voices through subs = bad mojo

[wvu80]

I want to go back a step because I'm relatively new to this HT stuff and know very little about it.. Please correct any statement or assumption I make in the following. When the "sound guys" mix a 5.1 or 7.1 soundtrack, they put whatever they want on the ".1" channel. It's usually Low freq stuff. 

(snip)

But if the low frequencies of the male voice are in the ".1" channel from the source it will be hard to (impossible) remove it from your sub.

 

The problem is not you so much, as the misnomer the way we use the ".1" language wrongly and interchangeably.

 

Technically the .1 is the LFE or Low Frequency Effect and is its own discrete channel, different from simple low frequency sound.  You can change the crossover (XO) point of the LFE and the sub separately, or mix them together in the AVR.

 

What we commonly do is refer to the .1 as a subwoofer.  My Onkyo 717 bills itself as a 7.2, and the .2 refers to the two separate subs-out.  A 7.4 has four subs, and now with Atmos, a 7.1.2 setup would be 7 speakers, 1 sub and 2 ceiling fired speakers for the Atmos channels.

 

Confused?  So am I and everybody else.

[mustang guy]

The sub on my promedia is in a corner, so it is boosted so much that I have to -6db the sub for it to sound natural.

 

I did a little investigation into this track. I have attached a spectrum of part of it which is pretty representative of his speaking parts. This is before EQ.

 

When I EQ everything above 100Hz, turn up my already corner loaded sub to +15db hot (that's +21db total!), play the same clip back, what I hear is more like an echo or pop than a part of his voice. This leads me to think it may be that they simply did a poor job recording him. Perhaps he did a voice-over and since he was whispering he had his mouth right against the pop filter. When I EQ below 100HZ, his voice is no longer in the sub, and is more clear.

 

As for the LFE cutoff in your AVR, it has been said in many places that you should keep the LFE cutoff at 120Hz regardless of your speaker settings. The reason is that if there is LFE above your cutoff, it will not be sent to your mains. It is simply thrown out. It has been a year or so since I read that, so things might have changed. 

 

On the other hand, if there is sound that is destined to a speaker that is above the speakers cutoff frequency, that is blended into the LFE channel.

 

If you have more example clips that are more pronounced, I would like to hear them myself. IMO, this is just a badly recorded scene.

Edited March 5, 2015 by mustang guy