timbre matching

Willow

what happens if you choose a centre that is not timbre matched, what are the "negative effects" if you can't timbre match what should you look for in a center to get them as close to your mains as possible.

Larry Chanin

Hi Willow,

With a mis-matched center channel speaker the pitch of sounds will change as sounds pan from the mains to the center and visa versa.

Ideally you are looking for drivers in your center channel speaker that are identical to your mains.

For example, I have SDA-1Cs for my mains. I was using a CS400i for my center. It was a close match, but not perfect. I don't have a trained ear so it was hard for me to hear the difference in pitch when listening to movies. I could hear a subtle shift in pitch when listening to test signals. The "whoosh" of the pink noise sounded different when the noise moved from the mains to the center. Based on the advice of a member of this forum I purchased a pair of SDA CRS+s. They have identical tweeters and mid-range drivers to my SDA-1Cs. Now the test signals sound the same as they move from mains to center to mains.

Larry

Willow

a friend of mine has omni 260 mains and is looking for a center but the omni center is lots of $$$ titanium hybrid tweeter and 6.5 poly-min mids.....what other brands could he look at..I first thougt maybe a csi3 but we polk has silk tweet maybe JBL ??? with a ****. tweet ???

what do you think

thanks

kberg

Take a look at the Center Channel Talk thread I just posted. It may help you out.

Willow

I just did ..funy how he says not to use horizontal center speakers...I think that point is not valid we do 90% of speaker makers make a horizontal center speaker ??

As long as it is angled properly there should be no problem

brody05

Hmmm, interesting article. I doubt there is any right or wrong, I had a CS1000p and man that was fantastic, unfortuanately placement became a problem when I upgraded to a larger rear projection TV that made things rather difficult, bought a pair of RT55is and got one verticle each side of the TV on some stands, sounds great too, which is better? I think the RT55is, clarity and impact wise they are hard to beat, miss the active subs from the CS though, easy enough to fix with a small sub on the preout behind the TV maybe.

Timbre matching the fronts and center rates highly in my opinion, in particular the tweeter, just seems to blend more when it matters. I have mismatched in the past and didn't really notice a big difference but that was in my early days and maybe I just didn't konw what to listen for. I guess it would depend on the different speakers, some would blend better than others.

Just my 2c:)