Center Channels sound crappy

Rives audio , an acoustical engineering firm , blasted Absolute Sound for a letter I sent the magazine the prior month regarding center channel placement issues. The misunderstanding was in the wording , not the concept. Widescreen Review printed a ground breaking article in its sept 95 issue { Star Trek generations } by the esteemed Peter Moncrieff [ editor and publisher of the International Audio Review : IRA ] , regarding the proper speaker setup of the home theatre . Concerning the center speaker , he suggests that "Our research shows that center speaker placement is the single biggest mistake people make in setting up home theatre or surround sound systems " . Most experts will tell you that the front 3 should be equidistant from the listener. Peter says that his research shows that the center be placed 4 feet back from that equidistant arc .... OR .... { not AND } use a 4 millisecond delay to achieve the same result. He goes on to say " ...the front stage space also suddenly became cogently real , all sounds in this space suddenly acuired a palpable solidity and three dimensional reality"..... The next issue is making sure the center is a good match for the mains. The exact same model is the best choice but most pick a dedicated center that the same company suggests to timbre match to your mains . Complicating things more is the display device that usually occupies a space near the center and that itself introduces its own pandoras box of evils like distorted imaging issues. Rives can offer some excellent solutions with a few new great products just hitting the market now as a matter of fact. Its terribly difficult to perfectly dial in just a stereo pair and in the past decade we have added a center , subs , and surrounds to the mix . Getting all of this right is a true challenge to put it mildly. Good luck and be patient. You will vastly increase your listening skills with the trial and error period you are in .

When you lay a speaker on it's side as most center channel speakers are designed for, you have created a problem for good music reproduction. If your L/R front speakers are bookshelf types, lay them on their sides and listen to them in two channel, sound quality will drop like a rock if they are of the type with bass drivers at both ends and tweeter in the middle which almost all center channels of close to full range output are. I also agree With Brainwaters post on placement of center behind the fronts, mine are two feet behind with vertical placement.

Once i get a center channel that is worth a damn i will probably give that a try.
I think im going to skip the entire "Center speaker" altogether and get anotehr KEF Q1 monitor and use that on the center channel...

Hey Brainwater, the more i think about your handle, the more it freaks me out. I mean come on. Brain Water. Eww.. Makes my eyes tear up just thinking about it. heheheh no offence intended!

Slappy,

"I know it was not the "center channel" amp either, it is on a DENON 3803 and all channels are identical, i was playing it with the 5/7ch stereo mode and all the speakers sounded great for music but the center channel really really sucked.."

I used to have a Denon 3802 with Paradigm Studio 60v2 fronts, Studio CCv2 center, a pair of Mission 700 bookshelf speakers for the rear, and a Paradigm PW-2200 subwoofer. I found that when I listened in the 5-channel "stereo" mode, the center channel sounded weak and somewhat "mushy" while the other 4 speakers sounded good. I, at first, thought that the speaker was defective. To try this theory out, I disconnected one of the Studio 60's and put the center channel in its place. Sounds good! What the hell is going on? OK, thought I, it has to be the center amp w/in the Denon. I took the Denon back to the audio store where I bought it and told them the story. They ran some tests while I was there and damn if the center channel amp was fine. About 10 seconds after the final test, the owner rolled his eyes and said that, yes, of course the center channel sounds relatively bad compared to the other 4 speakers. The center channel has to go through, by definition, a DSP from a stereo input. In other words, it is a half-baked blend of the stereo input!
That makes sense, thought I.

Regards,

Huh.....

makes sense i guess.... ya know i really diddnt think of that...

The amps are all identical, so i ruled the reciever out of the problem, but you are right, for the 5ch sereo it has DSP it into a channel....

that must be some real CRAPPY dsp for that mode...

i think i might play around with that tonight. put one of my Q1s into the center position.

The center channel is only really used for dialogue on 5/6/7.1 setups, i never really checked to see if it plays with DSP modes, i really only listen to music in stereo without any DSP. normally with the PURE DIRECT function.

I bet that is it. I havent listened to any DVD-A on it yet, cause in dont have the 6 cables needed and dont have the cash to get em yet, so im using digital coaz which wont carry the DVD-A signal...

thanks for the info! that gives me more to think about