Modern TV design pushes speakers into acoustically compromised positions. Down-firing, side-firing, and rear-firing configurations are now standard in slim panel designs — and all of them degrade speech intelligibility. Dialog becomes muddy, vocals drop below the picture, and the stereo image scatters across the room. Since speech is the most critical element of TV audio, unclear dialog directly damages the perceived quality of the product.

PRISM Dialogue restores speech clarity and natural imaging without requiring changes to the speaker layout. It combines psychoacoustic dialog centering with speech-optimized PRISM equalization in a single, integrated process — purpose-built for the acoustic reality of modern television hardware.

How it works

PRISM Dialogue operates in two stages.

The Dialog Process uses psychoacoustic techniques to pull mono and center-channel content — speech, news anchors, solo vocals — back to the center of the stereo image. Non-front-firing speakers tend to spread and scatter the sound image, making dialog diffuse and hard to locate. The Dialog Process corrects this by narrowing the stereo image to an angle appropriate for the actual speaker placement, while preserving phase relationships between channels. Stereo content like ambience, reverb, and effects is controlled rather than collapsed — the result is a correct image for the physical speaker configuration, not an artificial mono downmix.

The PRISM equalization stage applies a target curve specifically optimized for speech intelligibility. This goes beyond flat Acoustic Power Volume Density (APVD) response — the target curve shapes the frequency balance to maximize vocal clarity for the specific speaker system. Common problems like resonant buildup in the low midrange (which causes muddy, boomy speech) and missing high-frequency energy (which reduces articulation) are corrected precisely. The equalization is executed through Eilex's VIR filter technology, which provides the complex filtering required with minimal computational cost.

Lifting dialog to picture level

Down-firing speakers create the impression that voices are coming from below the screen — a persistent complaint in consumer reviews. PRISM Dialogue's psychoacoustic processing raises the perceived sound origin to picture level, so dialog appears to come from the on-screen speaker rather than the TV stand. This is achieved without physical speaker relocation — the processing exploits how the human auditory system localizes sound sources based on frequency-dependent cues.

Stable across content types

PRISM Dialogue handles diverse broadcast content without adjustment. News anchors, film dialog, solo vocals, and speech mixed with background music are all processed consistently. The dialog centering responds to the mono/stereo characteristics of the source material in real time — mono content is centered firmly, while well-recorded stereo content retains an appropriate (but controlled) spatial width.

Where PRISM Dialogue fits

PRISM Dialogue is designed specifically for television applications where speaker placement compromises speech quality. It is most effective on sets with down-firing, side-firing, or rear-firing speaker configurations — the designs where dialog intelligibility suffers most. The process integrates directly with the PRISM equalization pipeline, using the same measurement and tuning workflow.