Centre speaker needed - which one?

[AlmaataKZ]

Currently I use old Monitor Audio Monitor 3 as L and R and a tiny elac Cinema 2 as centre channel and surrounds. I am replacing the L and R with big active ATCs shorlty. These will be used both for stereo and multicahnnel. Multichannel is not critical for me, but I think I should really get a bit bigger centre channel to make sure the obvious disbalance between main fronts and centre is not too extreme. So, I need to replace one of the Elac Cinema 2s with a new centre speaker.

Which ones should I shortlist? Budget - the cheaper the better but can stretch up to 500-800? but would be very happy with well below that.

Also, how importatn is it to have a centre speaker designed as such vs just getting a suitable single bookshelf speaker eg. ProAc tablette reference? I woudl think not so imprtant.

 

[The_Lhc]

General advice is to get a centre that's a sonic match to the fronts, otherwise you'll have a tonal mismatch.

I don't know if ATC make a matching centre, but, given they're active, probably not, it's one of the things that puts me off the AVI 9.1s.

 

[Anonymous]

Obvious choice would be their active centre : C6 Active Centre but you could get a passive that has the same tweeter as the active fronts such as the C3C Passive.

 

[AlmaataKZ]

sure, ATC active (or passive) is an obvious starting point, but as they are expensive, I was hoping to get away with a cheaper alternative. I did look at their c1c passive centre. so basically the question is how important is this balance of tone issue, given that multichannel is low-ish priority for me, although I do watch a lot of music blurays/dvds. And that's where I noticed the tiny elac is behind (even with the MAs) and will be even more so with the new ATCs so thought a basicl but normal size centre (or a single bookshelf) speaker could do.

 

[The_Lhc]

it's either important to you or it isn't but none of us can make that decision for you. The point is if you're listening to anything multi-channel do you really want the sound changing as it pans across the fronts?

The centre channel is THE most important speaker as far as multi-channel movie sound is concerned, something like 60% of the entire soundtrack comes through the centre channel speaker. I don't know if the same is true for multi-channel music (somehow I doubt it), but if it is do you really want to be compromising your sound to that extent?

 

[AlmaataKZ]

Fair point.
I am not so worried about panning effects, but I do want the musc to sound right.
I think at least with some music there is a lot of sound in the centre speaker - otherwise I probably would not have noticed the mis-match with the Elacs.
Looks like I may get away with a different make but going for same make (something like atc c1c) makes the chances of tones being totally wrong not so high and the result is likely to be acceptable.
Anyhow, thank you for your comments. Made my thinking clearer.

 

[Sorreltiger]

In my experience, the centre speaker carries nearly all of the lead vocal (or concerto soloist!) with multi-channel music. Thus, it is still absolutely crucial IMO.

 

[AlmaataKZ]

Decision made. ATC C1C.