I need a new Center Channel, but CS2 is a half inch too big...

Nightsbane

What is something on par or better than a CS2 (but not a ton more expensive) that I could buy? I have a CS1, but it is either not functioning properly or not very good, because voices sound blatty and tinny from some sources.

I was going to grab a CS2 but it is just barely too big to fit in my space.

Looking for alternatives, probably buying from polk ebay refurb.

thuffman03

What is the LxWxH of your opening?

Nightsbane

I have plenty of room to the sides and depth, it is just the height. I only have another 1/3 inch higher than the CS1, I think that is is about 7 and just under a half inches high. 7 and a quarter inch to be safe.

Menasor

Moving up to the CSi A4 might improve your sound, but they won't be timbre matched to your speakers anymore. What are you using as your front L/R?

Nightsbane

Polk monitor 50

Nightsbane

vm series?

Nightsbane

I can't even find a vm center online, and the entire vm series is about triple the cost.


I just wish polk had a better repair plan... I can't just send it in and have no center at all for 3-4 weeks...

Menasor

Nightsbane wrote: »

I can't even find a vm center online, and the entire vm series is about triple the cost.


I just wish polk had a better repair plan... I can't just send it in and have no center at all for 3-4 weeks...

If you thought you had it bad with Polk... try Energy haha. Klipsch won't even repair them for me. I have to go through Vanns and ship it to Montana

Nightsbane

ouch

Menasor

Nightsbane wrote: »

ouch

Yeah I had to raise hell just to get them to send me a freaking tweeter under warranty. Polk customer service is great

Nightsbane

I can't say I can complain, except I have not been able to send it in because I would have no speakers for weeks. Only thing I can think of is to buy another cs1 while the other is being repaired

tcrossma

Nightsbane wrote: »

I can't say I can complain, except I have not been able to send it in because I would have no speakers for weeks. Only thing I can think of is to buy another cs1 while the other is being repaired

What's the big deal with losing the center for a little while? Just set your AVR to turn off the center, and you won't be missing anything. In fact, if your speaker is broken then you might even get an improvement with the phantom center.

Nightsbane

I am pretty much a nice speaker newbie, always having crap walmart $299 special all in one surround, so I am paranoid about blowing the monitor 50s.

I like to listen to movies like I'm in a theater with booming sound. I don't know how loud is too loud, and haven't even turned any of it up that high yet since I don't want to break anything.

Menasor

Nightsbane wrote: »

I am pretty much a nice speaker newbie, always having crap walmart $299 special all in one surround, so I am paranoid about blowing the monitor 50s.

I like to listen to movies like I'm in a theater with booming sound. I don't know how loud is too loud, and haven't even turned any of it up that high yet since I don't want to break anything.

If you're worried about that, then you shouldn't. The Monitor 50 is every bit as capable as the CS1. Just send in your CS1 and have a "phantom center" for now

wutadumsn23

+1 on the phantom center for awhile. If the CS1 is defective, it is only going to make you even more upset procrastinating about getting it fixed by listening to it the way it is. Also, keep in mind that the Monitor 50's are a floorstander and may be too much for the CS1 to keep up with. I doubt that is it, just a thought. The CS2 is an awesome center and I love the way mine sounds with my 70's. Call Polk CS and see if they can help you troubleshoot your problem, those guys are great. Hope you get it all fixed up.

-Jeff

Nightsbane

OK, bit of an update. I popped in god of war III (a new playstation 3 game with supreme sound) tonight and did some testing. I noticed that audio coming out of the left and right sounded great. The vocals had great range and thumping base.

The center channel was extremely localized. Any time it played I could hear exactly where the speaker was, and it stuck out. It had very little range, and was very flat and blatty. It stuck out like a sore thumb. I changed the crossover from 80 to 110 and it made it much better, except now it sounds like it's on all the time. Instead of just hums and thumps vocals from the central drone on with constant bass. At 100 or less it just goes back to blatty sound.

The cs1 center is defintely sounding terrible compared to the monitor 50s, and I have been turning it down just to try and make it blend. Does this sound like a problem with the unit based on what I have said now?

wutadumsn23

I would call Polk CS in the morning and see what they can offer for assistance. Sounds like you may have a bad CS1.


-Jeff

kcoc321

Sorry to hear about your whoas. You said:

Nightsbane wrote: »

...... I have a CS1, but it is either not functioning properly or not very good, because voices sound blatty and tinny from some sources......

I would suggest trying to trouble shoot/ eliminate some of the issues, before you just go out and buy a new center, whichever it is. I am not one to deter anyone from upgrading, but you might want to do it for the right reasons. It would really suck to buy a new Center, only to find out you still have the problem

You don't know that it is not your receiver or speaker wires, and if you can isolate it to the crossover, or tweeter or woofer, you could just send in that, if you were able to determine what was faulty.

Not sure what "Blatty" sounds like. Tinny would lead me to look at the Woofer/ and woofer circuit.

Couple of things to start with:
1. connect the CS1 to the Left or Right speaker wires. Does it still sound bad, as in "Blatty"(??) or tinny?
2. Swap out the speaker wire from the Left to the Center channel and give that a listen..Any Difference?
3. Try different Sources..Does a CD sound as bad as say your Cable box source?
4. Take out the Crossover and look to see if any of the Capacitors looked bulged or are leaking. Also, do any of the resistors look burned? Also at this time, make sure all the connectors are connected solidly to each speaker. Try it again.
5. Try it with just the Woofer connected. How does that sound? (Keeping in mind that it Should sound alittle "bassey" since you are running just the Woofer) Try the same with just the Tweeter connected. How does that sound? (Again keeping in ind it is just the High going through the tweeter, but it still should sound 'right'.

Report back to us with some results, and then you should be able to isolate what is the issue. It is alot easier to have Polk ship you a Woofer than shipping them the whole speaker box.

Also where are you located? I am sure someone in you area might be willing to help you out.
Good luck

Nightsbane

I am not a tech person, I cannot even begin to do the things you described, and living in Kansas I doubt anyone is near.

To make matters worse, I don't have banana clips, and so switching speaker wires back and forth is no easy task.

wutadumsn23

With the exception of option 4, the rest of the things kc has mentioned are easy enough to do. Basicaly option 1 is just removing the wires from the back of either your Left or Right main speaker and hooking them up to your center and see how it sounds. Option 2 is just swapping the wires on either your Left or Right main and hooking it up to your center channel. Remove the wires from the back of your AVR and the wire from the speaker on your center and left/right and re hook them up using the opposite wire. May be a hassle, but a good idea nonetheless. Option 3 is just trying a different source, like a DVD player or anything else you may have hooked up to your rig. Option 4 may not be a possibility due to the amount of experience neede to accomplish it. Option 5 isn't possible since the CS1 only has one set of binding posts and isn't capable of being Bi-Amp'd/Bi Wired. Give a few of these ideas a shot, you never know it may reveal the problem.

-Jeff

Nightsbane

OK I did some extensive testing and found the quality to be better coming out the the monitor 50s. It was not NEAR as blatty, distorted, or flat as what was coming out of the cs1. It also had good range and some bass kick.

I noticed that when I change the crossover herz in the receiver for the center channel NOTHING happened with the cs1. It sounds EXACTLY the same whether set at 50 or 150. No idea why.

It really seems that the center is the weakest link right now. IT sticks out like a sore thumb in movies. When I turned it off and just went to 2/4.1 everything was blended and nothing was localized.


So, I really don't know if it is broke or if I just don't like it. I have really not enough knowledge to know which would be the case. If I do have to get a new center, the cs2 is too big for my space by a 1/4 inch. I looked at the csi3, and wondered how that would blend. I know a few have bought it to go with monitor 50s.

It is getting frustrating that every minute of down time the past three days has been used fiddling with the sound system rather than enjoying it :mad:

wutadumsn23

Sounds like you have done a loto f testing, don't sweat it though I would still call Polk CS in the morning and see if they can help. As for the CSi3, it's not timbre matched to the Monitor series, and may cause some issues with blending, but it seems that you already have enough problems with that, the CSi3 may be a welcome addition, lol. Stick with it man, you will eventually get it figured out and be enjoying your rig soon.

-Jeff

Mon40CSMM10

I use a Polk Audio CSM and I also find that the Center channel is very localized to the center not only for movie dialog but also whenever a game is playing monophonic sound when using Dolby Pro Logic II Game mode.

Dialogue Enhancement is one workaround. What this function does is keep the dialog in the center channel speaker but also slightly mixes the dialog into the left and right front speaker. That way, the dialog isn't only local to the area more or less directly in front of the center channel speaker, but it also doesn't create a three-channel dialog effect at the listening position (this is only the case when standing directly in front of all three speakers.) Testing using Dolby Pro Logic II Game mode shows it isn't just dialog that gets enhanced, any sounds (including background music and sound effects) sent to the center channel will benefit from being enhanced when that function is enabled.

Phantom center has also been mentioned. Now, I don't do use a phantom center in my own setup because I use all the speakers, but the receiver I use does have Front Stage Surround Focus and Front Stage Surround Wide modes to create a phantom center and side surround effect using just the two front speakers. (The difference between FSS Focus and FSS Wide is how wide the phantom center soundfield will be created.) Testing shows that some stereo music sounds just a bit off when this effect is enabled, specifically in that some parts of chords end up getting separated between the left and right channels so as to sound more dispersed rather than combined.

The names of those modes are Pioneer-specific, but check the receiver manual for an equivalent function (it may be supported, but might have a different name for it).

Nightsbane

Like the original post mentions, the main reason I would look at the csi3 instead of the cs2 is because of space. The csi3 is shorter if my specs are correct, so it would fit in my space better. The cs2 I would guess I would have to mount above, and that is a concrete wall in a basement. It wasn't a fun job for the monitor 40s, and would probably be worse to anchor with a larger flatter speaker hung even higher in the air.

wutadumsn23

In the end it is up to what you can fit and what you can afford. Only issue I see, like I said earlier, is that the CSi3 is not timbre matched to the Monitor series. People have what we call "Franken-systems" and have reported no issues, it's up to your ear to tell you.

-Jeff

Nightsbane

I ended up purchasing a csi3 from a user on here. With the cs2, if it won't fit it won't fit. There is no if's and' or but's about it.

We'll see how it goes.

Zeros

Yep, I shipped out the CSi3 this morning USPS. You should get it in a couple days. Thanks again.

JimKellyfan

Nothing a cutting tool cannot fix
ie: router, sawzall, etc.

Nightsbane

JimKellyfan wrote: »

Nothing a cutting tool cannot fix
ie: router, sawzall, etc.

cutting into my entertainment center would provide one of those scenarios... I cut room for it above, and the top splits causing the tv to come down smashing the new speaker, my router, and the wii.... or I cut below and the the shelf splits causing the speaker to obliterate my playstation 3...

I think I'll stand by me decision to purchase the csi3