Centre speakers advise needed.

[Thaiman]

May be I should post this on other section but as I use it for music more than movie I feel it's justify enough to ask here. I just sold my Monitor Audio Silver centre as it's too high for my rack (my cd player is top loading so I dedicated top shelf to Audionet) The question is Why many centre speaker seem to have below average low frequancy respond? I have been looking at many models and the lowest it will go down is 62 HZ!!!! Considering 70% of multi channel sounds come from centre speakers I can not understand the logic behide the design. Lastly, please recommend me some nice sounding, slimline design centre 🙂 Thanks guys (and 1 lady)

 

[a91gti]

Purely guessing here Thaidude but could it be that most centres are optimised for movie dialogue?

 

[Gerrardasnails]

[quote user="Thaiman"]May be I should post this on other section but as I use it for music more than movie I feel it's justify enough to ask here.
I just sold my Monitor Audio Silver centre as it's too high for my rack (my cd player is top loading so I dedicated top shelf to Audionet)
The question is Why many centre speaker seem to have below average low frequancy respond? I have been looking at many models and the lowest it will go down is 62 HZ!!!! Considering 70% of multi channel sounds come from centre speakers I can not understand the logic behide the design.
Lastly, please recommend me some nice sounding, slimline design centre 🙂

Thanks guys (and 1 lady)[/quote] Is it not because most centre speakers will be used with a subwoofer which will help with the lower levels?

 

[Gerrardasnails]

What about the R225 from MA? A lot slimmer (my missus is always going on about how big our silver centre is!). It's longer but nice and slim - haven't heard it though.

 

[Thaiman]

Thx mr. Nails I will have a look....go down to 55HZ too, nice one.

 

[Anonymous]

This must be a turn up for the books the mighty Thaiman asking for advice hey? ; ) As others have said I wouldn't be too worried about the frequency of centre speaker as other speakers make up the difference in a 5 or 7.1 set up. If you're looking for a slim line speaker AND want good sound to HI FI quality you might be disappointed with "lifestyle" speakers as they do not have the same quality dynamics as larger speaker designs. The obvious ones are KEF 3005se and Tannoy Arena (I think you do get a better sound from the Tannoys though). I've recently heard the PMC DB1 range for 5.1 and it was good (at the hi fi shop auditioning room) and they're pretty and fairly slimline but I just thought for the price I'm not THAT bothered about sound with movies the same as I am with HI FI, and so am sticking with my scraggy KEF kit! Ive thought about trying a "normal" speaker for the centre but don't know what that would be like yet.

 

[Anonymous]

i dont understand what the problem about the small size bose speakers???

ps:i have these speakers from bose and are very good!!!

 

[Anonymous]

Maybe it's because Bose are good but 3 times overpriced?

 

[Anonymous]

Have you considered setting your amp to 'phantom center' or 'no center' and watching a film using just your L/R for the front soundstage?

I tried this myself after using a center for years and I must say I prefer my current system without one...

To my ears the soundstage at the front is more diffuse without loss of dialogue or being 'locked' to the screen and panning sounds smoother. This could be due to a slight tonal difference from the center and main L/R channels, however I do prefer my system without it.

I have not noted any loss of effects, I used resident evil 3 as my test disc having watched/listened to it 4 times over the weekend and after trying without a center, I am convinced that if you have a good pair of main L/R that have good imaging then you may be as suprised as I was.