Center Channel Frequency Response


I have to go with one system for all -- don't have the luxury of one system for movies and another for music. I found this response in an old thread:
A center channel speaker that is expressly designed for HT will have a restricted and taylored frequency response which makes speech more easily intelegible. However, such a speaker is not good for multichannel music, where the center (and surrounds) should be the same as the left and right fronts.

First question: Is the underlying premise correct? Are HT soundtracks and multichannel music formats mixed differently with respect to the frequency range of the center channel?

Second question: If the answer to the first question is "yes," why would a more restricted frequency range on the center channel make dialog clearer? Seems to me a clear midrange is a clear midrange. Am I missing something?

Thanks,
Lou
lhf63
I don't have a lot of movie DVDs, but at least one ("The Bridge on the river Kwai") has nothing but dialog in the center channel. And, you can have it in your choice of language.

Anyone who is familiar with my comments will know that I am a strong advocate of having a center channel (and surrounds) the same as the Left and Right speakers, and I attribute much dissatisfaction with multichannel sound to skimping on these "extra" speakers (and amps). My system is equal all around, but then I use it for music.

About spelling...

The European Commission have just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would be known as "EuroEnglish":

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c"-- Sertainly this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" wil be replaced with the "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"'s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away.
By the 4th yar peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yar, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.
ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU
There are several versions of this...

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
Lhf63...Research on this topic has been conducted mostly in context of noisy environments such as you describe. However, consider that the dialog of a movie is heard against the background of all the other sounds on the soundtrack. This is indeed a very "noisy" environment, even if your kids are tucked away in bed!

By the way, my spell checker thinks that "Lhf63" is a good word.
Gee, it took a whole day for this thread to degenerate into juvenile baiting. Why I am not surprised?

Fine, don't use spellcheckers since they can't prevent all errors. Don't use seatbelts either, as they can't prevent all injuries. Only audiophiles could possibly find that logic compelling.