews years (only just registered) and appriciate any knowledge / help you can provide. So thanks in advance

My system and problem.

I have built a 5.0 system (NO SUB) around Q Accustics3000 speakers, 3020 fronts 3090 centre and 3010 for rears. I purchased 2 weeks ago a Yamaha RXA-860 receiver and using Cambridge Audio sympony 200 speaker cable all round. Speakers have a good 30 hours use.

I am generally happy with the system apart from the CENTRE SPEAKER VOCALS that i am experiencing at present. Now this is my very first system and appriciate the AVR is not a basic amp but i am generally technically minded and have played about with various features and made some difference to the intial set up after running YPAO calibration .

After initial calibration and a little fiddling I felt something just was not right , and wounder why PCM displayed and just thought there something wrong. I am now running bitstream from SONY 7200 and use Audioquest Pearl HDMI and noticied an uplift in vocals straight away. I am running the decoder in STRAIGHT and to me it sounds identicle to NEO 6 and better then the other decoder options.

MY PROBLEM.

I run NATURAL sound option is best but felt the vocals a bit flat and had a base /deepness to them which to me seemed a bit unnatural but the main concern was that voices sounded very flat with little expression. (as though voices are almost coming from behind the TV)

I have adjusted centre speaker EQ by dropping the bass a bit and increasing the EQ from approx the mid to mid high range and i have got some improvement. I have then discovered seperatly the option to specifically up the VOCAL lift and find 1-2 to help.

With everythng i have mentioned above there is a notible improvement in the vocals, but still feel could be a bit better.

1 thing i have noticed is that the centre possibly sounds better after 20-30 mins warm up. I may be crazy i dont know.

I would give it 7 / 10 for the vocals but still feel it can be more expresive. PLEASE HELP

 

[minesaturbo]

So just to reconfirm

DTS HD master audio is being received by the AVR and im running STRAIGHT decoder and have adjusted the centre speaker and have increase the VOCAL LIFT.

Would a different speaker cable for the centre help

thanks

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Have you tried NOT using "direct" or "pure" audio?

Surround sound soueces sound best when the receiver is set to the best, correct, surround sound format for the source. Either DTS or Dolby. I would only use pure audio for stereo sources like CDs.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

PS adding subs will improve surround sound bass effects and MAY improve stereo bass, but it probably wont make any difference to centre channel vocals. A bigger speaker might help but a new speaker cable alone probably wont.

 

[minesaturbo]

Thanks I appreciate the "pure direct" option but to me it's a tad raw and quiet. Me be i need to get used to the sound and the fact voices are effectively in mono as they come from 1 speaker where as when using TV they would be stereo. Big action scenes sound awesome and music playing in movies great too

 

[davidf]

Vocal lift won't do anything unless you're running front height speakers as this feature shares centre information with the front heights. This is something I would only really recommend if the front heights are pretty close in quality to the front left/centre/right.

Some receivers have a 'centre width' adjustment - as you turn this up, it spreads the centre information to the front left and right, effectively making what you hear from the centre wider (and arguably bigger). I can't recall if the Yamaha has that, but if it has, that might work for you.

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Try setting your bluray player to bitsteam (undecoded) audio output and let the AVR do all the decoding. This solves a lot of problems. On my Marantz 7010 it did away with distortion on loud parts of Apollo 13 and The Martian and in your case it could help boost the vocals.
Worth a try before spending more money...

 

[minesaturbo]

Thanks to everyone who replied I feel i have resolved the problem.

I have discovered the YPAO Volume in options if i turn this to 'ON' it then gives the

Dynamic Range Option. If i turn this to 'ON' it widens the centre speaker, specifically the vocals.

thought i would close this off just for others reference and may give help to others

Thanks