Center speaker OR Full range as Center speaker?

There is only one real reason for the center channel speaker: to localize the voices for everyone seated off to the side of the screen! If you are seated in front of the screen with a high quality stereo system, the voices are centered.

Think about this for a minute, if you do go with a center channel speaker, what's the most important thing that you have to worry about? An object moving from one side of the screen to the other. Why? Because as the object moves from one side, across the center and onto the other side, if the center speaker doesn't match the left and right speakers, you'll notice the switch across the center.

If you don't have to use a center channel speaker, you save:
1. a possible mismatch with the front speakers
2. the cost of the center channel speaker
3. the cost of the amplification for the center channel speaker

If you put that extra saved cash towards your stereo speakers and amplifier, not only will you have a better home theater, but a better stereo as well.

Chuck

Lej1447,

I guess it’s time to dispute Cinematic_Systems and explain to you what I meant. I’m 51 and have played music since grade school, so I’m biased towards quality. It has nothing to do with being negative, and certainly nothing to do with being limited in experience or expectations.

Nine or ten years ago I got into HT in a big way and it sounded pretty darn good:

Processor: Lexicon CP-1.
Left Front: Definitive Technology BP-20 driven by an Adcom GFA-555 bridged mono.
Right Front: Definitive Technology BP-20 driven by an Adcom GFA-555 bridged mono.
Center: Two Definitive Technology BP-10’s, one on each side of the TV, driven by an Adcom GFA-555.
Rear: Definitive Technology BP-10’s driven by an Adcom GFA-545.
Subs: Snell subs driven by an Adcom GFA-555.

Then I walked into a stereo store where they had set up a hi-end Krell stereo system running Dunlavy SC-IV’s. The singer sounded like he was sitting on a stool in front of me with his guitar singing to me. I traded and sold everything and bought that system. I don’t know how many times someone would ask me where my center channel was. I’d tell them that I didn’t have one, and inevitably they’d get up and look around and behind the screen for the center channel speaker, because they “knew” that it just had to be there because of the way the soundstage was.

It boils down to “Quality” over “Quantity”. I realized that for myself and most people, it’s easier to come up with the money for a piece or two here or there. But if someone was in the position in the beginning to lay down the cash for a really good stereo, they’d be surprised with what they’d have.

I realize the young kids in their cars with the “boom, boom, boom” rattling everything around them think they’ve got it, but if they were musicians I think they’d realize that had noise rather than music where you can point to the performers layered in a soundstage from left to right and from front to back. The same goes for really enjoying a movie.

Chuck

It's funny, when everyone was trying to find my 'missing' center channel speaker, it was actually before the days of DVD's and I had a nice Hi-Fi Quality VCR hooked up.

Once DVD's came in, I bought a simple but nice Pioneer DVD and with the Dunlavy SC-IV's, it was so clean people's jaws would drop, and the bass would shake the nicknaks off of my shelves in the room.

My B&W Silver Signature's don't have that kind of bass, of course, but the midrange is a lot more natural. Now that the kids are in college, my wife and I have actually started having dates once a week and going out to eat and to the movies, munching down on the popcorn, Milk Duds and Cokes.

My stereo/HT is more of just a stereo again.

Chuck