CC Speaker: Design & Placement Issues

[dped90]

My 5.1 sound journey will be painfully slow as it may take months locating and getting invited to venues for auditioning the five to ten speakers of interest. What’s puzzling and may end up upsetting my installation scheme is how placement limitations of the CC speaker may affect overall sound quality of music and movie dialogue vs. TV viewing angle and distance.

Probably unlike most, I prefer to set the height of my 65” OLED TV to where my eyes fall just below the center of the screen. And the front and side stand mount speakers will either be on height adjustable stands or fixed stands of the proper height to have those speakers on axis with my ears when seated, and also with my eyes at very close to the preferred TV viewing height.

But then would not the CC speaker have to be so far off axis or else end up in front of the screen?

Or might many of the better CC speakers (~ $3.5K and up) use drivers and cabinets designed to compensate for being placed below your line of sight of the center of the TV screen, and therefore usually being far off axis with your ears and the front and side speakers (except the subs)?

Comments and suggestions?

 

[HarmonicTHD]

What comes to mind.

You can place the CC below the line of sight without problems. If you can, angle it upwards. Have a good Room EQ (Audyssey, Dirac etc) which can compensate for the often a bit difficult to manage reflection of the center with the screen or floor or cabinet.

There is no compensation when placing it to the side.

Have the CC match your main speakers. BTW. Erin did some CC testing.

Consider leaving out the CC altogether and have the mains create the center image. (I currently took my expensive KEF Center out of my system as I just wasn’t happy with its integration).

 

[dped90]

What comes to mind.

You can place the CC below the line of sight without problems. If you can, angle it upwards. Have a good Room EQ (Audyssey, Dirac etc) which can compensate for the often a bit difficult to manage reflection of the center with the screen or floor or cabinet.

There is no compensation when placing it to the side.

Have the CC match your main speakers. BTW. Erin did some CC testing.

Consider leaving out the CC altogether and have the mains create the center image. (I currently took my expensive KEF Center out of my system as I just wasn’t happy with its integration).

Ideally, as mentioned, the better CC speakers are designed to project sound to be reasonably close to on-axis with the front speakers, despite their drivers being far from parallel with the front speakers, though I doubt this is physically possible. Instead, most users can probably have the CC speaker on a stand and at least nearly parallel with the front speakers if they have no problem craning their necks upwards to view the TV placed far higher than would suit me. But viewing distance and the height of the CC speaker cabinet impacts the outcome of this too, so there's probably no way to be sure until all of the hardware is chosen and set up in the room.

Yes, room correction is a must in any case, however much it can help out with CC placement issues. And choosing a make and model CC other than one matching the mains would be unwise.

Ouch! An $$$$ KEF center found to be unusable. Exactly why my original plan was for a 4.1 system. But the CC doesn't work for you with DTS-MA surround from BDs and with music both?

BTW, is it true that some Windows players like JRiver can "synthesize" multichannel mix from two channel recordings?

Presumably, the seller of the front and side speakers that I audition and finally choose will let me have the matching CC speaker for a trial integration, however optimistic I should be.

 

[NTK]

Dr Toole had a rather interesting suggestion in one of his AVSForum posts.

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/official-jbl-synthesis-pro-revel-home-theater-thread.2515137/page-107#post-54372961

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Ideally, as mentioned, the better CC speakers are designed to project sound to be reasonably close to on-axis with the front speakers, despite their drivers being far from parallel with the front speakers, though I doubt this is physically possible. Instead, most users can probably have the CC speaker on a stand and at least nearly parallel with the front speakers if they have no problem craning their necks upwards to view the TV placed far higher than would suit me. But viewing distance and the height of the CC speaker cabinet impacts the outcome of this too, so there's probably no way to be sure until all of the hardware is chosen and set up in the room.

Yes, room correction is a must in any case, however much it can help out with CC placement issues. And choosing a make and model CC other than one matching the mains would be unwise.

Ouch! An $$$$ KEF center found to be unusable. Exactly why my original plan was for a 4.1 system. But the CC doesn't work for you with DTS-MA surround from BDs and with music both?

BTW, is it true that some Windows players like JRiver can "synthesize" multichannel mix from two channel recordings?

Presumably, the seller of the front and side speakers that I audition and finally choose will let me have the matching CC speaker for a trial integration, however optimistic I should be.

I did not say the Kef is unusable. Given the surroundings it just does not integrate well and the main speakers work better. Any other speaker would have led to similar results if not worse. If the surroundings change I take the Kef from storage and use it again.

Also I am not advocating not using a Center. Just be open to all possibilities and choose the best one for your room / surroundings (ideally backed by measurements eg from REW).

 

[DVDdoug]

BTW, is it true that some Windows players like JRiver can "synthesize" multichannel mix from two channel recordings?

I don't have JRiver but apparently it can. JRiver Mixing

If you're using an AVR there are usually Pro Logic "soundfield" settings. With stereo music I like to use a "theater" or "arena" effect for reverb in the rear. With stereo or mono movies I don't use it.

If you have a 5.1 or 7.1 channel soundcard it might have some with a utility for various up-mixing options.

 

[dped90]

I don't have JRiver but apparently it can. JRiver Mixing

If you're using an AVR there are usually Pro Logic "soundfield" settings. With stereo music I like to use a "theater" or "arena" effect for reverb in the rear. With stereo or mono movies I don't use it.

If you have a 5.1 or 7.1 channel soundcard it might have some with a utility for various up-mixing options.

I'd most likely be using a multichannel DAC like this one. https://exasound.com/Products/e688-channelDAC.aspx

 

[dped90]

Dr Toole had a rather interesting suggestion in one of his AVSForum posts.

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/official-jbl-synthesis-pro-revel-home-theater-thread.2515137/page-107#post-54372961

View attachment 254819

All I can say is thank goodness for the ventriloquism effect or else my mid-fi two channel floor standing TV speaker system would have hardly sufficed. But apparently, even with center speakers made the main speakers, there's still reasons why they fail to integrate, even in a corrected room. And as in my case, integration could further be jeopardized due to preferred TV viewing angle vs. center speaker placement vs. main speaker placement. Obviously, hands/ears on experimenting is the only way to know.