A debate as old as time: dual centers. What's your experience?

[2Sunny]

So reading online I find discussions going back 20 years about why dual centers are a bad idea because one can expect comb filtering and a net degradation of sound quality, BUT it also appears in my reading that people who have actually tried dual centers actually LIKE the setup and do not experience noticeable degradation of center channel sound. Recently I have discovered the benefits of using a phantom center (see my thread here) and that got me thinking about adding a second center channel speaker in my entertainment center just to see if I experience the issues most folks argue will occur or if in fact it sounds any better than just one speaker.

Thoughts?

Should I be able to see a difference in REW readings if I measure each speaker individually and then measure with both speakers connected?

For the record what I'm thinking of doing is using a y splitter on the center channel pre out and running that to two Outlaw monoblock amps so impedance will not be an issue.

EDIT: What if I went really crazy and tried to run 3 Ascend Acoustics DUOs with 2 connected in series and use all 3 cubbies in the entertainment center? And, I am aware that putting a speaker in the box of the entertainment center is NOT ideal, but it's what I got for the moment altough in the future I hope to ditch the entertainment center altogether just not now.

 

[kemmler3D]

Should I be able to see a difference in REW readings if I measure each speaker individually and then measure with both speakers connected?

Yes, will probably show a difference, especially if you look at unsmoothed frequency response.

Two centers doesn't really make sense, for the reason of possible comb filtering you mentioned, unless you have a serious SPL deficit. You may enjoy the effect anyway, but more drivers is not a way to improve sound per se... If it was, WWWMMMTTT speakers would be a sensible concept...

 

[Mort]

I mean, why stop there? 3 or 4 centers is the way to go. This seems like a disaster to me but I'm not picky about multichannel.

 

[tifune]

I can't make our your receiver, so I'm not sure it can support center height, but the only reason I would try this would be if you move your current center below the TV then add a center height on top the entertainment center.

 

[2Sunny]

I can't make our your receiver, so I'm not sure it can support center height, but the only reason I would try this would be if you move your current center below the TV then add a center height on top the entertainment center.

Hmmm. That's a thought! The receiver is a Sony STR AZ7000Es and if I'm not mistaken it has a setting for dual centers above and below. Now to go and measure and see if the bottom hole is wide enough for the Ascend Acoustics DUO.

 

[2Sunny]

Yep. The Sony is setup for dual centers. Makes me think their engineers disagree with the "accepted" wisdom. Gonna try and let y'all know what I find, and I'll be sure and post some REW data as well

 

[ZolaIII]

As the things go just use regular wide dispersion speaker.

 

[tifune]

Yep. The Sony is setup for dual centers. Makes me think their engineers disagree with the "accepted" wisdom. Gonna try and let y'all know what I find, and I'll be sure and post some REW data as well

View attachment 447222

I briefly looked at the manual, but I don't see under which conditions the center2/center height will operate. Atmos doesn't support it, so for example on a Denon/Marantz you can connect it but it outputs nothing unless using an upmixer with such support (Auro3D). Maybe the Sony branded upmixer does this?

 

[2Sunny]

Interesting just found this video and the review found it worked and sounded good:

 

[ZolaIII]

I don't think you got me. As all of those supposed central chenel speakers mesure miserably and you can use something that will keep up horizontally at 50~60° all trough uper mids and it's harmonics very, as regular speaker rest depends on desired coverage and you put them at same height or aiming the tweeters.

 

[AnalogSteph]

Dual centers above and below the screen would help center the image on screen - basically phantom center with center speakers. It does nothing about the horizontal dispersion mess inherent in MTM centers. I'd rather want some that can be used vertically (these Ascends shouldn't, but e.g. Revel C205 could) to the left and right of the screen. Or otherwise, some decent 3-way centers (W(T/M)W).

Dual MTM centers next to each other (MTM MTM) also works better than one would think. The important part is a certain minimum tweeter distance, so that the interference pattern becomes very fine and can no longer be resolved by our hearing. I'm pretty sure stacking them vertically directly on top of each other would be a disaster.

 

[2Sunny]

So I realized that a speaker I had previously purchased and returned because it didn't fit in the entertainment center upper cubby I was using would in fact fit down below so I found a used Revel C25 online, bought it, and hooked it up then tested the center channel with REW using just the Revel down below and then the Revel + the Ascend Acoustics Duo V2 LCR. Obviously breaking 2 rules here in that I'm mixing speaker makes and using 2 center speakers.

Well no surprise for those that own a Sony ES receiver that has this technology and is using it, but I found the difference between using 1 speaker as a center far inferior to the dual setup. Not sure how much influence the Sony is having on the speaker as I did use Sony's Auto Calibration for both setups. At the moment I have Preset 1 using only Center 1 and Preset 2 using the dual Center 1 and Center 2 so I can switch back and forth relatively easily, and again dual centers provide noticeably improved sound mostly in the size of the sound stage, but also in terms of precision. The dual setup is just "cleaner" to my ears. Could be my mental bias working here, but anyways that's my final report on this issue

Below is the REW graph. Red is Center 1 only (the bottom Revel alone) and Blue is Center 1 + Center 2.