The Home Theater Corner > Home Theater Audio
Five center channel speakers?
Sir Thrift-a-Lot:
Our family room is small-ish, but even worse is that two of the speakers have to go over door openings. There is only about 8 1/2" of vertical space to work with in those positions. Right now I am using an Athena Micra 6 HT speaker system. This is similar to Bose but better sounding for less money.
I am happy with the sound for TV, but find it woefully inadequate for multi channel music, especially when there isn't a ".1" bass channel. So I started looking at better HT systems with the notion of turning the four satellites on their sides to fit my space.
When looking around and reading specs on systems, I noticed that the center channel speakers had lower stated bass responses. This seems reasonable to me as they are the same driver compliment just with two woofers instead of one. So then I started thinking why not just get five of the centers rather than getting satellites and turning them on their sides. Is there some reason this wouldn't be preferable? Many of my favorite stereo speakers have been dual woofer designs.
MacGeek:
StaL-there are a number of manufacturers that use the same speaker compliment for the surrounds as the center, even the same speaker. Your idea should work very well
Sir Thrift-a-Lot:
Do you know of a good small MTM that is good for music that I could use in this way? Right now I'm leaning toward saving for five Klipsch RC62s, but am wide open to suggestions.
Jim Pittsburgh:
just a few thoughts from my readings and experience regarding HT center channel speakers...
Center channel speakers are, in theory, designed more for voices and a wide dispersion pattern than anything else. The best really do a remarkable job of making voices sound natural and cover the entire listening area.. the worst over emphasized in the highs and are "beamy". All lack bass, unless they make it a point of having bass, powered or otherwise, but these are always large and expensive. The norm is they are designed to be used with subwoofers. The best still go no lower than 60 htz while most actually, like many little satellites, only go down to only 80 htz to 100 htz. I've tried four different speakers for a center in what is now my son's living room.... and even the B&W LCR3 sounds pretty poor. In the garage system I tried a single NHT SuperOne for the center channel... the SuperOne are known for good voicing, but ended up having to use two... which itself proves troublesome.
The point here is that centers are usually not good all around speakers... no matter what they say in the specs or advertising.
I'd suggest a couple of things to consider and look at... the first being larger indoor/outdoor speakers... something like the KEF Ventura 5 would work very well in your application and are the right size, have a better dispersion pattern and go down to at least 60 htz .... or secondly NHT SuperOnes or possibly their newer siblings.. any that are rated to voice well. I have less than $50 into my SuperOnes including the wall mounts thanks to Craigslist! Maybe the small Advents? but if I remember correctly they were a bit beamy...
MacGeek:
Good points, Jim. For the surrounds, most of the concerns about the center don't matter much IMO. Having a common "voice" helps. I don't have any particular models in mind, but have been partial to Def Techs and Phase Techs of recent vintage (within the last 10 years). My favorite older models are the smaller KLH and AR models (6" and 8" two ways), as well as the little Boston A 40s. I have not used or listened much to horn based models. Always liked the NHT line.
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