Wow..it's been a long time since I posted on the Saloon.

Gonk, it's nice to see that you're still around.
Last time I posted it was due to my own stupidity
of re-programing and erasing my remote. Remember
doing that?

In any case, this being my 4th year of owning a
1050 and enjoying every minute of it, I had a
question that's been on my mind for some time.

I notice when watching certain movies, "The Day
After Tomorrow" for example, I have to play
around with the volume levels for the center
and rear surround speakers for sound to be
balanced. I guess volume levels on movies are
not consistant? It's just a bit irritating to
have to re-set levels each time I watch movies,
especially those that have both loud action
sequences and a lot of dialogue. Anybody else
have to deal with this...or is it just me?

My speaker setup is the following, NHT 2.3a
Front, NHT VT-1c Center, NHT 1.3 Rear & a PSB
Sub.

Any ideas what's going on? Thanks for taking
the time to respond!

I don't know if I'm following this correctly but I think what you're saying: you set up your speakers with test tones to get them equal sounding all around. But when you play certain movies they seem to be unequal from front center to rear surrounds. If in these seemingly unequal channel movies do a test tone while in the movie. If the test tones still sound equal, then it doesn't seem to be mechanical. The movie is recorded in that fashion. What you're attempting is to remix the sound, in a sense, from the original mix.
That's my take. I could be wrong.

Welcome back! Do you have surround back speaker, srayer? If you do not, you may be running into some of the newer movies with a particularly quirky Dolby Digital EX flag that forces the receiver to switch to EX decoding (or, in the case of the 1050, Surround 6.1) - which might make the surround channels seem softer than usual because it is redirecting data to the speaker that isn't there.

When you say surround back speaker are you
talking about a rear center surround speaker
that would match my NHT VT-1c in the front? I
have a 5.1 setup, and when playing newer
movies, I switch to 6.1 and I believe any
audio that would go to the read center surround
speaker just get's distributed between to two
rear surround speakers. In any case it's not
the biggest deal, just that I am fiddling with
the volume controls for most every movie I seem
to watch these days. The center channel seems
to be the one I have the most trouble with...
Thanks for your insight in any case!!!

Actually you articulated my problem quite well.
Thank you!!! I use the test tone to make sure
the volume level is balanced well, but when
watching a movie, the sound seems unbalanced.
I find it a problem especially with the center
and rear surrounds. Maybe it's just my tired
old hearing acting up!!!

So late last year I purchased an additional NHT VT-1c to act as my rear center surround speaker, and you know what....I don't seem to have the issue with unequal volume levels any longer.

Any ideas why this might be? I was under the impression in 6.1 setup the rear surround info would be distributed to equally to the rear surround speakers? Thanks in advance for your insight

This actually makes sense! Before you added the new VT-1c, engaging 6.1 Surround would cause the 1050 to redirect some data from the left and right surrounds to the empty rear center, creating the sense of weakened surrounds that you noted. You were correct that the surround data is distributed across all three surround speakers (left, right, rear center), but doing this would reduce the levels of the left and right in order to generate data for the rear center. Having no speaker connected there would result is a loss of data, and thereby a sense of decreased volume level from the surrounds. Connecting a speaker to the rear center output would solve the problem.