Are your speakers losing air?


I was reminded of my own advice today.  I was fiddling with something in my HT system and had my head right up to the center channel.  I noticed that sadly, there was a lot more air and ambiance up close to the center speaker than at my listening location. 

I remembered the advice I often give others about room treatment.  If you sit up close to your speakers you can really hear the detail and ambiance they create, and that all the information you lose between there and your normal listening position is due to the room.  That is, your room is lossy. 

In this particular case I resolved the issue by putting a 2'x4' acoustic absorber across the entertainment center, essentially hiding it entirely with the center peeking up above it.  Problem solved, and suddenly movies and dialogues have a lot more acoustic information than they used to. 

This also shows us a couple of other issues.  My center is, by deliberate design, extremely wide dispersion.  I am most likely suffering from this vs. say a horn loaded center like Hsu or Klipsch offer.  That is, a limited dispersion center may not have had these issues.  The other is that my Butcher Block double wide rack is itself a source of interference with the original signal.  This I may fix more permanently with an IR repeater so I can keep the panel in place. 

Anyway, hope this advice helps you in evaluating how to get the most out of your speakers and room.

erik_squires

You’d be shocked at how many well known and well respected, center channel speakers have horrible off axis speaker performance, and measurements.

A good friend and I, spent several weekends measuring every center channel speaker we could beg, borrow or steal. And we were pretty consistently in a state of disbelief.

And it’s not as if getting decent vertical and horizontal off-axis response is some majore engineering task.

So, it does not surprise me at all that it sounded better when you were up close.

Luckily many improved just by tilting them up a bit. But some were so bad, they actually sounded better set vertically. 

It’s not just the room. The higher the frequency, the more it attenuates with distance as it is absorbed by the atmosphere, slightly heating it in doing so. This goes beyond "spreading losses."

...that's what and why I've blown off treading into adding a center channel config into my current array (omni 'surround' with a sub front at the cl 'up front')...

What happens if you increase the gain to the center drivers?  Does it muck it up, or improve the 'imaging'?

Curious minds get more curious overtly over time... ;)

I have vintage 12" 3 way JBLs for LCR. Each has volume controls for midrange and tweeter. I set them by ear and then run Audyssey. The end result is very clear and powerful sounding dialogue. Larger speakers push more air farther into the room.