I must be going insane...

Driver_King

So, my new Monitor 5's arrived yesterday (and I replaced the frozen driver today) and I decided I'd try to get to bed early tonight before I did something crazy. (Too late) So a thought popped into my head; use the Monitor 5's as centers along with the SDA II's just to hear what it would sound like. Naturally, I decided to try using both speakers. I took some old, terrible ~22 gauge wire and split it for use with both speakers as the center channel with the Onkyo receiver powering them. I also turned the speakers upside down on top of the subwoofer so the tweeters are as close to the height of the other SDA speakers. After a couple of setting adjustment for distance and level, I turned on PLIIx Music and the radio. I'm at a loss of words. Now, I thought I had voices sounding pretty damn well before. This is just ridiculous. I have a singer in my freaking room now. Of all of the crazy tweaks I've done, this is the best thing I've EVER done. Not the subwoofers, the receiver, amplifiers, isolation, calibration, nothing. I don't think I can go back to phantom center again. This is absolutely mind-blowing. Even far off axis, the sound stage and voice accuracy is just shocking. I don't know I can keep the speakers in their current position as they are in front of the projector screen but I'm seriously considering moving things around - out - of the room to accommodate these speakers. This is not to mention the sound degradation of the split cables and their gauge (one of the cables has only about 10 strands of copper, if even). I was always under the impression that having two center channel speakers would cause signal cancellation or phase issues. That is certainly not what it sounds like. I can't imagine where I'd be if I never discovered Polk Audio.:eek:

Wade Spradley

Excellent score on the 5's, enjoy them. The setup sounds impressive, hope you get to try as a HT setup too. It should envelop you. Hope you replace the impromptu speaker wire soon.

Good luck.