The Weak Links of Today's Audio

[krivium]

Nice to see Cedar still running strong.
The first time i've seen it performing i could'nt believe how good it was. I didn't know they expanded their line to broadcast and 'spy's tools'.

Maat products were mentioned recently by Kipman275, very nice indeed.

 

[bradleypnw]

I feel the same, that the center image will go left and right with me if I move, which is why I thought a physical center channel would place the center image dead solid in the middle. But that really wasn't the case at all. There was not a single metric where having the center was advantageous.

I'm wondering if narrow or wide directivity will work better in the front channels. Floyd Toole recommends extra-wide bipole for the surrounds. Revel manufactures bipole surrounds.

Waveguides reduce sound level dropoff over distance which is good. But so do arrays. That leaves waveguides with horizontal control.

Horizontal control is used to shift lateral reflections to the opposite side of the room when waveguides are toed in. But maybe that isn't valuable with surround and a center.

 

[Mindsource]

I'm not sure about the center, but I've tried a number of different directivities for LR channels. I tried the final incarnation of the Infinity Reference Standards (R162), which share a lot of DNA with the modern Revels (and actually the same cabinet as the M16). For my tastes they were inferior to 90 degree waveguides. Very good speakers in their own class though!

For a center channel though, I'm not sure. Maybe you are right that a wider directivity center would be advantageous.

When I get my 24" round freestanding waveguides (with Beyma CD14fe) I'll let you know what it does to the center image, and if it holds it stable in more positions. I suspect it may. My current tweeters are Celestion CDX1-1425. They are very nice but cross high, around 2k.

I should add that I am very happy with the center image of my current speakers. It's bang on when seated in the right place. And when sitting off center the soundstage does not collapse or sound like it's just coming out of just one speaker, it just shifts. Strangely enough, the second best place to sit other than in the middle is right in front of one of the LR channels. That's when the time - amplitude tradeoff of the crossfiring positioned waveguides seems most exaggerated and it will actually create a bit of a center image between them.