Matching Center Channel for older speakers...

[Worf101]

Dialog intelligibility becomes a HUGE fact when dealing with mismatched speakers. If you have one speaker with a pretty forward response around 1-4khz(lets say the center speaker) and you have two more to the sides of it that is relatively flat in the region. Effects, music, and dialog that lie in that region will pop out unnaturally from the center, while sounding recessed from the other two. This is very disconcerting and not very desireable.

Remember, soundtracks are manufactured and mixed on timbre matched speakers. They are music, dialog, and effects are mixed and eq'd to optimally be reproduced by timbre matched speakers.
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Me Lairdship. I agree with you IN PRINCIPAL but in reality it's pretty hard to work in matched Left's Center's and Right's unless you're buying all three at the same time and from the same company. If so, fine do it. But how many of us approached our HT systems in this manner? How many companies that make great mains also make a matching world class center channel? To me it's more important to have two great mains for stereo music listening that also can do passable double dute for HT. Not the other way around. If I had a completely dedicated 2-channel hook-up THEN I'd consider getting a matched set of three's. Also, as I've stated before, I like weird speakers that arent' conducive to matched fronts. Anyways.. It's good to see the King.

Your humble subject...

Da Worfster

PS, remember it's Sir Terribles world and we just live in it!!!

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Me Lairdship. I agree with you IN PRINCIPAL but in reality it's pretty hard to work in matched Left's Center's and Right's unless you're buying all three at the same time and from the same company. If so, fine do it. But how many of us approached our HT systems in this manner? How many companies that make great mains also make a matching world class center channel? To me it's more important to have two great mains for stereo music listening that also can do passable double dute for HT. Not the other way around. If I had a completely dedicated 2-channel hook-up THEN I'd consider getting a matched set of three's. Also, as I've stated before, I like weird speakers that arent' conducive to matched fronts. Anyways.. It's good to see the King.

Your humble subject...

Da Worfster

PS, remember it's Sir Terribles world and we just live in it!!!

Worfster,

You are funny as hell man! Hey, you have a world class center speaker already in your system. So what wrong with the RF-7? That would constitute a nice timbral match from your three front speakers. Make it so Worfster!!

[Quagmire]

Worfster,

You are funny as hell man! Hey, you have a world class center speaker already in your system. So what wrong with the RF-7? That would constitute a nice timbral match from your three front speakers. Make it so Worfster!!

Sir Terrible,

I absolutely agree with you on the RF-7 recommendation. I have an older Klipsch system with KLF-10's as the mains. When I finally created my theater room and installed a front projection unit and screen instead of a large RPTV I added a third KLF-10 to fill the role of the center speaker. Oh my gawd what a difference this has made! I was using the timbre matched KLF-C7 as the center speaker before but without having to worry about video shielding and the physical space required by the floorstanding speaker, the KLF-10 made perfect sense and this setup has not disappointed me.

After taking the time to play with placement and closely calibrating the system, the front soundstage is truly seamless. Just to confirm my own beliefs on the importance of a timbre matched center speaker, I AB'd the system cutting the center speaker in and out... it wasn't even close. Those who espouse a phantom center setup, citing the timbral match of the stereo fronts, need to hear a system such as this where the center speaker is vertically aligned and identical to the mains. Also, the ability to run all three front speakers as "large" full range speakers adds incredible dynamics to the theater experience and removes certain frequency related anomalies induced through bass management when running the center as "small" and tower mains as "large". Have just been very pleased with this setup. In fact, the bass response with all three of these KLF-10's running full range is so awesome that a subwoofer seems hardly necessary. Do you think I would gain much by using a powered sub for the LFE information while running the front three as "large" or would I simply be muddying things up by introducing a sub into this setup? I seem to recall that you did some experimenting not that long ago with all speakers set to "large" and no sub in the system. Can you refresh my memory as to your conclussions and offer advice on "to sub or not to sub"? Thanks.

Q

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Sir Terrible,

I absolutely agree with you on the RF-7 recommendation. I have an older Klipsch system with KLF-10's as the mains. When I finally created my theater room and installed a front projection unit and screen instead of a large RPTV I added a third KLF-10 to fill the role of the center speaker. Oh my gawd what a difference this has made! I was using the timbre matched KLF-C7 as the center speaker before but without having to worry about video shielding and the physical space required by the floorstanding speaker, the KLF-10 made perfect sense and this setup has not disappointed me.

After taking the time to play with placement and closely calibrating the system, the front soundstage is truly seamless. Just to confirm my own beliefs on the importance of a timbre matched center speaker, I AB'd the system cutting the center speaker in and out... it wasn't even close. Those who espouse a phantom center setup, citing the timbral match of the stereo fronts, need to hear a system such as this where the center speaker is vertically aligned and identical to the mains. Also, the ability to run all three front speakers as "large" full range speakers adds incredible dynamics to the theater experience and removes certain frequency related anomalies induced through bass management when running the center as "small" and tower mains as "large". Have just been very pleased with this setup. In fact, the bass response with all three of these KLF-10's running full range is so awesome that a subwoofer seems hardly necessary. Do you think I would gain much by using a powered sub for the LFE information while running the front three as "large" or would I simply be muddying things up by introducing a sub into this setup? I seem to recall that you did some experimenting not that long ago with all speakers set to "large" and no sub in the system. Can you refresh my memory as to your conclussions and offer advice on "to sub or not to sub"? Thanks.

Q

Q,
I am currently running my system with no sub, however my left/right mains are flat to 20hz, and -3 18hz. My center is flat 40hz with -3 at 35hz. This enables me to not use a sub, and when I did include a sub in my system, it didn't ad a thing to the output. However, I do not know the KLF-10's frequency response in the low bass, but I would experiment if I were you. Try adding a sub to the LFE alone, and place all of the other speakers on large. Get your impression of how it sounds, and decide from there.

I did a number of combination in my system and the results were rather interested.
Fronts- large
Center-small
Surrounds-small
While this is the most logical setup for my system(and one recommended by most hometheater guru's)it did not produce the best results. Imaging was superior with this setup, as was the overall balance of the system. But deep bass was being rolled off, so I wasn't getting that floor rattling bass I was used to.

Fronts-large
Center-Large
Surround-small
This setup improved the deep bass quite a bit, but I was noticing a change in character as sounds moved from the front to the rears. It was so noticeable that I decided this setup was unsuitable.

Fronts-large
Center-large
Surround-large

This setup proved to be the best all around setup. Bass was extremely deep(window rattling, air shaking, floor shaking) and the overalls system gave me that "acoustic bubble" that makes everything seems so real sounding. The speakers just seem to dissappear, letting the soundtrack do its magic. The one drawback that I found was that the very deep bass could get a little overwhelming on occasion. The system sounds so good however, that is a small price to pay for this kind of outstanding performance.

When I added a sub to the LFE channel, a 12" with a 250 watt amp, it seemed rather underwhelming when compared to my mains producing the same signals. I guess it would be no contest to have a single 12" woofer compete with the 15"(x2) in each of my mains which are in a much larger cabinet, and use three voice coils for improved linear travel.

Do some experiments of your own, the result may prove eye opening for you as mine did for me.