So I’ve been home and self quarantining for the past few with Covid in my dedicated two channel room….couldn‘t be without music as I convalesced. But of course, there’s a big screen in there and revisited the classics. First just stereo…..nope…..separation at 8ft between left and right was too distracting. Turned on PCM in for 5.1 and then deleted the center and surround output…..Better but not ideal. Grabbed a retired Polk center channel……one of the typical MMTMM things……..aweful!…..worse than either no center or phantom. Voices locked to the screen but only the screen and male voices sound like am radios…….nope.
Did some googling and came across the old Dynaco differential thing. So I tried it and forgot I had the phantom center set……..left a big hole in the soundstage and left and right imaging collapsed. Hmmmmmm. So instead I took the left positive and the right negative and BINGO……that did it! Dialogue returned to the screen and intelligibility was the best of the attempts. Voices now have weight with support from the left and right channels…….this setup will stay for theater use for sure.
Now this only likely works as the crappy center is terribly inefficient co to my mains at 4ohms and of course, for two channel I’ll just disconnect it and go back to Analog direct into my preamp.…..and a full large 3 way Center would probably be better……but for those that are challenged for space to fit a true center or the desire to add an ugly box to their room ( that’s me), then I count this little accidental experiment as a huge success.
Did some googling and came across the old Dynaco differential thing. So I tried it and forgot I had the phantom center set……..left a big hole in the soundstage and left and right imaging collapsed. Hmmmmmm. So instead I took the left positive and the right negative and BINGO……that did it! Dialogue returned to the screen and intelligibility was the best of the attempts. Voices now have weight with support from the left and right channels…….this setup will stay for theater use for sure.
Now this only likely works as the crappy center is terribly inefficient co to my mains at 4ohms and of course, for two channel I’ll just disconnect it and go back to Analog direct into my preamp.…..and a full large 3 way Center would probably be better……but for those that are challenged for space to fit a true center or the desire to add an ugly box to their room ( that’s me), then I count this little accidental experiment as a huge success.