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Stereo Imaging

I think I've written about this before, but I wonder how many of us who use the same system for HT and music get fooled into suspecting the center channel must be generating the center image. I was playing the Abkco disc of "Let It Bleed" and found myself compelled once again to put my ear to the center channel to assure it was not generating the strong centered image I was hearing. Intellectually I knew it wasn't because I've tested it before, but the image is so strong it creates a cognitive dissonance. In a world of 7.1, I'm afraid I forget just how effective stereo can be in generating a soundstage.

db
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lrsky
1,118 posts
 
Mceljo,
Enjoy every minute...before you realize it...little he or she will be out on their own, living their own life, AS THEY SHOULD...but the time passes from this moment to that, all too quickly.

Good listening,
Larry
cdwallace3
41 posts
 
If your center channel isn't improving the quality of your soundstage, you're system isn't set up correctly. (Your other channels play a privital role as well, but one step at a time)
isochronism
2,893 posts
 
Mceljo, Don't play that for your son til his teens. Congratulations!!
pmcneil
12 posts
 
I agree with Cdwallace3...."If your center channel isn't improving the quality of your soundstage, you're system isn't set up correctly."

I'll just add that I have been fooled many times into thinking I was watching a movie in Dolby Movie IIx mode (center fully engaged), and enjoying it, only to notice that audio was set to 'Stereo'. But, every time this happens, it sounds better when I switch to the Movie mode, and engage the center. There is no way two horizontally arrayed speakers can compete in terms of precise localization of the image, no matter how good they are, if the center is of equivalent quality and properly set up.
vicdamone
850 posts
 
+1 Cdwallace3. Actually your missing a geat deal but if your OK with it then that's all that matters.
The center is somewhat like the audio fulcrum for multi channel dialogue location. Inserting a display on plane between my two channel speakers interferes with two channel staging way too much. Putting the display well behind the two channel speakers sounds horrible to me.
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