Was tired of inadequate Center Channel

[simpleman68]

Sept 25, 2017 7:58:34 GMT -5 405x5 said:

Equally important To having a good matchup to the mains (for center) is placement.
All of us deal in one way or another with that quandary of......
above or below the screen 📺
Screen too high or low, big, small etc. Having the tweets and midrange pan across left right and center (at the same height) is always my main objective.

Bill

Agreed. One of my limitations now is setup for the initial room size. Would be hard to insert an AT screen in front of the JTRs.

We're moving in the Spring and I will purpose build the next theater with an AT screen and the center.... in the center.
Scott

[simpleman68]

Sept 27, 2017 19:00:55 GMT -5 keithmisegades said:

For texzick and anyone else that wants a little more information about this build...

I struggled for a couple years to decide what center to use with my main speakers (Vandersteen 3a Signature's).
The L/R and Center back surrounds are a combination of Vance Dickason's 5-channel system (Loudspeaker Design Cookbook) and a pair of Revel S206's (they were on sale)

I used two MTM's from the Vance Dickason 5-channel system I built about a decade ago and they worked OK, but they struggled during louder sections of a movie and didn't have much bass.

Jed Kunz of Clearwave audio makes some impressive speakers and his 4CC kit intruiged me since it was way less expensive than one of similar design from a major manufacturer.

For under $1000, I could get all the components from www.speakerbuilder.com, the plans from Jed Kunz and move forward.

Jed was very helpful as I asked a couple questions before taking the plunge.

Having a bit of wood working experience with making some furniture for my house, building the enclosures was quite easy and I was able to get very tight tolerances.

Not having any speaker design experience, I followed the dimensions per the plan, though others have made quite a few changes from the "plan" and had great success.

The end result is quite good and the dynamics from this are much better than what I hear from many home theaters and in many stores.

I no longer struggle hearing everything that the sound engineers wanted you to hear from a movie or music.

I am quite concerned that I now have speakers from 4 different brands/designs in my home theater and will work on correcting that in the future.  Clearwave has a companion 4T L/R design that I may do one year.

But, to my older ears, I only notice it when doing some discerning listening.  In the midst of a movie, the difference disappears.

The midrange and high are quite smooth and do not make we want to run out of the room after a few hours.  The mid-bass is there in spades as I have two 15" subs that handle everything below 80 hz.

But, my Vandersteen 3A Signature's do sound better overall, as expected.

I drive the system using a Rotel sourround processor and Adcom multi-chanel amps.  The center gets two channels of 125 watts each, 1 channel for the woofers and 1 channel for the mid/tweeter.

I am not thrilled with my veneering job and feel that I could do a better there, but I don't have much experience there since my furniture is made entirely out of hardwoods.  I once made a 10" sub woofer and clad it with 1/4" hardwood pieces which came out beautifully.

Thanks for reading..

Once again, I'm thrilled to find Emotiva and really enjoy the limited number of pieces I have.

Great job, Emotive team!

Keith

Sounds like you got a winning combo. I have a bit of a Frankenstein system as well but it works well together and that's where it matters.
Yes, it's great when you can get a matching set all in one fell swoop but it's also damn expensive.

I think a lot of folks, myself included, get into it piecemeal and "upgrade" to better equipment as time, money, and opportunity permits.

I hear ya about how huge an impact a great center speaker makes. It was such a substantial difference for me that it took some getting used to.
Almost sounded like the center was too hot.
Scott

[Deleted]

I have always been a 3-way speaker fan. So many builders (commercial & DIY) pushed the 2.5 way center for years, but they have the same issues of 2-way- the xover is exactly where your hearing is the most sensitive, 3-ways have flat frequency response and consistent dispersion through most of the vocal range.
After doing some reading on the Clearwave 4CC, it's very intriguing and may have given me motivation for a winter project, at least a starting point. After years of trying to find an impressive Center, I came to the conclusion that you're going to spend $750-$1000 for the drivers & Xover. I kept waiting for John "Zaph" Krutke to design a 3-way Center, but that's not his thing, he's a stereo guy.
Read "What's the Ideal Speaker Driver Configuration?" By Brent Butterworth, he makes some very good points.
Thx for the post.

[Deleted]

Someone on this forum (I believe) made a pair of Zaph ZRT and veneered them in walnut he got from someone who cut down a walnut tree. They may be the most beautiful DIYs I've seen. The time & effort spent on the build is truly admirable.

[leonski]

You don't get comb filtering effects with multiple drivers reproducing the same band of frequencies?

[socketman]

Nov 10, 2017 19:34:23 GMT -5 leonski said:

You don't get comb filtering effects with multiple drivers reproducing the same band of frequencies?

Only with tweeters. Do some reading about comb filtering, its actually added to rock music. Some people , such as myself are not affected by it and yes i own speakers with dual tweeters. Some interesting reading if your so inclined about this phenomenon.

[leonski]

Before I start reading, my understanding was that comb filtering is an effect of driver size, driver spacing and frequency. People are more sensitive to stuff at higher frequencies, which is where I've heard such effects before. My hearing is NOT particularly 'golden' so it was very irritating when I started being offput by my 'd' amp behavior. Wider bandwidth amps like my conventional A/B stuff I now use doesn't produce this effect.
Even when I had 'D' amps which have phase shift at higher frequencies. Arrival time is key, so any time you have 2 speakers producing the same information, it is possible, when they are horizontially displaced to have such an effect. A line source MIGHT be somewhat less liable to this effect, except perhaps when it is one of those
hugely TALL units with a Dozen drivers from a foot off the ground to a foot from the ceiling.

I would suspect you could even get this effect with low bass, but that the ear is probably Least sensitive at low and lower frequencies.  

I'll read up. Link?

[pknaz]

You can get comb filtering from a single transducer in a room, simply from the reflections in the room.

Edit: Actually, I will say that you _will_ get comb filtering from a single transducer in a room.

[leonski]

Nov 10, 2017 23:50:56 GMT -5 pknaz said:

You can get comb filtering from a single transducer in a room, simply from the reflections in the room.

Edit: Actually, I will say that you _will_ get comb filtering from a single transducer in a room.

Thus the importance of 'room'.      And how an OK system in s good to great room can sound MUCH better than a mega-buck system in a bad room.

[luvsorite]

Sept 24, 2017 19:30:42 GMT -5 simpleman68 said:

I was amazed at how much difference a proper center channel made in my theater.

Went from Polk RTi A9s (great speakers btw) and a matching Polk center channel to JTRs Noesis 215s. Damn!
Scott

Before: Little center speaker built into the stage

Beautiful installation you have. It looks like you've placed the center speaker on the floor close to the screen and therefore well off axis with your ears when seated perhaps 12 feet away. If you are enjoying excellent frequency response and sound stage size then it must have excellent off-axis and directivity response.

What make/model is that center speaker? Thank you.

[luvsorite]

Sept 25, 2017 1:04:31 GMT -5 Casey Leedom said:

I got a lot of flack from my friends for getting the Legacy Audio Marquis HD Center Channel to match my Focus SEs, but I honestly haven't regretted it ...

Casey

That's not surprising since as Loop 7 found most of soundtrack info (from DVDs and BDs) was sent to his center speaker, not to his main speakers. So, do you even notice the main speakers playing much when watching movies? If not, then with just music listening, since it appears you only have a 3.1 system, and unless you're playing multichannel music, your center channel speaker won't even be playing with stereo and mono recordings. 

[simpleman68]

Aug 16, 2024 10:29:04 GMT -5 luvsorite said:

Sept 24, 2017 19:30:42 GMT -5 simpleman68 said:

I was amazed at how much difference a proper center channel made in my theater.

Went from Polk RTi A9s (great speakers btw) and a matching Polk center channel to JTRs Noesis 215s. Damn!
Scott

Before: Little center speaker built into the stage

Beautiful installation you have. It looks like you've placed the center speaker on the floor close to the screen and therefore well off axis with your ears when seated perhaps 12 feet away. If you are enjoying excellent frequency response and sound stage size then it must have excellent off-axis and directivity response.

What make/model is that center speaker? Thank you.

That was a temporary setup until I could build a shelf for the center channel. I put them behind an acoustically transparent screen and the center is now, properly at ear level.

I traded the 3 JTR 215s for 3 JTR 212s and added 2 subs.

Scott

[405x5]

Sept 24, 2017 18:16:01 GMT -5 keithmisegades said:

“especially since this one speaker is bi-amped.”

“Biamping” in and of itself makes no difference at all in the sound.
  RMS continuous power output available to those drivers is something else. (Along with the low frequencies relegated to the subs.