Why is so much movie audio mixed to the centre channel?

rubberduck · 16 Nov 2019 at 10:05

Hi, I have always struggled with dialogue audibility in certain movies on various home cinema setups. The standard advice is either turn on mild dynamic compression or boost the centre channel (or both). The trouble is that the centre channel has got such a large % of the overall movie audio mixed in there that you are effectively also boosting the volume of the 'noise' which greatly hampers audiability. With certain movies some compression can help yet it can also make things worse so is very hit and miss. Out of interest why is so much audio sent to the centre speaker? I even find background music and songs are heavily centre dependent when it would be much more logical for these to go exclusively to the left and right channels as they will be sourced from stereo.

lucid · 17 Nov 2019 at 12:07

It's to do with anchoring the sound to where the picture is coming from.

Your left and right speakers might be perfectly placed for stereo reproduction, but so many aren't. The speakers end up in the ceiling corners or tucked away. That doesn't happen so much with centre speakers.

Also, for commercial cinema installs, the left centre and right speakers are all behind the screen, and of equal size and performance ideally. The mixing and dubbing studio setups mimic this.

rubberduck · 17 Nov 2019 at 13:25

lucid said:
It's to do with anchoring the sound to where the picture is coming from.

Your left and right speakers might be perfectly placed for stereo reproduction, but so many aren't. The speakers end up in the ceiling corners or tucked away. That doesn't happen so much with centre speakers.

Also, for commercial cinema installs, the left centre and right speakers are all behind the screen, and of equal size and performance ideally. The mixing and dubbing studio setups mimic this.

Hi lucid, thanks for the explation. Have you had any experience with the dialogue boost/enhancement adjustment that is featured on some higher end amps (I know denon have this). Does it address some of the issues I have?

hornetstinger · 17 Nov 2019 at 15:44

My lexicon does have a dialogue enhancer and it works well, some movies seem to be mixed badly.

lucid · 17 Nov 2019 at 16:13

rubberduck said:
Hi lucid, thanks for the explation. Have you had any experience with the dialogue boost/enhancement adjustment that is featured on some higher end amps (I know denon have this). Does it address some of the issues I have?

I find that the room has a bigger effect on dialogue intelligibility with the sort of systems that I deal with.