2. home-theater
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Center channel question?

Does anyone know if there is a practice of limiting the low frequency sent to the center channel from the mixing process? I ask because I see alot of high end center channel speakers that dont go down below 40 cycles, and these are sold in packages with up to 6 matching towers for home theater, so I started to wonder why sell 6 speakers that can dip to 20HZ or below and when it comes to the center make it so "light weight" compared to the others? Is this because material sent to the center typically does not require it? I know it is not because of size because some of these speakers are very large and can be fitted with any driver and cross-over of choice.
Please dont say it is because of the THX 80hz rule because these manufacture's would not be packaging 6 towers with full range performance in the system had that been the case. thanks
chadnliz
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
For a music system the center channel speaker is most important, and should equal or exceed the performance of the others. However, for movies, the center channel is used for dialog, and dialog is more intelegible from a speaker with relatively narrow bandwidth, in particular reduced low bass, which makes male voices "boomy".
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,685 posts
 
Eldartford-

I agree with you that the presence and quality of the center channel is more important for music but that's because I (we?) regard music reproduction as more important and critical.

However, I think your description of what's better for movies is incorrect and a bit cynical. I have found that the better the center channel and, more importantly, the better matched it is to the main L/R, the clearer and more intelligible centered speech is (to say nothing about anything else in the center).

In essence, if you get it set up right to do justice with music, the movies will sound great. The reverse is not necessarily true.

Kal
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Kr4...Optimum voice intelligibility has been extensively researched for applications like air traffic control communications and alarm annunciators, and is achieved with limited bandwidth and shaped frequency response so extreme that no HT theatre speaker could be sold that way. Also, women’s' voices are much better than men’s', probably because of the lack of lower frequencies. Of course, intelligibility and realism are two different things, and so long as you can make out the words a wide range speaker is fine. It's just hard to find a wide range speaker that reproduces the male spoken voice well.
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,685 posts
 
I see what you are saying but do you mean to imply that distinguishing the voice from the background is 'better' than reproducing the voice in correct relationship to the background? (That's what I see in your last sentence, in distinction to what precedes it.) If so, that's a distinction between home theater and PA, not music and home theater.

Kal
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