You can't hear dialogue because it doesn't matter


I've made several speakers in my life including 2 center channel units.  People always ask me if it improves dialogue.  My answer has been, no, not really, except in the ability to turn the center up relative to the L and R.  What improves dialogue is an excellent frequency response and lack of colorations especially in the mid-bass.   Centers are ideally for wide-angle listening. 

Here is more on that subject. 

This article from NPR says that some directors literally don't' even care if you can understand the dialogue.  You just need to get the mood.    We've gone from directors who don't care about the plot, to those who don't even care if you can hear the lines. 

erik_squires

I’m with Mahgister, bad sound can kill anything.  I also agree with all of the others here

Dealing with centre channel speaker issues and muddy dialog is bad enough, but add in foreign accents and I am reduced to needing subtitles, even when everyone is speaking English.

@dynacohum You aren't wrong, but I can tell you that sitting dead center there's not a lot of difference between the two, so not that helpful for dialogue improvements unless you sit off-center.

The use of horizontal MTM layout makes common center channel speakers SUCK (out) due to inevitable lobing effects. The configurations that make sense are 3 ways with vertical MT and coincident. 

I keep my audio and home theater systems completely separate now, and problematic dialogue is one of the primary reasons.  

Different amps, different speakers, different cables, different speaker setup and levels, timing, and alignment to the listener.  

Even so, the dialogue is still terrible majority of the time. Seems like the capable sound engineers in motion picture industry are mostly gone any more. Back to watching Youtube videos where you can actually hear what people are saying most of the time.  

All the Star Wars soundtracks can easily be listened to without ever seeing any of the movies.

I dont care since long ago about  Hollywood movies...

I dont even know the actors anymore...

 Time to time there is a good movie for sure...

Most is a soup of bad sound, bad scenes, uninteresting dialogues and at best comic marvel movies... I am too old for bad sound, bad script, bad comics...

I like old movies from everywhere...

But a bad sound can kill anything...

A lot of films aim for international release. That flattens what can be put into them so they are not too "local."

Everything has corn syrup in it, if you know what I mean.