Home Theater Enclosure Problem?

Absolutely. It has little absorption. Depending on the size of the room you probably have reverberation times that are triple what you would like to have. In addition to that the pine could have a resonance frequency that creates more problems.

Get some room tunes!

Wood resonates. That's one of the reasons why it's a pretty good building material for acoustic instruments. You're probably getting resonances at critical mid-range frequencies, where most vocal frequencies reside and where the human ear is particularly sensitive.

An enclosure around your system will boost the bass response from the speakers (if you soffit mount). Pine wood would not be my first choice. My first choice would be heavy MDF board for cabinetry with a nice hardwood for the visible surfaces (for aesthetcis and such that it does not vibrate ...dead sound when rapped with your knuckles).

None of this will help with Mid range intelligibilty? Are you using phantom? The center channel information needs to go somewhere if youu don't physically have a center.

For starters, put properly rated Vibrapods under your player and pre/pro or receiver. These things are amazing for the money for cleaning up microvibrations and sound-smearing resonances.

What kind of speaker cable are you running to your center channel? And what kind of center channel spkr are you using and how is it sited/positioned?

Wide-bandwidth interconnects help, too. Without spending too much money, try a Kimber Timbre or Hero interconnect for your center channel signal chain (but do the vibration control first).

I have an Arcam AVR 250 with an Arcam DV78. The speakers are JM Lab 716S Chorus Line(mains) w/ a JM Lab 700S Chorus Line (center) and JM Lab 716S (rears). The front 3 spkrs have Rega cables. The problem is understanding the dialogue from the center channel when watching movies. We think we have everything hooked up correctly and every setting set proberly. We have adjusted and readjusted every setting many times with little or no improvement. I have been running the mains on 0-5 with the center at 6 and the rears around 2-4. I purchased a sound level meter and set the levels correctly. No help. The voices coming from the center sound thick at times especially the British accents. We have tried the center at 5' and 2' with no improvement. The odd part is that I can understand every word coming from my TV during a broadcast when it is coming out of the center. Thank you for your time.

How is the ARCAM AVR receiving the 5.1 movie data - TOSLINK or digital coax?

What about TV - Toslink also?

Or are you using analog cabling?

I hope you aren't using any Y connectors to jumper two analog line level outputs together from different sources ???

KYpride,

Are you saying that you are only having problems when watching/listening to a DVD, not when watching TV?

If that is the case, I think it is a setup problem, not some type of a resonance issue. How do you have your TV sound and DVD sound connected to the receiver? Are you using L&R analog RCA interconnect cables or are you using a coax or optical digital cable?

TIC

I can hear the TV perfectly when it is played through the Arcam. I never miss a word. It's only on DVDs that I miss words occasionally.The digital signal is sent to the AVR 250 via a Transparent Premium TVC 2 meter digital cable. The viewing room is 20'X 30' with a 17' ceining. There is a staircase coming down into this room on one side. Sometimes it appears thar the audio is plainer when at the top of those stairs. There is thick carpet on the floors and stairs with a cloth sofa and loveseat. There is nothing between the center channel and the listening position.

{quote] It's only on DVDs that I miss words occasionally [/quote]

In that case it may be normal. Movies are often mixed so that they can be played at louder volume levels than a radio or TV program. They want those sound effects to really envelope you. Simply turn up the volume. What concerned me was you menioned muddiness in the sound....that is not normal.

Pride and Prejudice is an example of a movie where the vocals were mixed too low, IMHO.

I have been looking into purchasing some brass footers for my components. Has anyone used the Mapleshade Ultimate Triplepoints? Thank you.