What? Cant hear the voices

You're on the right track with the center-channel only speaker. The resulting mono sound makes dialog stand out.

My parents had problems when they would accidentally press the surround key on the remote which would add artificial reverb and all sort of garbage to muck-up the sound.
Also, point the speaker directly at your seats.

Make sure you're getting straight sound in mono, pointing directly at you.
If you still can't hear clearly, have your hearing tested.
Good luck!

Eldarado may be onto something. If you have the problem on DVD, digital cable or satellite TV, then it may be a setting in your DVD player and Set top box. Be sure your DVD player is set to PCM or Stereo in the Audio setup. Same goes for your set top box if you have cable or satellite TV.

If the setting is wrong and you are only using the L&R analog stereo outputs from your DVD player and STB, you are missing all of the program matererial that would otherwise be sent to the center channel in a surround sound setup.

I've given this advice on this site in the past and it did resolve the problem.

Enjoy,

TIC

I went through several center channel speakers and am now not using a center channel speaker. I have found that unless you have a VERY good digital processor (not found in any reciever so far) the best bet is to keep the signal analog as much as possible with stereo only using the analog outputs from the TV (or DVD if intelligibility is more important than surround effect). In my case my stereo power amp (Almarro A205a MKII) provides best main channel voice definition. Try using your TV's built-in amps to drive the Vr4's or other amp. If using optical output from TV a better fiber-optic will enhance quality (using voice to compare different setups is quite revealing). I'm using the shortest Kimber brand optic now for TV. If using Digital cable output then of course that makes a diiference also (I'm using 8feet of MIT coax with their RCA ends on it as best cheap cable, a little better than their entry level dig cable but not near as good as their best. Finally and not the least in importance is the speaker cable from amp to speakers. Just for TV a cheaper wire that restricts bass and lower midrange may work best. Let us know what finally works for you as I've been chasing good voice recognition for some time without spending big $ to "do it right".

My hearing is fine, but I frequently struggle to hear dialog when playing a DVD movie in 7.1. I think it is mainly an issue with recording and mixing of the soundtrack, but perhaps it is also partly an issue with the quality of my center channel speaker, as Fathertime suggests. I let my pre-pro balance all the channels with the auto-setup microphone, but the dialog is just not loud enough against the music and effects.

Some AV receivers (Yamaha?) have a "dialog lift" feature that supposedly makes the dialog stand out more.

Thanks for all the advice. I am going to be out of town for awhile but when back I will try the suggestions carefully from simplest onward.