I have SR-606 receiver with Polk 6750 speakers. I have it hooked up to my HTPC via SP/DIF.
When watching DTS encoded audio for example transformers.720p with 1.5Mbs DTS the speech volume is too low. I have to crank the audio up to 60's to get good audible sounds out of it. The problem with this is that this makes all the sound effects too loud. Any way I can adjust just the speech volume?
I am using AC3filter for audio and passing everything straight through to the receiver. Running XBMC windows XP. Thanks.
I have nearly the same setup (except with a Yamaha receiver).
I also noticed this, but XBMC has nothing to do with this, as it is just passing the audio through (someone correct me if I'm wrong).
Anyways, I found that the 'night' mode on the receiver helps a lot with this: it compresses the sound. You lose some dynamic range but you don't have to always be riding the volume then.
Check if your receiver is capable of this.
By the way this is my first post to these forums so I'll take the opportunity to say THANK YOU to the whole XBMC community, and especially the dev team, for making such amazing software available!
i have the 606 too and i think that sound effects in movies are to loud in general. what i did was just set my center speaker to +5-10db in the onkyo setup. works fine for me.
to bad you cant use AC3Filter with XBMC. there you can decode the audio stream, change the volume of each channel, then REencode it and send it out over SPDIF to you receiver
It actually has nothing to do with sound effects being too loud. Most people just don't realize that surround sound systems need to be calibrated. Every speaker should be calibrated so they are putting out the same sound pressure from the prime listening area. When you set it up that way you won't have this issue. To do this you will need an SPL Meter or would need to have someone come in and calibrate it for you.
I Agree with SMCnally. I have the 606 as well, and I'm completely anal about my setup. I took my time and tested a lot with different sources. I love everything DTS, and I can say that I don't think the speech is too low. I'ts right on the spot, and it isn't louder or lower than when I play a normal Blu-ray or DVD.
Can you give me your setup Batemann, I can try it out to see how well it works for me. I tried the audyssey setup prior to posting here. It did not resolve the issue.
I had the same issue with low speech, its all in how the receiver is setup, I had virtually every single setting wrong when i 1st starting to miss around. Needed dolby logic 5.1 turned on, matrix effect, calibrate each individual speaker for volume, etc,etc, its some work but in the end the sound is freakin awesome.
TC
I ended up setting my Center to +2.0 db. It was previously at -10.0 db....actually all my speakers were in the -7.0 to -10.0 db range. I am not sure if the audyssey setup did its job right. But I amped it up to +2.0 db and voice sounds much better now.
Might try to run Audyssey again and see what happens.
thats something audyssey loves to do. havent figured out why it does that but it did for me to. what i did was setting everything back to 0 db and then adjusted the numbers in the same ratio they had before. plus i amped up my center alot.
rimmi2002 Wrote:Can you give me your setup Batemann, I can try it out to see how well it works for me. I tried the audyssey setup prior to posting here. It did not resolve the issue.
If still needed, I will write down my setup for you tonight (I'm in Amsterdam) when I get home. I'm at the office now. If not needed anymore, can you let me know beforehand, so I won't have to write down everything? ;-)
If you can write it down when you are free that'll be awesome...just to get an idea what ratio's SPL Meter gives. Thanks
Erm...unless you guys live in identical apartments/factory homes with the rooms arranged EXACTLY the same those numbers are going to be completely useless to anyone but you. Hell, they're even useless to you if any peice of furniture in the room is moved. The only way to do this is to get a hold of an SPL meter and calibrate YOUR room. Last I was in RadioShack they had one for like $50.
How good is the audessy system compared to SPL meter? Isn't that what was suppose to be the point of the audessy system to self-calibrate the system?
First of all, I congratulate XBMC and everyone for the fine app.
This is my first post, please let me know if am wrong in anyway.
I too have this problem, dialogue is less audible. But my setup is analog, using stereo receiver with realtek hd driver running on Windows 7. While the the same movies play fine with community codec pack, its not so with XBMC.
I think that it has something to do with down mixing the channels. May be am wrong, missed some settings in XBMC?!
svelc:
The windows audio subsystem was changed entirely in Windows 7. My guess is that you are correct and there is a problem with the mixdown in Windows. Be sure you have passthrough ac3 and dts turned off in XBMC. It is possible that Windows is handling the AC3/DTS decoding and your configuration is not properly lined up with your audio hardware.
All that said, I have no idea how XBMC will behave on Windows 7 and do not have/want it installed to test or develop on. Good luck.
-C