Sony HT-G700

[ninjag]

Looking for some advice please. Initially I really liked this sound bar and I went for it specifically because it has a centre speaker for dialogue as well as a vocal enhance mode - my previous sound bar struggled with dialogue. However, I'm still finding dialogue a nightmare to hear clearly and whilst I appreciate films in particular can be bad for this, it's becoming a right pain turning the volume right up during dialogue and then frantically turning it back down when the action suddenly kicks in because it's far too loud. It's annoying that there's no control over the integrated centre speaker volume either.

I've read something about the crossover with the sub being high. I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I suspect it's talking about frequency and it's throwing dialogue frequencies to the sub, and thus the clarity is lost?

If I watch these films on my computer with my Sennheiser headphones the dialogue is fine, so there must be a solution for this with the TV. I'm losing faith with 3.1 sound bars and I'm wondering if separates would be a better path to take and will these guarantee me better dialogue? If so, I don't want to go crazy with the budget here. I've got some 5.1 speakers and a subwoofer from an older Panasonic DVD Theatre system that I could initially use and then start replacing these over time, so if separates would be the solution what would be a reasonable one to go for and can you adjust the centre speaker to enhance dialogue etc?

I was looking at the Yamaha RXV4a?

 

[hornetstinger]

Go seperates that will allow you set dialogue enhance feature in decent AVR's.

Don't use your panasonic HTIB speakers, they will be 4ohm, the subwoofer will be passive, and speakers frequency response catered to the HTIB unit

Crossover is what the speakers and subwoofer are set to. For example speakers with a frequency response of 80hz-20khz should be set to 80hz, small on a AVR. Subwoofer set to 120hz for the dolby spec, and bypassing the subwoofers own crossover if possible, or setting it to max so you don't get two subwoofer filters in the way.


You could look at something like this, a good budget but decent 5.1 speaker system with that yamaha a4a

Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 HCP 5.1-luidspeakerpakket, koolstofvezel | AV.com

Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 HCP 5.1-luidspeakerpakket, koolstofvezel | AV.com

www.av.com

 

[ninjag]

Go seperates that will allow you set dialogue enhance feature in decent AVR's.

Don't use your panasonic HTIB speakers, they will be 4ohm, the subwoofer will be passive, and speakers frequency response catered to the HTIB unit

Crossover is what the speakers and subwoofer are set to. For example speakers with a frequency response of 80hz-20khz should be set to 80hz, small on a AVR. Subwoofer set to 120hz for the dolby spec, and bypassing the subwoofers own crossover if possible, or setting it to max so you don't get two subwoofer filters in the way.


You could look at something like this, a good budget but decent 5.1 speaker system with that yamaha a4a

Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 HCP 5.1-luidspeakerpakket, koolstofvezel | AV.com

Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 HCP 5.1-luidspeakerpakket, koolstofvezel | AV.com

www.av.com

Thanks for that. Some of it has gone a little whoosh lol but I get the general idea about the speakers.

Those linked ones might be a little too big, I was hoping for something a touch more compact as my wife has already freaked out about going from a 50" to a 65" TV, so wiggle room for using more space is small. I'll need to look at what space I have with the TV table. On the plus side, our floors are back to the wood and I've got a hatch and tons of crawl space underneath, so wires can all be hidden under the floor.

Are there any decent speaker sets that are more compact that would be worth looking at?

 

[hornetstinger]

Be aware the smaller they go the less efficient they are, and the less bass they produce.

Less efficient speakers need more power. For example, I have two sets of speakers from the same range, little bookshelf with 4" woofers, and the others full range towers with several 8" woofers and 7" midrange. The smaller speakers need two and a half times as much power to reach the same spl. Also because of the less bass response a subwoofer is mandatory, compared to the towers running fine for music without a sub.

I wouldn't go for speakers smaller than this

Wharfedale Diamond 9.0 (Black)

Shop for Wharfedale Diamond 9.0 Black Speaker Pair with Richer Sounds for a 6 Year Guarantee, expert advice and Lowest Prices Guaranteed

www.richersounds.com

 

[ninjag]

Cheers. Is there also an element of Netflix being a bit crap with audio output? I'm far from an audiophile, but I also appreciate that decent sound can perhaps even be more important than picture quality. But I'm hesitant with delving into separates just in case it doesn't improve dialogue.

 

[hornetstinger]

Cheers. Is there also an element of Netflix being a bit crap with audio output? I'm far from an audiophile, but I also appreciate that decent sound can perhaps even be more important than picture quality. But I'm hesitant with delving into separates just in case it doesn't improve dialogue.

Streaming services audio sound quality is plenty good enough

Go into richer sounds and ask for them to demonstrate dialogue enhance with their avrs.

I had this facility on my old AV pre and it helped a lot ability to increase by 6db

 

[ninjag]

I've went onto the PC and watched this particular movie again with the headphones and the dialogue is pretty poor, so that's probably not helped. It's Safe House and in some scenes I had to put subtitles on!

I reset the soundbar to start from scratch again and with the immersive setting on with vocal enhance the dialogue in some other stuff is a little better, but then when it cuts to a music or action scene it blasts out far too loud. What's annoying is that sometimes when I change a setting such as from Auto to PCM or some other setting that causes the soundbar to lose sound for a moment as it thinks about whatever, the audio will come on for a split second super clear, but then it will go all crap again - it's almost as if the Sony processing starts to take over and screws it up. I've tried "no effects" settings etc but nothing really gets there.

I'll pop in when I get a chance, unfortunately my branch is a pain to get to and isn't very big either, so I don't know how much will be on display. Am I asking too much to get sound quality clarity closer to headphones?

 

[hornetstinger]

I've went onto the PC and watched this particular movie again with the headphones and the dialogue is pretty poor, so that's probably not helped. It's Safe House and in some scenes I had to put subtitles on!

I reset the soundbar to start from scratch again and with the immersive setting on with vocal enhance the dialogue in some other stuff is a little better, but then when it cuts to a music or action scene it blasts out far too loud. What's annoying is that sometimes when I change a setting such as from Auto to PCM or some other setting that causes the soundbar to lose sound for a moment as it thinks about whatever, the audio will come on for a split second super clear, but then it will go all crap again - it's almost as if the Sony processing starts to take over and screws it up. I've tried "no effects" settings etc but nothing really gets there.

I'll pop in when I get a chance, unfortunately my branch is a pain to get to and isn't very big either, so I don't know how much will be on display. Am I asking too much to get sound quality clarity closer to headphones?

I haven't watched that movie but the only movies I had issue is tenet where you can barely hear what they're saying

 

[ninjag]

I haven't watched that movie but the only movies I had issue is tenet where you can barely hear what they're saying

Even with separates?!!

 

[hornetstinger]

Even with separates?!!

Nolan movies have this issue. He mixes them loud effects loud music.

Other movies are fine

 

[ninjag]

I was watching Rebel Moon last night and it was not all that bad, I've turned the subwoofer down to 7 (max is 12) which helps a little.

Strangely, YouTube stuff is very clear, but then there's no background music and effects. It feels like it can produce good quality audio, but multiple audio events at the same time overwhelms it.

 

[hornetstinger]

No issue with Rebel Moon, apart it being a lousy movie.

 

[ninjag]

No issue with Rebel Moon, apart it being a lousy movie.

Yeah, I have to admit I was trying very hard to like it. The production values seemed to keep shifting, some scenes would look horrifically fake yet other scenes look amazing. You could tell almost straight away the influence from the 300 director.

 

[hornetstinger]

It's pretty much seven samurai if I remember. Robot Jimmy was best character and wasn't used or explained his storyline

 

[ninjag]

Would it be safe to buy a used Yamaha RXV4A or something similar?

 

[ninjag]

Been looking at the Denon AVR-S660H as well and specifically the dialogue enhancer feature, I think there's seven settings? But is it an actual dialogue enhance concentrating on the frequencies, or is it just a centre speaker volume increase? I think the Yamaha actually targets the frequencies?

 

[hornetstinger]

Been looking at the Denon AVR-S660H as well and specifically the dialogue enhancer feature, I think there's seven settings? But is it an actual dialogue enhance concentrating on the frequencies, or is it just a centre speaker volume increase? I think the Yamaha actually targets the frequencies?

Dialogue enhancer increases frequencies human voice is.
No it's simply not increasing the center channel volume

 

[ninjag]

Dialogue enhancer increases frequencies human voice is.
No it's simply not increasing the center channel volume

Cheers. The Denon has more inputs and a proper power plug connection, so it's now in the mix.

 

[ninjag]

Possible change in direction. Might look at a hi-fi amp and two good front speakers, the theory being I might be able to get better quality than trying to get a surround AV system at similar budget. Only downside would be losing volume control on the remote unless it has HDMI.

The search continues!

 

[hornetstinger]

Possible change in direction. Might look at a hi-fi amp and two good front speakers, the theory being I might be able to get better quality than trying to get a surround AV system at similar budget. Only downside would be losing volume control on the remote unless it has HDMI.

The search continues!

Will be better quality but won't have room EQ, HDMI in/out, DD/DTS decoding, bass management, channel level, distance, subwoofer integration, digital inputs, multi zone.

Get a stereo integrated amplifier with HT bypass, if you want a Home cinema system in the future, you can add a AVR (with pre outs) with that suitable stereo amp (with HT input) if it lacks HT input, you won't be able to

Amplifiers with HT-bypass - update 30. Mars 2024

Audiophile.no has made a list of stereo preamps and integrated amps that have one sort of HT-bypass. This list is updated 30. Mars 2024 with amplifiers from Audio Group Denmark, and will be will be continuously updated. Written by Karl Erik Sylthe, at 15.02.07 Translated to English in june...

www.audiophile.no

HDMI ARC/E-ARC input might be useful also, or optical (would have to be a DAC) unless you get an external optical/HDMI DAC