Best centre speaker for clear vocals in movies?

[morguk]

My centre speaker is a Wharfdale that came as part of a cheap 5.1 set ages ago. The vocals are really hit and miss. I know some movies do this on purpose (Nolan) but overall I just want less muffled voices and more clarity.

I'd like to hear recommendations on what you centre speaker have or if you made a similar upgrade and if you were happy or not?

 

[morguk]

Maybe a silly suggestion but have you tried changing the volume on the one speaker? Through my surround configuration on my AVR I have the centre channel boosted up to help with dialogue.

Its rarely the speaker, more often just need to change settings on the avr.

I've got a specific setting that helps with dialogue, and also boosted the level of the centre by a couple of dB which helps

I'm by no means an expert on home cinema but it's usually recommended to have your centre matching your others but that will be the case already if you have a 5.1 bundle.

Have you tried running the wizard on the AVR? As others have said there's probably a setting you can change to help.

It's not the speaker, it's the audio mix. See if there's a dialogue mode on your AVR which will boost levels from the center to make speech more audible.

It's the centre from a Wharfdale DX-1 package. It's very small, about a foot wide and I think that's the problem.

I already have "vocal/dialogue lift" or similar setting on my Yamaha AVR set to +2 which is its highest setting. I could increase the volume on just the centre but I feel it will amplify the issue, pun intended.

 

[morguk]

So OP what movies/scenes do you find hard to listen to? Maybe I could try on mine and see if it's ok.

Any local shops where you can try a quality center (even if it outclasses the rest of your system)

There's nothing specific, but me and the wife went through a phase of putting subs on stuff just so we don't miss key parts of a story.

To the others, I'll try putting a few more DB on the centre so I don't have to increase total volume all the time.

If that doesn't work, I think it's the fact it's small and mounted on the wall with not much space to breathe behind it (its ported).

Anyone actually upgrade and get an improvement?

 

[morguk]

Op what is your entire setup, model names of each thing?
What is your source and how is it connected?
What displays on your avr when you play movies in terms of the detected audio format? Like does it say PCM, DD, Dolby Digital, Pro logic etc?
Does your AVR come with a setup mic to help set levels?
Are the levels and distance of each speaker setup or are they at default?

You might just have it not setup right and it's defaulting to a stereo signal or Pro logic or worse, you have some weird artificial "intelligent" room setting turned on or some such virtual surround. Possibilities are endless.

Not sure what your knowledge levels are so going in low here to rule out the basics.

Can't remember all the specs but it's old but half-decent Yamaha AVR (100w per channel), 300w BK Sub, Dali Spektor 1 for fronts, Wharfdale DX-1 rears and centre.

It was setup with the mic, crossover all good etc. I use "straight" setting and as it's usually Netflix it's whatever 5.1 codec they use.

The centre speaker is above the TV attached to the wall, and is angled down as the TV is quite high. I'm starting to think this is the biggest issue.