Is a Infinity Video 1 center channel any good?

[sc03979]

I'm looking to upgrade my center channel from the cheap sony htib that I bought 6 years ago. I've looked everywhere and can't get any idea of how much these were brand new. I think these were made 2 years ago, but not really sure.

Almost any decent center channel is a great upgrade from what I got now. If I buy the infinity for $35 am I getting a good deal?

[Woochifer]

You'll only get a marginal gain if you only upgrade the center speaker and ignore the two main speakers. $35 spent in this case would seem to me $35 wasted. What you're ideally aiming for up front is three speakers with matching voice characteristics. Even if the center speaker sounds better than the mains, it might actually detract from the imaging because it can sound like everything got funneled into the middle, especially if your current speakers are the typical quality that comes with a HTIB system. In a surround setup you want the sound to be seamless and open, not boxed into one point, and you can only move towards that ideal sound if you have a voice matched set of speakers all the way around, and those speakers all have a uniformly decent level of performance. Rather than do a band aid approach with the center speaker, you're much better off saving up a bit more and then start with an upgrade to the two main speakers. IMO, the two main speakers are the starting point around which you build your speaker setup.

[sc03979]

I don't have the cash to be really picky. I just want a center channel that won't distort as much as the one I got. It's really noticeable in U-571. I didn't win the auction anyways. I figured if I could get a decent center channel for cheap for now until I want to spend 700 or so later when I upgrade to better fronts and center.

Right now I want to build a gaming pc so that's where most of my money is going to go right now. I would hate to spend $200 on a center channel right now. Eventually I'll move into a house and will have the cash and no apartment neighbors to enjoy a respectable ht system.

[Woochifer]

I don't have the cash to be really picky. I just want a center channel that won't distort as much as the one I got. It's really noticeable in U-571. I didn't win the auction anyways. I figured if I could get a decent center channel for cheap for now until I want to spend 700 or so later when I upgrade to better fronts and center.

Right now I want to build a gaming pc so that's where most of my money is going to go right now. I would hate to spend $200 on a center channel right now. Eventually I'll move into a house and will have the cash and no apartment neighbors to enjoy a respectable ht system.

Honestly if you're going to do an interim upgrade, upgrade the main pair and switch the center channel off. If the center speaker's distorting, then you might have either a blown driver or the levels for the center channel are set too high.

As a first step, you should try your system with the center channel switched off (i.e. go into the setup menu and have the receiver redirect the center channel output into the L/R mains), just rechanneling the center channel into the L/R mains might be good enough to get you by until you can afford to do a more substantial upgrade. If you're really limited to $35, I would actually invest that in a sound level meter.

[sc03979]

Setting up the center isn't the problem. I'm not a complete idiot. I don't want to redirect some of the center output because that sounds worse. My question wasn't if I'm stupid and didn't realize that I shouldn't match up the speakers but if the infinity was any good because I had a hard time finding info about it on the web.

Believe me if I had a mismatched center that worked it would be an improvement over my current center. It doesn't matter now because I didn't win the speaker anyways. Thanks for the advice though.

[Bryan]

Are you certain it is the center channel that is the problem and not the amp? Swap out the center with either the left or right speaker to test it. Another thing you may do is redo the ends of the speaker wires. Take off an inch from both ends.

[Woochifer]

Setting up the center isn't the problem. I'm not a complete idiot. I don't want to redirect some of the center output because that sounds worse. My question wasn't if I'm stupid and didn't realize that I shouldn't match up the speakers but if the infinity was any good because I had a hard time finding info about it on the web.

Believe me if I had a mismatched center that worked it would be an improvement over my current center. It doesn't matter now because I didn't win the speaker anyways. Thanks for the advice though.

If you're not using a SPL meter and some kind of tone generator to calibrate the levels, then you can't really conclude that the center channel setup is not a problem. If the center channel output measures significantly higher than the mains, then that could easily explain the distortion that you're noting. So, it's not a matter of whether or not you're a complete idiot or stupid (you're the one using those terms, not me), it simply comes down to whether or not your system is setup correctly in the first place. Once it's setup correctly, then you can better pinpoint the source of the problem.

To me, the question about that Infinity or any other center speaker is irrelevant if it's just getting planted into a mismatching setup. If your speaker's distorting because of a blown driver, just about any center speaker will be an improvement. If the speaker's distorting because the amplification's inadequate or because of other issues like speaker wire corrosion, they will also affect whatever new center speaker you add to the system, and might distort at an even lower volume if the new speaker's efficiency is lower.