Are Tower and Center Speakers Necessary?

[Defshep]

Just wondering. If you have a moderately sized living room, can't a set of 5 (or however many speakers your system allows) decent bookshelves, rather than huge mains and a small center, provide a balanced soundfield? This of course with a good sub to supplement. Just wanted some expert opinions...

[Worf101]

Yes.

I've hooked up two systems that don't have tower mains. I'd never hook up a system without a center channel or at least a one bookshelf doing that job. Using a bookshelf and not a designed center channel is possible if the dimensions are small enough I suppose. Woochi and Sir TT are the experts though.

Da Worfster :o

[PAT.P]

Just wondering. If you have a moderately sized living room, can't a set of 5 (or however many speakers your system allows) decent bookshelves, rather than huge mains and a small center, provide a balanced soundfield? This of course with a good sub to supplement. Just wanted some expert opinions...There are some very good bookshelves speakers that are as good as towers and better.The front and center channel should be timbre match.As for a balanced soundfield some receivers with auto setting (parametric room acoustic optimizer) helps in this department.The athena had a bookself speaker that was use for center channel.In a HT the center channel is the most important speaker if you want the most imaging for the voice.

[kexodusc]

Just wondering. If you have a moderately sized living room, can't a set of 5 (or however many speakers your system allows) decent bookshelves, rather than huge mains and a small center, provide a balanced soundfield? This of course with a good sub to supplement. Just wanted some expert opinions...

I would argue that quite often, bookshelfs offer better sound and better value than larger floorstanding speakers, especially if a subwoofer is used. Too often you pay extra for bass extension and a bit of efficiency only. In a 2 channel stereo system, this can be critical, but with a sub in HT, you quite often don't get to take advantage of the extra money you spend.

Center channels are a funny thing. The most common style of center channels in home theater are the mid-woofer, tweeter, mid-woofer (MTM) alignment. The center is then placed horizontally across the top of the TV or on a stand. This is the absolute worst possible position for that type of speaker. MTM center channels suffer sever lobing problems, and have serious off-axis response issues. The same properties that make the MTM excellent when vertically aligned make it a bad choice for center channels.

And yet these are the most common design. It's not all bad though. If you only ever sit +/- 15 degrees off-axis (ie: the sweet spot) you won't notice most of the shortcomings. Not only that, but there's some merit in the MTM design. They're usually of higher efficiency and arguably a bit more dynamic than their model family members. This presents an easier load on the amplifier.

Still, the most ideal surround sound system would consist of 5 identical speakers. 5 towers or 5 bookshelfs, all the exact same model.

[BinFrog]

I have a relatively small entertainment area and I use bookshelves (Mirage) for all of my satellites and the sound is fantastic.

[topspeed]

In a 2 channel stereo system, this can be critical, but with a sub in HT, you quite often don't get to take advantage of the extra money you spend.
If you are interested in two channel at all, I think it's always better to go with a tower/full range speaker for your mains as opposed to a sat/sub. It isn't that you can't get great sound with a sat/sub, it's just more work :).

[kexodusc]

Yeah, I've found subs pretty hard to integrate into my stereo system, especially considering my 2-channel system is in a smaller room. My towers aren't truly full-range, but the F3 is around 31 Hz or so. Not too bad. I think if I could place the sub in the center of the speakers I'd have better results, but space is limited and it's not possible. So no sub in that system.

[jclin4]

I would argue that quite often, bookshelfs offer better sound and better value than larger floorstanding speakers, especially if a subwoofer is used.

Kex,

a few months ago when I first built my BR-1's (A DIY bookshelf kit from Partsexpress.com), you advised me to sell off my existing floorstanding speakers. I took your advise and am glad I did.

I'm now using AR.com's (another bookshelf kit, see the "learn" link at the top of this website) as my mains in a moderate size room, and am quite happy with the bass response, even without a sub. I'm staying away from floorstanders for now. I'm turned on to monitors that offer excellent imaging and sound stage, as well as rich, detailed accuracy.

Thanks!

[kexodusc]

Kex,

a few months ago when I first built my BR-1's (A DIY bookshelf kit from Partsexpress.com), you advised me to sell off my existing floorstanding speakers. I took your advise and am glad I did.

I'm now using AR.com's (another bookshelf kit, see the "learn" link at the top of this website) as my mains in a moderate size room, and am quite happy with the bass response, even without a sub. I'm staying away from floorstanders for now. I'm turned on to monitors that offer excellent imaging and sound stage, as well as rich, detailed accuracy.

Thanks!

Hi Jclin:

So, I've converted another...bwa ha ha ha :D

Seriously, I'm glad you're happy. I have the Ar.com's as well, they were my first solo DIY speaker project (I had help buiding a few others speakers I have). Even after all these years I still think the hold up favorably against a lot of other speaker kits, and certainly any similarly priced commercial unit.

Next you should build a subwoofer. Easier, cheaper, and even better value than DIY speakers, IMO. Real big fun-for-the-buck factor there.

Man, this hobby gets expensive real quick.

[jclin4]

Next you should build a subwoofer. Easier, cheaper, and even better value than DIY speakers, IMO. Real big fun-for-the-buck factor there.


Perhaps a sub is destined. You're right, seems like a no-brainer project...maybe with the new RS 10" subwoofer (hi-fi version) that I've got my eyes on!

[Defshep]

Wow, thanks for the discussion. With a tight budget, I figure if I'm gonna take on such a potentially expensive habit, higher-end bookshelves making up an entire sound system as opposed to lower-end towers and center. Did that make sense? I've been up since 3am, so it's bed time soon here in Ga. I just always thought that for my room size, the towers are almost too boomy, and I miss some detail in the upper and mid-range.

[nightflier]

My HT is made up of small timbre-matched Axiom speakers all around: M22Ti's up front, a larger VP150 center, MT3Ti rears and QS4's on the sides. All small speakers. It sounds great for movies, but I've always been skeptical and a little less than satisfied when the QS4's needed to do double duty for SACD listening.

However, this past couple of weekends I've been playing around with a second pair of M22Ti's. I found that in my small room, I like the sound of four M22Ti's and the large center best. These are not towers and slope down quickly below 100Hz down to about 60Hz at the bottom end, so they definitely require the sub, but together in a 5.1 setup they are ideal. Replacing the front with towers, even the light-hearted M50's which have a similar albeit larger TMM configuration as the M22Ti's, would just be a waste of space.

Now if only I could find a way to use a 7.1 setup for movies and the 5.1 setup for music without having to swap speaker wire...