voices leaking to side speaker in 5.1 home theater

[Ricardo David]

Hello, if you guys can help me about that question, i have a sony dav dz830w and in dts mode and dolby digital if i move close to the side speakers i can hear some voices that are in center channel too,is this normal in a home theater?

[Aaron Garman]

That sounds an awful lot like the center channel bleeding to the mains that would be common in Pro Logic. I'd verify the signal coming in is in fact 5.1 and not 2.0.

[Tim Androes]

Have you disconnected the Center channel to verify that the dialog is actually coming thru the side speakers?

[Brad Miller]

What is the content? If you are running older content that was originally a "Dolby Stereo" release (say from the late 70s, 80s or early 90s) the studio's mastering people may have just been lazy and "pro-logic'd" the original 2 channel stereo/surround mix into a "5.1 mix" for DVD/bluray use.

You will get bleed if the levels between left and right are not absolutely balanced. To demonstrate this, get an original 2 channel source (say from something super awesome like VHS Hi-Fi) and enable your "pro-logic surround" mode. Now disconnect the right channel and you will see everything will jump straight into the surrounds because the DIFFERENCE in left and right is what is sent to the surrounds. The IDENTICAL information is sent to the center.

Regardless, to answer your question properly, we need to know the movie you are playing and the format (VHS, DVD, bluray, laserdisc, etc) it is sourced from.

[Steve Kraus]

Is it on all disks? Surely you must have something that has a good 5.1 track. Dialogue will nearly always stay on C the majority of the time.

[Ricardo David]

Hello again, i tried with lord of the rings special edition DVD ,Avengers blueray conected by spidf, and with android box throught kodi media center, i get dolby and dts sinal in the amp,test tone from the Sony menu doesnt bleed,but test tone from kodi separates all the sound but center can be eard in sides speakers.i get dts and dolby signal top, disconecting the center channel i get voices mufled on sides.

[Scott Jentsch]

You may want to check to see if the receiver is set for a DSP mode that "expands" or "enhances" the delivery of the audio. Assuming that the sound mix has the voices locked to the center channel and not mixed into the left and right channels to make the sound "bigger" the culprit is most likely the receiver either intentionally mixing or accidentally bleeding center channel audio into the L/R fronts.

I'm not familiar with Sony receivers, but look for something that would indicate an additional DSP mode, such as "Dolby Digital Enhanced" or perhaps a separate mode, like Yamaha's DSP modes of "Adventure" and "70mm Movie" and the like.

Good luck, and let us know what you find!

[Mitchell Dvoskin]

> but test tone from kodi separates all the sound but center can be eard in sides speakers

Kodi devices, while they can stream/download legitimate movies, they exist primarily to make it easy to stream/download unauthorized (bootleg) copies. The quality (picture/sound) of these unauthorized movies varies greatly.

I would first feed the SPDF output directly from a DVD player to your Sony receiver with a legitimate DVD. If that does play correctly, your problem is the Kodi device. If it does not play correctly, chances are your Sony receiver is the problem. In any event, being that this is a professional website where people make their living presenting properly licensed material, I suspect nobody will help you with any bootleg viewing attempts.