Yeah, i'll definitly try a centre down the track still. Just wante to see if people run without them still.
I need to buy a pre amp and power amps still as well as build my fronts, so a center will be the last thing i get knowing that enough people are happy not running them. Plus if i don't have one yet, i won't know what i'm missing out on
I need to buy a pre amp and power amps still as well as build my fronts, so a center will be the last thing i get knowing that enough people are happy not running them. Plus if i don't have one yet, i won't know what i'm missing out on
Do the center drivers have to match the fronts? Do you think building another one of the seas idunn units i have as the rears would work as a center with the Jenzens? That would be cheap enough to try out. I have read that vertical centers are better but is ported still ok or would i have to design something to match the Jenzen fronts?
All or nothing....
Hi Alexm,
To answer your original question, dont worry about a centre channel, you wont need one unless you are designing a true home cinema set up.
If you are doing this ( expensive!) then a centre channel is essential....70% to 80% of the dialog in movies is mixed to be played through a centre channel, not in phantom mode on stereo speakers.
A few observations .....
(1) For music, a good two channel set up will still sound really good regardless of the original mix (mono, stereo or multi channel).
(2) 99% of all AV receivers / processors have "phantom" or no centre channel options in the set up menu, this has always been the case.
(3) Experiencing a well designed, installed and set up home cinema is a humbling experience.....It simply crushes the two channel experience.
(4) Very few people have heard such a system as they think :
"My mates £30,000 worth of home cinema choice best buys still sounds crap compared to my XYZ valve / stats / OTL / class A / Wisdom / Wilson /Turbo sound PA monster clones...." This is a jumble sale not a home cinema!
(3) If you just add on random rear / centre / presence speakers and use the £50 per channel class D internal power amps in a typical £1,500 AV receiver you are going to significantly down grade the sound quality.
Sadly this is how most people "upgrade" from stereo to multi channel.....No wonder the format is so unpopular.....
(4) True home cinema requires careful matching, voicing & identical speaker drivers / crossover topology/ phase response all round the room. You can have smaller / lower power handling versions on the rears.
Also all round identical power amps of the same quality as your stereo amps....Matching phase / group delay is critical.
(4) Most audiophiles and DIY stereo guys simply wont spend the money on a true multi channel set up.
Lets say I have spent £2,000 on a stereo amplifier and £3,000 on a pair of loudspeakers....I am now very happy with the two channel sound....
In order to upgrade to a true home cinema / muiti channel music system I need to triple my budget...Another £15K...!!
Ie £3,000 on 3 extra channels of amplification, plus £3,000 to £4,500 on 3 more matching loudspeakers, plus another £2,000 on two powered sub-woofers ( £1,000 each) plus at least £1,000 to £1,500 on a good AV amp / processor....Now buy a screen and projector.....!
I doubt many guys on this forum would even consider that type of expenditure.
Hope some of this helps and good luck with your journey!
Cheers
Derek.
Hi Alexm,
To answer your original question, dont worry about a centre channel, you wont need one unless you are designing a true home cinema set up.
If you are doing this ( expensive!) then a centre channel is essential....70% to 80% of the dialog in movies is mixed to be played through a centre channel, not in phantom mode on stereo speakers.
A few observations .....
(1) For music, a good two channel set up will still sound really good regardless of the original mix (mono, stereo or multi channel).
(2) 99% of all AV receivers / processors have "phantom" or no centre channel options in the set up menu, this has always been the case.
(3) Experiencing a well designed, installed and set up home cinema is a humbling experience.....It simply crushes the two channel experience.
(4) Very few people have heard such a system as they think :
"My mates £30,000 worth of home cinema choice best buys still sounds crap compared to my XYZ valve / stats / OTL / class A / Wisdom / Wilson /Turbo sound PA monster clones...." This is a jumble sale not a home cinema!
(3) If you just add on random rear / centre / presence speakers and use the £50 per channel class D internal power amps in a typical £1,500 AV receiver you are going to significantly down grade the sound quality.
Sadly this is how most people "upgrade" from stereo to multi channel.....No wonder the format is so unpopular.....
(4) True home cinema requires careful matching, voicing & identical speaker drivers / crossover topology/ phase response all round the room. You can have smaller / lower power handling versions on the rears.
Also all round identical power amps of the same quality as your stereo amps....Matching phase / group delay is critical.
(4) Most audiophiles and DIY stereo guys simply wont spend the money on a true multi channel set up.
Lets say I have spent £2,000 on a stereo amplifier and £3,000 on a pair of loudspeakers....I am now very happy with the two channel sound....
In order to upgrade to a true home cinema / muiti channel music system I need to triple my budget...Another £15K...!!
Ie £3,000 on 3 extra channels of amplification, plus £3,000 to £4,500 on 3 more matching loudspeakers, plus another £2,000 on two powered sub-woofers ( £1,000 each) plus at least £1,000 to £1,500 on a good AV amp / processor....Now buy a screen and projector.....!
I doubt many guys on this forum would even consider that type of expenditure.
Hope some of this helps and good luck with your journey!
Cheers
Derek.
I run 4.1 with four Pioneer BOFU full rangers, a 15" sub and Panasonic receiver. The L/R channels have dome tweeters crossed high to add a bit of sparkle, and the surrounds fire upwards to try to make the rear channels as diffuse as possible. There's a MiniDSP for sub EQ, and it makes enough rumble to rattle my wife's Waterford in the dining room. I feel no need to spend any more, it's all just TV to me.
Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
I run 5.1 with a projector onto a 120cm or so screen. The front and rear speakers are floor standing speakers. The centre is a smaller standmount speaker of the same type, so that it will sit low and not intrude on the image.
It's not really working for me to my satisfaction as the voices are too concentrated into the centre speaker. I am not ready to give up on the centre speaker though as my main front speakers are rather far apart which would leave a bit of a hole in the centre. My plan is to inject a bit of the centre channel into the L and R mains, at around the 10% level. What I expect to have happen is to spread the voices out a bit more. I've been reading about how people choose to mix sound into 5.1 channels when creating the sound and there is some opinion out there that some of the centre should be mixed into the L&R, typical recommendation is 5%.
fyi - with my floor standing speakers all around being capable of low frequencies I am also interested in mixing a bit of the sub channel into them - essentially giving me 4 additional small subs around the room.
It's not really working for me to my satisfaction as the voices are too concentrated into the centre speaker. I am not ready to give up on the centre speaker though as my main front speakers are rather far apart which would leave a bit of a hole in the centre. My plan is to inject a bit of the centre channel into the L and R mains, at around the 10% level. What I expect to have happen is to spread the voices out a bit more. I've been reading about how people choose to mix sound into 5.1 channels when creating the sound and there is some opinion out there that some of the centre should be mixed into the L&R, typical recommendation is 5%.
fyi - with my floor standing speakers all around being capable of low frequencies I am also interested in mixing a bit of the sub channel into them - essentially giving me 4 additional small subs around the room.
Last edited:
Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
Thanks for the tips.
While the room will not be as extravagant as some of the home theatres i have seen people build, it will still be a soundproofed dedicated theatre.
I'll have our 60" TV recessed back in the wall and a motorized screen to come down infront of it (unsure what size yet).
Preamp will start off as my Brothers Arcam AV950 which if good i will end up buying off him.
Power amps to each speaker i will build. was looking into hypex, but Currently looking at aussie amplifiers.
Given this setup, maybe the center is worth trying. But it is good to know that it isn't essential and can be the last thing i do.
I definitely will be running surrounds for movies as the room will be 75% movies compared to music so won't run just stereo in there. So just a 4.1 to start with and work up from there.
Now just to decide on what sub to build, how many and what size........ This never ends does it
Last edited:
Dedicated family entertainment room
Hi Dan,
Happy to help out & hopefully save others some of the frustrations my mistakes have cost me!
Alex, building your family a dedicated home entertainment room is a fantastic project and I'm sure they will love the results (" best dad ever"!) and you'll all have great fun sharing movie experiences.
The key difference between a modern family entertainment room and the old school audiophile listening room with the "hot seat" for one guy to enjoy stereo music, is the ability to share the experience....
" Happiness is just an an illusion unless it is shared with someone you love"
All the best
Derek.
Hi Dan,
Happy to help out & hopefully save others some of the frustrations my mistakes have cost me!
Alex, building your family a dedicated home entertainment room is a fantastic project and I'm sure they will love the results (" best dad ever"!) and you'll all have great fun sharing movie experiences.
The key difference between a modern family entertainment room and the old school audiophile listening room with the "hot seat" for one guy to enjoy stereo music, is the ability to share the experience....
" Happiness is just an an illusion unless it is shared with someone you love"
All the best
Derek.
Very true mate, and thanks again for all your tips. I'm sure there will be many mistakes and experiences to come. I at least have a clear path to what front speaker i am building which will keep me busy. After that, who knows.... And apparently i may need to be involved in more than just the theatre room when building the new place
I mentioned i will also handle the shed
.... And apparently i may need to be involved in more than just the theatre room when building the new place
Good times ahead mate!
All the best
D.
Good comments.
My focus is my lounge room stereo system.
I have thought about running an additional single cabinet (or two centre cabinets with variable spacing/orientation) delivering centre encoded sound....all 3 or 4 cabinets identical - Behringer active 8'' 2 ways.
Do you have any thoughts on what should be fed to those one (or two) centre cabinets ....LR sourced mixes, levels, delays etc ?.
Dan.
Please use a centre speaker! It would be such a shame to put all that money and effort into a home theatre and have mediocre sound. Get a real ht pre that can decode all the multichannel mixes. And put in a sub. The .1 Chanel and stereo surrounds only works when you decode multi channel mixes.
Centre channel thoughts
Hi Dan,
I think you are right on track with all active, all identical front speakers.
These two points are key and you will get great results feeding a single centre channel from a good AV Pre amp processor or a full blown AV amplifier where you use the Pre outs to feed your active front speakers and the AV power amps to feed the rear speakers.
If you don't need the rear power amps from an AV amp, you will get a much better quality of DSP in a dedicated processor than an AV amplifier.
Having used several different Japanese brands as well as UK and USA processors and AV amps, I have settled on Yamaha as the single best bang for your buck. The 2013 and 2014 models (Esp. the Aventage range) are really superb and you can pick up some great Ex demo deals from approved Yamaha dealers.
These processors offer very high quality DAC & A to D conversion, serious number crunching power & real world flexibility with the DSP set up, speaker Eq and room correction. They are great fun to use, fully compatible with internet stations / streaming / lap top / Android / Apple and of course DSD compatible....All in all they are the screaming bargains in modern audio.
On a technical note, the reason I recommend 1 centre channel instead of two, is that movies and multi-channel music is mixed for one centre channel located bang in the centre of the screen (behind an acoustically transparent screen of course!) and all Dolby / DTS signal delays are calculated using this model.
Using a pair of "stereo" centre channels (one each side of the screen) will result in timing errors at different listening positions.
Three identical front speakers are the industry standard, but....Even better clarity and speech intelligibility with lower distortion can be achieved by scaling up the Sd of your centre channel. For example if I use 3 identical front arrays of 9 BMR’s in each cabinet it all sounds great. But If I down size my left and right speakers to 6 BMR’s per cabinet and upgrade my centre channel to 18 BMR’s I get a significant improvement in all movie and 90% of music Blu rays…..
This is because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
With multi-channel movies and music an average of 10% to 15% of the signal goes through each left and right channels, with an average of 70% to 80% of the signal going through the centre channel….
You can watch a movie with the left front and right front disconnected and hardly notice the difference….Switch of the centre channel and the movie collapses.
Hope this helps and all the best
Derek.
Hi Dan,
I think you are right on track with all active, all identical front speakers.
These two points are key and you will get great results feeding a single centre channel from a good AV Pre amp processor or a full blown AV amplifier where you use the Pre outs to feed your active front speakers and the AV power amps to feed the rear speakers.
If you don't need the rear power amps from an AV amp, you will get a much better quality of DSP in a dedicated processor than an AV amplifier.
Having used several different Japanese brands as well as UK and USA processors and AV amps, I have settled on Yamaha as the single best bang for your buck. The 2013 and 2014 models (Esp. the Aventage range) are really superb and you can pick up some great Ex demo deals from approved Yamaha dealers.
These processors offer very high quality DAC & A to D conversion, serious number crunching power & real world flexibility with the DSP set up, speaker Eq and room correction. They are great fun to use, fully compatible with internet stations / streaming / lap top / Android / Apple and of course DSD compatible....All in all they are the screaming bargains in modern audio.
On a technical note, the reason I recommend 1 centre channel instead of two, is that movies and multi-channel music is mixed for one centre channel located bang in the centre of the screen (behind an acoustically transparent screen of course!) and all Dolby / DTS signal delays are calculated using this model.
Using a pair of "stereo" centre channels (one each side of the screen) will result in timing errors at different listening positions.
Three identical front speakers are the industry standard, but....Even better clarity and speech intelligibility with lower distortion can be achieved by scaling up the Sd of your centre channel. For example if I use 3 identical front arrays of 9 BMR’s in each cabinet it all sounds great. But If I down size my left and right speakers to 6 BMR’s per cabinet and upgrade my centre channel to 18 BMR’s I get a significant improvement in all movie and 90% of music Blu rays…..
This is because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
With multi-channel movies and music an average of 10% to 15% of the signal goes through each left and right channels, with an average of 70% to 80% of the signal going through the centre channel….
You can watch a movie with the left front and right front disconnected and hardly notice the difference….Switch of the centre channel and the movie collapses.
Hope this helps and all the best
Derek.
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.