Center Channel Frequency Response

Lhf63...Actually, it was the second post that began the off-topic remarks about spelling. Lighten up. There is more to life than audio.

Lhf63 writes
>Final question: Given that a center is useful *for me*, and that broad frequency response is desirable, am I going to have issues with a nearly full-spectrum speaker sitting in a hutch on a shelf above the TV?

You're going to have issues with any speaker in a placement it wasn't specifically designed for which can be worked around with equalization (shelving filters) that may take the form of room correction (Audyssey, DEQX, Lexicon's product, Tact, etc.) that's configured automatically using a calibrated microphone.

There is a lot more going on in the middle these days in film sound tracks than in previous years. It isn’t merely simple dialogue unless you are into vintage films.

Good center channel speakers will prove this out. I’ve seen in various articles regarding loudspeaker makers HT over the top, demonstrations, using all the same loudspeakers…. Fronts, center, and rear! I recall a BW demo where they used all 802Ns. Super.

Discarding momentarily my propensity for being quite anal and looking to the more practical side of life, I am not buying 5 of anything that costs $6.5K each! OK so shoot me. I’ll turn in my card. I won’t even buy 5 $4K speakers! Or 5 $3K speakers. Sorry, just being anal again.

That is the issue. We don’t live in a perfect world and overkill usually isn’t the province of every HT-o-phile.

Truth be told, one doesn’t have to buy all the same speakers to gain a very good to great sounding theater experience. Primarily due to price, and adjacently, space limitations, smaller units for the used to be “oh, by the way” sounds that films asked middle and surround speakers to reproduce for that ‘imersive’ event, are the order of the times. Those BTW sounds are becoming not so by the way sounds any more. Likewise the auxiliary 3 – 5 speakers aren’t as inconsequential as they once were.

The quest then becomes matching them all to timber.

Having a center is better than not having a center unless it is well off the voicing parameters of the ones to either side of it. It can and does work where the center unit compliments the mains versus being identically voiced to them.

I set cut offs accordingly. If center and surrounds in my system are capable of 40Hz… that’s where I’ll set their cutoffs. If it’s 65 or 80Hz, I set them there. Sorry Mr Lucas… you do your thing, I’ll do mine.

Adjusting up the cutoff serves to change the perspective of the films’ soundtrack by migrating the sound fields bass impact geographically.

THX is aimed directly at mass fi buyers. Turn key operators. Plug and players. Folks who use primarily quite limited range loudspeakers.

Bass management is for the more enthusiastic HT’er which requires better performance and has wider range reproducers on hand to cope with in his or her array. If one makes just pretty good choices in speakerage, you’ll be better served by using it to address each speaker’s needs individually. Naturally, one can of course, simply ‘season to taste’, the subwoofers influence.

There is very little if anything in audio and video which is created equally. Top to bottom, front to back… the same goes for sound tracks. I believe the notion is that we enjoy the fruit of our efforts so the consequent journey becomes either shortened or expanded due to our own points of view and levels personal satisfaction.

For the less discriminating yet still prideful owner, equalization will be a great benefit ordinarily. For the picayunish HT aficionado, tone equalization will be less a need and more a choice as closer voicing in speakers will be evident. Only room anomalies will confuse things there afterwards.

Dig what you got, get what you can, and don’t fret over what others want you to have. Adjust accordingly thereafter. You’re likely well ahead of many.

Very good luck.