Is Krell onto something?


Krell's latest Pre/Pro (reviewed in this month's Stereophile) features two center channel outputs, joining Magnepan in support of this, in my opinion, superior option for the most crucial (should I say 'all important') channel. An image right in the screen's center, one speaker above, one below, adds a palpable level of realism, and, after all, two (speakers and amps) don't have to work as hard as one.

Any thoughts, other than the standard 'comb filtering' argument, that does not anyway hold up to measurements, or my listening experience.
pmcneil
advantages to using multiple speakers (or even multiple redundant drivers in a speaker, for that matter), would be added system efficiency - likely yeilding better dyanmic potential from any given channel/system - reinforcement of frequencies (possibly more solidified image), cancelation of any differences between speakers/drivers for less discernable distortion, and "maybe" a more diffuse or larger sound from that channel, possibly.
Balance and quality over quanity and unbalance is always going to be of a higher priority ranking, imo. And the downsides to doing such things would be that you would most likely deal with, yes, comb-filtering and phase cancelation, and holes in the bass response (probably upper and mid bass freq cancellations for guestimated distance from one speaker to the next for any likely center channel arrangement being applied above/bellow or flanking side/side).
Sitting closer to one center vs. the other would surely have you only really hearing sound from one speaker, domminating (haus effect?...forgot). And, at that, you would have to be concerned about filtering from the bass, as I said.
This would be akin to a speaker designer carefully designing a Dappolito configured speaker, where two opposing woofers could possibly canceling each other at certain frequencies, who's distance between themselves were 1/4 (1/2?) wavelengths, corresponding to specific frequencies of that length. (lol- i think this came out right?)
Anyway, if simply putting more speakers for each channel was the solution, we'd all be doing it in our systems. At the very least, adding more speakers means more acoustic issues to deal with, especially in context of multiple seating arrangements. Now if you could adjust phase or time delay for all channels, relative to how far away in proximity to each speaker in relation to each other, you could probably serve up more benefits than down-sides to this approach.
I personally think a more practical approach is to have superior quality speakers (active, hi-efficiency models?) setup optimally for maximum coverage, dynamic range, soundstage pressence, coherence, detail, flat accurate response and tonality,etc. I just think just adding more speakers, just for the sake of adding for "more should be better" kind of a theory is probably going to be troublesome for most, in all likelyhood. And, given that most people have know clue what's doing what acoustically in a system, and or how to properly work with what they got, I think this using multiples should be left alone for most of us. But hey, that's just my perspective.
Leave the tricky stuff to the professionals,and focus on quality over quantity. Yeah, that's my stance, and I'm sticking by it - lol
I've been using two center channels for over a year now and they sound great. Two speakers do a much better job than one in my system. I have a very large screen (16 ft wide)and a very large room. I also sit 30 feet away from the screen. Two center channel speakers may not work in a smaller room.
I am assuming that in order to obtain this effect, Krell processes the center channel input into two outputs?

If so, wouldn't that degrade the signal from just having one center channel, since all blu-rays are currently mixed with only one discrete CC?
For me Stereo sounds best as a 2.1 system( left/right speaker and subwoofer system) Home Theater sounds best as a 7.1(left,right,center and surround left/right/center and sub) Mono sounds best as a 3.1 system( left/right/center/sub)
Ok then if two center speakers were better than one, then wouldn't 4 or more be better than two?
How about this formula: simply split the wall at the front of your room into 3rd's, and just cover each 3rd of the wall with a solid array of loudspeakers for each left/center/right channel (using in-wall speakers?)!
Then, simply get enought amplifiers to handle all the current demand for each channel, EQ, level match, bass manage, and you should be done.
I mean, if more is better, why not go all the way, right?!
Ok, we need to get someone with lots of ambition, and time on their hands, to do this experiement, and get back with us! Can I get a show of votes here?! Then we can make this "two centers vs one" point of contention a moot point, once and for all.