Center Channel Frequency Response

>First question: Is the underlying premise correct?

Anecdotally, 60% of a motion picture soundtrack's energy ends up in the center channel. It gets more than its fair share of the musical score and effects.

Thanks, guys. Makes sense to me to have as full-range a center speaker as funds and space permit. And, Kal, yeah -- ditto for "intelligible."

Lou

I thought "taylored" was more egregious. I do not understand anyone posting without an active spell-checker.

Kal

That quote was from me. OK, OK, so I don't always spell correctly. I'm sure you guys never make a mistake.

You guys really need to do some research about reproducing speech for best intelligibility. Much research has been done on this subject, particularly in context of hearing impairment and high noise environments. Note that I referred to dialogue in movies, not singing.

Here is a sample quote from one paper...

"High-quality speech systems need to cover the frequency range of about 80 Hz (for especially deep male voices) to about 10 kHz (for best reproduction of consonants, which are crucial to intelligibility). Response below 80 Hz must be eliminated to the extent possible: not only do these frequencies fall below the range of the speech signal, but also they will cause particularly destructive masking at high sound levels."

"High-quality speech systems need to cover the frequency range of about 80 Hz (for especially deep male voices) to about 10 kHz (for best reproduction of consonants, which are crucial to intelligibility). Response below 80 Hz must be eliminated to the extent possible: not only do these frequencies fall below the range of the speech signal, but also they will cause particularly destructive masking at high sound levels."

So, 80 to 10kHz is necessary, OK. However, eliminating response outside that range is either irrelevant (if there is no signal content outside the range) or a big mistake resulting in loss of program material (if there is signal content outside the range). So, if it is the latter, one may achieve some advantage in voice intelligibility but at the cost of loss of other content. IMHO, a bad trade-off.

Kal