Phantom centre channel with centre channel lol

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would this be workable if not awesome,

I have my main speakers, positioned left and right of my TV, thats obvious but I have no room for a big centre channel under or on top of my tv, but I really would prefur one

Could I in fact put to smaller speakers (irrelivant what they are for now) left and right of my tv connected in series from the center amp channel, assuming they are 4 ohms making a nominal 8 ohm load like the rest of the speakers, if they are both getting same signal like say basiclly mono, but centre, would that place the centre channel in the middle of the TV "perfect" illusion,

any problems with that?
 
I dont think this will provide any benefit to using your mains to do a phantom center. The idea of the center is to lock the dialog to the screen no matter where you are sitting in the room. Just like any phantom setup, your idea will only localize the dialog in the screen if you are sitting in the sweet spot (just like if you use your mains for the center). You might argue that you are increasing inteligibility by cutting down on com IM distortion by seperating the chanels, but I personaly dont think it would be of any noticable benefit. Surely if you are using lower quality speakers for your center that would make a much bigger difference than cutting down the intermodulation.

P.S. Dont be afraid of using your mains for a phantom center... I sold my home theater gear to upgrade my 2-channel a few years back, so I have a pretty nice stereo now. Anyways, if i am sitting in the sweet-spot I can actualy hear what is like a "phantom rear" speaker quite clearly (when my dvd player mixes down the Dolby it plays the rear chanels out of phase). My center image is rock solid and crystal clear. It just sucks when there are more people in the room!
 
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I'll agree with the above, but add that it can really depend on your setup.

I have often run the center channel thru the speaker(s) built into the television itself. With the center channel set to "small" on the receiver, it can work pretty well.

The success of this will depend mostly on the quality of the TV speakers. Most are fairly anemic compared to what your will be running on the left and right. That's why you set the decoder to "small" of the center channel. Still, the TV built in speakers are often just not that good. But it's worth a try.

Wiring up the center channel to run thru the TV can be easy or complicated, depending on what gear you have. If you have questions about that, be sure to ask.

FWIW, I bought a set of TangBand W3-871S drivers to do exactly what you propose. Never did install them - made computer speakers instead. Might have to drag them over to the TV for a listen.

So no room for a slim speaker under the TV? Not even ~15 cm?
 
lol omg, the speakers I was gonna use were nearly the clones of those tang band drivers, the ones I was gonna use were the logitech Z-680 drivers,

right now im using a one as a center, but it has no crossover and

also I do have room for 20cm but, my tv is centered on a tv unit and in the middle is a vertical brace spanning from top to bottem and I cant move anything around in the room to fix this, so if I stuck a long center under tv it would be either side of the brace

how about this then, the speakers actually are 8 ohms each and I planned to use 4 of them wiring them in paralell then series giving me an 8 ohm load yet again

heres a pic of what I could do,

proposedcentre.jpg


isnt this kinda like what cinemas do, they have many centre channels spanning the screen, and yes I know they go behind the screen,

because all the centres are close to the tv, would it not seem that the centre channel is the centre no matter where you sit?
 
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Toast_Master said:
isnt this kinda like what cinemas do, they have many centre channels spanning the screen

Well... not in any cinema I've ever worked in north of the equator. It's important to have just one center source to pin the dialog to the middle of the screen. Maybe they do things a bit differently down there on the Apple Isle. ;)


because all the centres are close to the tv, would it not seem that the centre channel is the centre no matter where you sit?

If you used only the 2 below the TV, then yes, most likely. That's what I would do in this setup. Use just the 2 below the screen. Start with them as close to the canter as the divider will allow, then test moving them apart. Listen for the best dialog clearity over your listening space.

What I really meant about space under the TV was to build a short wide box under the TV for the center channel. You'd want at it least 15 cm high by as wide as the tele. Make it as deep as the tele, too. That will give you plenty of box volume for bass reflex or sealed box. Maybe use a little 5" woofer to help the bass. Add tweeter or widerange driver to your taste to do the top octaves. Make sense?
 
I've used a centre speaker, the 2 speakers on my TV (yup, still got one with speakers!) wired with the same mono signal, and using my mains as L/R with centre not defined in the set-up.

As my mains are fairly close to the screen, we have no trouble with the dialog - in fact it seems to follow the characters around the screen better than when we used a centre.

I think the centre channel in cinemas is to allow those people stuck in the front row left (or right) to have the dialog centred fro them on-screen. For any regular home-theatre, I hope that no-one is rude enough to have people sitting in that sort of position.
 
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