i did read a lot of stuff about the center channel configurations and ive read that 3 way centers are way better than 2 way for the directivity, and basically if i bought a 3rd KEF r3 i could have a very good center channel, but in my case where i only care about my listening spot, it is better to take like a good center channel like for example the arendal 1723 or something like that if i want good spl ? the kef r3 might run out of beer if i listen at -8-10 i dont know if they can stand dynamic peaks during a movie, soo the question is, in the real world if i only care about my listeing spot, should i care about the center channel design? or i can move on and take a bigger center speaker that it can be in harmony with my living?
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center channel directivity question
- Thread starter Ciobi69
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- Thread Starter
- #3
Thanks for the help, listening distance will be 3.5 meters maximum ,i hope it works!
I'm thinking of trying a Kef Q as a center now, on ebay I even saw a single R3 going for $500 tempting I say....
- Thread Starter
- #5
Yep it should work and the price for the r3 is good!
fieldcar
Addicted to Fun and Learning
I'm not completely sure I'd agree there, especially when the alternative may be a MTM center. What's your reasoning?
The only thing I imagine would be unmatching tone/timbre, but if you don't have some sort of room correction to remove any character from all the speakers, then you wouldn't care enough about the minor differences in tone between competently designed speakers. Poor horizontal directivity is more apparent IMO.
Context of post, OP is already using Kefs. I wasn't talking about coaxial centers with non-coaxials. That still isn't optimal -- you want to match directivity if you can, but it's certainly better than having poor directivity. sure.
Regardless, context matters. I'm not trying to post an exhaustive explanation in each of the 30 advice posts per day on ASR.
fieldcar
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Sorry, my wording may have been a bit off. I think that a Arendal 1723 center being an MTM is an iffy choice as it will have poor horizontal directivity (horizontal lobing) unless OP meant to stand it vertically or go with the 1723 bookshelf speaker.
I'm sure we agree there, but I still think that if you have good horizontal directivity, and mix speaker types, you'd be completely A-OK.
Sure, we agree the Arendal is a bad choice.
On the rest, that may be true, but there is absolutely no reason to deviate from matching a Kef center with your existing Kefs. There's just no upside to doing that.
We know for sure that mismatched directivity between center and L/R is bad, it's been studied. We don't really know how much mismatch is tolerable vs not, but to me it makes sense to assume closer is better. It's also fairly obvious since speakers with different directivity sound different even with same/similar on-axis.
Note: A 2-way MTM center does *not* match the directivity of any normal design 2 or 3-way speaker, so even if the brand is the same the only thing they're actually matching is aesthetics which is not very useful.
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