Center Rear Speaker

EPrado

Hi Friends,

I have an RM7500 and I'm looking to get a rear center speaker from the Polk family.

Could anyone sugest me or have a good idea which center rear speaker will be best to have? The CS245i or the CS400i? THat is based on the speaker system that I have.

Thank you in advance for your coopearation!

EPrado :cool:

Larry Chanin

EPrado:

I'm afraid the subject of rear surround speakers gets a bit complicated. First, many of the so-called experts recommend two surround back speakers.

The THX folks were recommending dipole side surround speakers and either direct firing or dipole speakers in the rear.

Now THX has come out with a new Ultra 2 spec in which they recommend dipole side surrounds and direct firing back surrounds.

I think a lot depends on your personal preference. Do you prefer a diffuse, enveloping sound field were the surround sources can't be localized, or do you want to hear sounds coming from your surround speakers?

Here's a couple of threads that you may find interesting, or confusing depending on your point of view.

http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/006167.html

http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/001272.html

Larry

Strong Bad

I'm assuming Eprada doesn't want to get into all that THX crap like alot of us in here. I'm not going to start another THX bashing thread, so let me leave that at that.

So, to answer your question, I don't think you should look at a rear center any larger than the 245i. I have the CS400 and that one would be too big. The drivers would not match & balance out to the rest of the channels in your RM7500. It's too full of a speaker.

Too bad Polk doesn't have the option to special order extra channels for the RM series setups. With the growing popularity of 6.1 surround, I bet there's going to be alot more Eprada's out there looking for a rear center to match the others in their RM setups. Perhaps Polk should think about that option.

John

Larry Chanin

Sorry for getting us off topic. At the time I didn't realize that the RM7500 is a satellite/subwoofer system that has direct radiating surrounds. So the decison of selecting either a diffuse surround sound field versus direct radiating surround sound has already been made for you.

John makes a good point. It would appear that the drivers in the CS245i match the drivers in your center and satellite speakers.

Larry

EPrado

Thank you, Larry and John for your support in this matter. I have just purchased the CS245i as my center rear speaker.

EPrado;)

Strong Bad

Glad we could help.

Keep in touch and let us know how everything sounds. Do you have DTS capability? There are some cool movies in DTS 6.1 that you can use to give that system a full test run.

Have fun!

John

EPrado

Thanks Again!

What movies do you recomend for the test drive? I know that Gladiator and T2 are out of this world. Tell me some other ones.

I was referred to The Matrix. By the way, I waiting for my center rear which hasn't arrived, yet. Also, I looking, God Providing, in the near future a wide screen HDTV 16:9 to complete the set up.

Any sugestions in brand name? etc, ect.:)

Strong Bad

Gladiator and T2 are great choices (can only speak for 5.1 though), but I hear they're great in 6.1. The one movie I always read about to demo for DTS 6.1 is The Haunting. Yeah, the movie itself sucks, but I hear the sound is nothing short of spectacular! The Matrix is a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack that is very very good. Oh yeah, check out Seven 2 disc special edition. Great remixed soundtrack offered in DTS 6.1. Excellant video quality too.

As far as 16x9 HDTV, I think most in here would recommend Mitsubishi or Toshiba.

Have fun and keep in touch!

John

mjk91383

...you should check out Chicken Run using DTS-ES. It doesn't have a lot of BOOM or anything, but the the 6.1 mix really tests the capabilities of your system. Also, you might want to check out Cast Away, or like John suggested, Se7en.

EPrado

Good Job, guys!

I'm gratefull for your response and support. I'll keep in touch. I just got today Bruce Lee 5 movies set special edition. I don't know if you guys like it but just and addition to my collection.

I'll check out Se7en, Chik Run and others, too. I'll be around!




EPrado

Larry Chanin

I just thought that you would like to know that in addition to movies with Dolby® Digital Surround EX and DTS®-ES Discrete 6.1 processing, there are Dolby® Digital 5.1 movies that still have excellent Center Back Surround effects. So even though there are a limited number of movies with "6.1" processing you can still get your money's worth buying a 6.1 decoder.

For example from my experience Saving Private Ryan's sound track, although "just 5.1" is better than some movies with Surround EX. As I understand it with suitable 6.1 surround decoders sound tracks with in-phase signals in both side surrounds are steered to the the center back surround channel. I've got SMART Device's Circle Surround decoder and since Saving Private Ryan has very aggressive surround effects there was a hugh amount of Center Back Surround being routed to my rear center speaker. The enveloping surround field coming from side and rear surrounds coupled with the deep base powering my subwoofers and tactile transducers make for a truely intense movie experience. U-571 is an other 5.1 movie with good Center Back Surround.

Larry