center channel

[kexodusc]

I had my doubts about that guy, he got on me like white on rice and wouldnt let go, and
'not just me, but a few others too.
Check out the high frequency thing. The person who first mentioned this was an electrical engineer who flew bombers in WWII, and everything I HAVE SEEN SINCE PRETTY MUCH CONFIRMS IT.
And look at one of your statements, "high frequency waves contain more energy
but dont require more to be produced".
that means you're getting more out of the tweeter than you put in, basically perpetual
motion, a free energy souce, bet that makes the Arabs nervous

Or it could just mean less energy is lost to friction and resistance in the transfer from electrical to sound energy.
Anyway, not everything you've seen confirms, my points about sensitivity of woofers vs tweeters completely disproves it. 1 watt makes more sound with tweeters than it does with woofers. End of story.

[sgt bass08]

hi i think when u use a centre speaker on av amp most av amp say to use the centre speakers u must use pro logic or other sound fields but when i have my centre speaker on it seems to do most of the work like the treble and midrange come out of the centre speaker very strong and my front main speakers and surround speakers seem weak i dont know it my be me but the centre speaker is hook underneath my lcd tv but when u get close to it u can really hear the centre speaker over my main speaker wich is pretty crazy cus my main front speakers are a lot more powerful and as soon as i switch back to 2ch stereo mode with just the main speakers playing the main speaker feel strong agiain but it all good when i use a subwoofer with my centre speaker on and my main front speakers on with the surround my subwoofer bring me that awesome bass line but like i said its just strange how a centre speaker seems really lound compared to my main spekaers

[Woochifer]

Kex has got it right.

I would add that you should give the B&W center speakers a careful listen -- I've had mixed results in my listenings. You might be okay with the LCR60, but with the previous S2 series, the lower end center speaker that B&W recommended for the 601 was not a very good match. And in the rhelm of center speakers, the voice match with the L/R speakers is all that matters. You want the tonal characteristics to match as closely as possible, but know that the horizontal alignment of the center speakers will make an exact voice match almost impossible (the best horizontal center speaker I've heard is the one from Vandersteen, but that's a case where the speaker uses an unusual coaxial design to achieve a more optimal radiating pattern).

The only reason that horizontal center speakers exist is that the TV sits right in the middle of the front wall and occupies the exact spot where a middle speaker would ideally go. Speaker designers came up with the horizontal center speaker simply as means by which to sit a middle speaker on top of a TV, and come up as symmetrical a radiating pattern as possible.

With big CRT TVs now on their way out, and more and more TVs no longer wide enough to support a center speaker, there are plenty of alternatives to explore. In particular, if you have a wall-mounted flat panel TV, you might now have enough space up front to use three identical speakers, which is actually ideal because you don't have to worry about tonal mismatches.

[pixelthis]

Or it could just mean less energy is lost to friction and resistance in the transfer from electrical to sound energy.
Anyway, not everything you've seen confirms, my points about sensitivity of woofers vs tweeters completely disproves it. 1 watt makes more sound with tweeters than it does with woofers. End of story.

Actually , no.
You are going with your "feelings" , I am going with what I have learned, and what ANY
teacher in a vocational school will tell you.
Is the earth flat too? It "feels" like it, doesnt it?
Dont beleive llittle old ME, ask someone who is in the know, they WILL tell you pretty much the same thing.
BTW the tweeter will sound louder, the higher the freq the louder it will sound, usually.
This doesnt mean a tinkers damn about ANYTHING, doesnt say anything about the energy it is consuming, etc.
Its a universal law, a conerstone of physics, ANY time you raise the freq you raise the energy required to create it, and this is all I will say about it.
You will feel silly enough when you actually start looking into this instead of going with what you THINK is the case because of your feelings.
Try this, sit in a swivel chair, put a blindfold on, and have someone spin you around.
When you stop, you wont know, when you're spinning in the other direction, you wont know. this is because inertia in your ear canal will keep the fluid sloshing around in the direction it WAS GOING, instead of the direction it IS going.
A human was designed to go no faster than about five miles an hour or so, thats why cars going fifty miles an hour have seatbelts.
People cant conceive or what anything much higher than fifty objects looks like.
Thats why we invented math, and then , CALCULATORS.
And the relative volume of something is just a guess, really, that is why you get a SPL meter from the shack, and even then it wont tell you how much energy is going into that
object to produce that sound level.
A tweeter might be smaller, but getting it to move 12,000 times a second is a sight harder than getting a woofer to move 20 times a second.
It is like president dude told irritating news chick in DEEP IMPACT.
"It might seem that you have the advantage, but it only seems that way".
Well, you might "think" that certain objects act in a certain way, but you only think it,
doesnt negate centuries of research and development

[jrhymeammo]

DANG!!!!!! We got 101ed in da Schoolz of Life, Yo. Too much knowledge of flava packed into a single post. You are the supremo, Mr. Red Baron.

Peaceout,

[kexodusc]

Actually , no.
You are going with your "feelings" , I am going with what I have learned, and what ANY
teacher in a vocational school will tell you.
Is the earth flat too? It "feels" like it, doesnt it?
Dont beleive llittle old ME, ask someone who is in the know, they WILL tell you pretty much the same thing.
BTW the tweeter will sound louder, the higher the freq the louder it will sound, usually.
This doesnt mean a tinkers damn about ANYTHING, doesnt say anything about the energy it is consuming, etc.
Its a universal law, a conerstone of physics, ANY time you raise the freq you raise the energy required to create it, and this is all I will say about it.
You will feel silly enough when you actually start looking into this instead of going with what you THINK is the case because of your feelings.
Try this, sit in a swivel chair, put a blindfold on, and have someone spin you around.
When you stop, you wont know, when you're spinning in the other direction, you wont know. this is because inertia in your ear canal will keep the fluid sloshing around in the direction it WAS GOING, instead of the direction it IS going.
A human was designed to go no faster than about five miles an hour or so, thats why cars going fifty miles an hour have seatbelts.
People cant conceive or what anything much higher than fifty objects looks like.
Thats why we invented math, and then , CALCULATORS.
And the relative volume of something is just a guess, really, that is why you get a SPL meter from the shack, and even then it wont tell you how much energy is going into that
object to produce that sound level.
A tweeter might be smaller, but getting it to move 12,000 times a second is a sight harder than getting a woofer to move 20 times a second.
It is like president dude told irritating news chick in DEEP IMPACT.
"It might seem that you have the advantage, but it only seems that way".
Well, you might "think" that certain objects act in a certain way, but you only think it,
doesnt negate centuries of research and development

Pix, you're trying to apply a law of physics in isolation of the other laws of physics. You can't do that.
I will explain this very simply so that anyone with a grade 3 education level can follow.

First, let me address your SPL meter comment because it ties in nicely with the scenario I've presented here. An SPL meter isn't a guess or subjective "feeling". It's an accurate measurement of sound pressure level. Ie, true loudness, not apparent loudness,true loudness, true sound pressure. Understand?

Now, back to our experiment here. What if we could control the energy fed into a woofer and a separate tweeter so that both received the exact same amount of energy? It would be great wouldn't it since you are so concerned about consumption...Well, good news. We can! We'll call this unit of energy for simplicity sake, oh, I don't know...let's make up a word. How about "watt". Sounds nice?
So we feed 1 watt into a woofer, and 1 watt into a tweeter.
Equal energy goes into both. They are fed the same amount of energy. Identical. Not different. Get it?
Are you with me so far?
Good.
In practice this is what will happen with that 1 watt - the tweeter will generate more sound pressure than the woofer. I repeat. It will play louder. The high frequencies are easier for a speaker to generate. More loudness is accomplished with less power. Fact.

This isn't a feeling, this is supported by empirical observation and measurement data. You can verify this just by checking the sensitivity of any drivers you wish. Or just pick up any textbook on the subject and read. I recommend anything by David Weems or Vance Dickason as place for you to start, but whatever.

Now, if what you said originally is true, and it took more energy for a speaker to play high frequencies, then it would be impossible for the tweeter to play louder than the woofer at a given equal energy input. But we all know, this isn't the case for reasons I've mentioned in multiples in this thread already.
Your inability or refusal to understand this simple concept does not make it untrue. It is truth. I am correct. Nothing you say can change that.

Now, unquestionably, high frequencies require more energy than low frequencies to produce, all other things equal. So what's going on here? Well, "all other things" aren't equal here. I'll explain this to you as well since you can't seem to
figure it out for yourself.

What happens to that 1 watt of energy when we feed it to a driver? Do you think it all gets turned into sound energy? Nope, not even close. Quite a bit of that energy is lost to a few other sources in the form of heat, resistance (from the mass of air the driver moves against), and of course the mechanical inefficiency of the motor system of the driver itself.
This is where the disconnect between the concept you are clinging to, and what I am saying occurs. Yes, high frequencies have more energy than low frequencies. So what's going on here?

That 1 watt in a woofer is losing more energy in its path than the 1 watt in the tweeter. Specifically, to the mass of air. A tweeter doesn't have much surface area compared to a woofer, so there's far less resistance from the air.
If there were no losses of energy in the system, and the speaker was a perfect transducer, then yes, the higher frequencies would require a greater input of energy to produce. But this isn't the case in a speaker.

[pixelthis]

Good thing you posted that at a third grade level, since third graders tend to beleive in Santa clause, and you do too.
And no, I refused to beleive that a tiny little tweeter consumes a lot more energy to produce the sound it does, relative to my beautiful subwoofer, but then I was a teenager.
Now I am grown, and know better. What my electronics teacher , and practically everything I have read since, say the same thing, its nothing I "cling" to.
Simple fact is, the high energy required for a tweeter to work simply outweigh all of the factors you mention.
The sub might register "less" on the spl, but do you know how long a bass wave is?
A very small area of that wave is hitting the mic on the spl
And the tweeter is highly directional, and the higher energy sound waves require more energy to be produced , and it all tends to be concentrated in one spot.
It SHOULD sound louder.
It also draws more current, so it needs a "l-pad" , because to get the high bass you want means that the tweeter will get MORE energy also, which is why tweeters get blown all of the time, but subs hardly ever do
You do see the fallacy of what you're saying, right?
but dont worry about it, a lot of people, even those who should know better, think the same thing.
Doesnt make it true tho.
that tweeter, or any other device, is going to require MORE energy as it produces higher freq's , thats a fundamental law of nature, no getting around it, just like a 3 gig proccessor
will draw more current and produce nore waste heat than a 30 mhz proc.
The higher the freq, the more energy required to produce it, simple as that.
AND the earths round, also

[pixelthis]

BTW if your way of looking at things were true, then you'd expend more energy walking than running, your car would run faster at lower rev points, burning less gas as it drove faster.
You CAN pump a lot of energy into producing a lower freq, but that tends to produce a LOT of that lower freq. Farmers in the Illinois countryside used to light their houses from
the energy put out by flegling station WOR, but that energy was in the khz band.
If it had been in the mhz band it wouldnt have been nearly as strong.
You talk about "empirical " evidence, well, if your "evidence" states that producing higher
freqs requires LESS energy (reletively speaking) then you're doing something wrong,
like those guys who keep applying for patents on perpetual motion machines

[kexodusc]

Pix I don't know what sources you're reading, but it's obvious you just don't understand them. And that's a dangerous combination when you start preaching "facts" to others here. I have learned arguing with people who are incapable of understanding concepts is a waste of time. You either don't know, or don't want to know about driver sensitivities, power consumption of drivers, and specifically what they means in the context of this disussion. I'm sorry for you.

[pixelthis]

Pix I don't know what sources you're reading, but it's obvious you just don't understand them. And that's a dangerous combination when you start preaching "facts" to others here. I have learned arguing with people who are incapable of understanding concepts is a waste of time. You either don't know, or don't want to know about driver sensitivities, power consumption of drivers, and specifically what they means in the context of this disussion. I'm sorry for you.

I am not "preaching" to anybody, I offer information, they can take it or leave it.
The best use of information on sites like these is that they send you to new directions,
give you ideas.
The problem with you is that you simply dont understand the vast difference between
moving something 20 times a second, and moving something 12,000 TIMES a second.
And you insist on thinking that what makes "common" sense must be true.
You are the one who doesnt understand "concepts", and you have vast gaps in your knowledge base, maybe you're self taught.
I was in class for three years before I was allowed to touch a soldering gun, when we were finally shown the schematic for a television we were delighted that we could understand how it worked, because we had spent two years learning about horizontal and vertical
oscilators, high voltage rectifiers, superhetrodyning, etc, some of which is obsolete,
but some of which is very valuable.
And I spent a few boring hours looking out the window while my teacher patiently
explained that you could NEVER get more out of something than you put in, and the higher the frequencies you produced, the more energy you had to put in, among other things.
One reason I figured I would fail at explaining this most simple concept is when you talked about feeding "one watt" into a speaker, you dont even understand that a "watt" is a measurement of work produced, its the power put out by a device , usually a amp.
But it can be a microwave, etc.
You dont "feed" a "watt" into ANYTHING, what goes into a speaker is measured
as current (actual electrons) and voltage (electrical pressure that makes the electrons go).
If an amp is putting out a "watt" of power that could be in varying amounts of current and voltage. Theres a way of measuring wattage by measuring current and voltage, but I cant remember it, its been a long time.
If you dont understand this much, than how can I make you understand something that I
had trouble getting my head around for awhile, even with training?
You cant speak english to a man who cant SPEAK ENGLISH.
Basically that tweeter is drawing a lot more current than the voice coil of that sub, and the low freqs are spread around the room, the freqs from the tweeter are crammed together.
It may SEEM louder at smaller power inputs, but it only SEEMS so.
And that is all I am going to say on the subject, I AM NOT A FLYSWATTER, and find it nonproductive arguing with brick walls, or heads.

[kexodusc]

Wrong yet again, Pix. I understand frequencies, cycles, wavelengths, etc just fine.
You don't understand driver sensitivities, motors, energy loss in an inefficient system, and how tweeters produce more sound with 1 watt of energy than woofers do, as I have proven, as, and as you are afraid to look and learn for yourself. So repeat yourself a million times over, it doesn't validate your point, and tweeters still produce more sound per watt of energy than woofers. A fact verified by sensitivity that you continue to be afraid to address.
And pix, quite possible the stupidest thing you have ever said is this

Basically that tweeter is drawing a lot more current than the voice coil of that sub, and the low freqs are spread around the room, the freqs from the tweeter are crammed together

Man you have this whole thing ass backwards. Tweeters have higher impedance than woofers, they resist more current, they don't draw more current. LOL.
The more you talk the deeper the whole gets.
This was fun, but now I realize you'll just continue to post incorrect statements to try and prop your arguments. Maybe someday you'll be interested in learning instead of trying to save face. Until then, you have been schooled, and I'm done with this.

[sgt bass08]

[QUOTE=kexodusc]Wrong yet again, Pix. I understand frequencies, cycles, wavelengths, etc just fine.
You don't understand driver sensitivities, motors, energy loss in an inefficient system, and how tweeters produce more sound with 1 watt of energy than woofers do, as I have proven,


man what are you guys moaning about ??? a tweeter with 1 watt of engery will produce more sound than a woofer with 1 watt

Kexodusc is smart and right Pix are u stupid ??why dont you just listen to Kexodusc hes right .

[jrhymeammo]

Kexodusc is smart and right Pix are u stupid ??.

It has nothing to do with stupidity.
Just a lack of audio knowledge, and I too suffer from it to a certain degree.

We think we wanna know what you reallty meant, when you said.

a tweeter with 1 watt of engery will produce more sound than a woofer with 1 wat

without further detail, you could be more "stupid" than a member you just trashed.

JRA

[pixelthis]

[QUOTE=sgt bass08]

Wrong yet again, Pix. I understand frequencies, cycles, wavelengths, etc just fine.
You don't understand driver sensitivities, motors, energy loss in an inefficient system, and how tweeters produce more sound with 1 watt of energy than woofers do, as I have proven,


man what are you guys moaning about ??? a tweeter with 1 watt of engery will produce more sound than a woofer with 1 watt

Kexodusc is smart and right Pix are u stupid ??why dont you just listen to Kexodusc hes right .

If kex is right then your car burns LESS gas going 200 MPH than 20 MPH.
Is that YOUR experience, genius?

AND a "watt" isnt fed into ANYTHING, its a measurement of work produced
As for "saving face" why should I be concerned with the opinions of a bunch of monkeys that havent even climbed down from the tree?

One last time, because I'm bored, what kind of radio stations were built when man first started broadcasting?
AM radio stations, LOW frequency radio stations.
Mans devices have steadily increased in power, and frequency, we now can build devices of several gigawatts of frequency, because we can build devices that can handle the power required by the higher frequencies.
Because Higher frequencies require MORE power.
Sure you can put a lot of power at low frequency into something and get a lot of output at low frequencies, but on a relative basis, a certain frequency at a certain power level will ALWAYS BE PRODUCED AT A CERTAIN LEVEL, use the same power level to produce
a higher frequency and it will be LESS, because it WILL always require MORE power to produce higher frequencies to attain the same level as lower frequencies.
Doesnt matter what the "impedance" of a tweeter is, is it higher than the driver on a sub?
So what? If a five mile wide asteroid hits the earth, wont matter if it hits the great lakes
or the pacific, you're talking details that fundamentally, are minor details.
12,000 hz is several thousand times higher than 20 hz.
Radio shack bought out the Linarium tweeter company, made a line of speakers with linarium tweeters.
Then they recalled them, took em of the market. Why?
They were drawing too much current, producing TOO high in the frequency range,
AND BURNING OUT.
Ever hear that about a sub?

[sgt bass08]

[QUOTE=pixelthis]

If kex is right then your car burns LESS gas going 200 MPH than 20 MPH.
Is that YOUR experience, genius?

AND a "watt" isnt fed into ANYTHING, its a measurement of work produced
As for "saving face" why should I be concerned with the opinions of a bunch of monkeys that havent even climbed down from the tree?

One last time, because I'm bored, what kind of radio stations were built when man first started broadcasting?
AM radio stations, LOW frequency radio stations.
Mans devices have steadily increased in power, and frequency, we now can build devices of several gigawatts of frequency, because we can build devices that can handle the power required by the higher frequencies.
Because Higher frequencies require MORE power.
Sure you can put a lot of power at low frequency into something and get a lot of output at low frequencies, but on a relative basis, a certain frequency at a certain power level will ALWAYS BE PRODUCED AT A CERTAIN LEVEL, use the same power level to produce
a higher frequency and it will be LESS, because it WILL always require MORE power to produce higher frequencies to attain the same level as lower frequencies.
Doesnt matter what the "impedance" of a tweeter is, is it higher than the driver on a sub?
So what? If a five mile wide asteroid hits the earth, wont matter if it hits the great lakes
or the pacific, you're talking details that fundamentally, are minor details.
12,000 hz is several thousand times higher than 20 hz.
Radio shack bought out the Linarium tweeter company, made a line of speakers with linarium tweeters.
Then they recalled them, took em of the market. Why?
They were drawing too much current, producing TOO high in the frequency range,
AND BURNING OUT.
Ever hear that about a sub?

pixelthis fix ur face

[RoyY51]

A quick way to set this matter to rest is to look at the specs of powered monitors. They usually have a separate amplifier for each speaker.

For example:

Yorkville YSM1P Active Studio Reference Monitor: "The YSM1P incorporates a bi-amped power module that delivers 115 watts (85 watts of power to the woofer, 30 watts to the tweeter)..."

Peavey Quadra 15P: Internal power amplifiers: "Woofer - 800 watts peak dynamic power, 400 watts at clipping. Tweeter - 200 watts peak dynamic power, 100 watts at clipping."

Behringer B2031A Truth Active Monitors: "They're loaded with 150 watt (lows) and 75 watt (highs) power amps"

Yamaha MSP7 Studio: "The 6.5 inch cone woofer is driven by an 80-watt power amplifier, while the 1 inch dome tweeter has its own 50 watt power amplifier."

Apparently, it does take more wattage to drive a woofer than a tweeter. I hope that this helps to clarify things.

[Slippers On]

Dear Sirs

As one of the many by-standers in this debate/argument I applaud both of you, Kexodusc and Pixelthis for sticking to your guns.

Although one of you has to be wrong you have both continued to fight your ground.

Bear in mind that the reason nobody interjected was because the majority didn't know the answer themselves. (Everyone has been searching the internet looking for the answer.)

In my mind this is good discussion. It does not have to get out of hand now.

I myself have been drawn back to the blackboard into what definitions are at the heart of this debate...A Watt itself does not represent 'Energy' unless it is taken over time...(for example)...

Keep it going but keep it humoured.


By the way....the BBC introduced Female newsreaders on the radio in the 1950s because their voices could be heard better over long distances............Men started to switch off their radios

[RoyY51]

This was an interesting thread. What happened? Did you guys run out of steam, or what? Personally, I was looking forward to Pix's rebuttal of my "powered monitor" post. I was sure he could find some way to spin these specs in his favor. It will be very disappointing if he can't.