Center speaker advice: Is timbre matching real?

[drodgers]

how far away do you sit from the front stage and how far apart are the L/R?

About 3m (so slightly towards the back of the room).

 

[drodgers]

The only way to avoid it (for the wall that would be directly behind the speaker, which is the most significant source of SBIR) is to put the speaker in the wall so the baffle is flush with the wall (i.e. infinite baffle).

I can see how that makes sense if it's in the low frequency range where the sound output is ~omnidirectional, but if the speaker is close enough for the SBIR range to be highly directional (say >500Hz), then surely the rear output from a sealed unit is minimal, so there's way less interaction than there would be in a ported design?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding though.

 

[Heinrich]

Edit: corrected spelling of 'timbre'

tl;dr

All your choices would be way beyond my budget. Still the question in general is very interesting. I would start w/ a basic one.
Is the content of the center independent of any other content in the speaker array? Or, alternatively, does the center share any content w/ the other speakers?

What do you think, consequences?

 

[No_hair_left]

I saying yes for the front 3, especially when voices pan across the speakers or even if its just different ones being use, for sound effects a mismatched center is fine.
I have mixed many, many different centers with different l/r by this point from mtm's all the way to my current r2 meta and the one thing that always stood out to me is the voices always sound a bit different between the center and mains. Even now when using my r2 meta with some q4 metas there is still a slight difference between voices panning or if the same voice is being used in different channels.

It's bothered me enough to sell up and try some arendal 1961 monitors as l/c/r which should be here this week so I'm very interested to test and see the difference. I still have my r2 meta so I of course will test that with the l/r too and see as there is no way the mtm center I have coming will outperform it.

Also @drodgers how are you planning on using those q4 as heights? firing straight out?

 

[mosco]

Friend, let me tell you about my experience. I use a 7.1.4 system with a Denon 4800. I use the system shown here:

. Like many other users have mentioned, using the center channel or not makes it almost indistinguishable. It even sounds more authentic for music. I use it whenever I want, but in your case, I would start without it and see how it goes. If you find a good deal later, then you can consider it.

 

[Heinrich]

tl;dr

All your choices would be way beyond my budget. Still the question in general is very interesting. I would start w/ a basic one.
Is the content of the center independent of any other content in the speaker array? Or, alternatively, does the center share any content w/ the other speakers?

What do you think, consequences?

Asked AI, which decidedly confirmed, that center is integrated in signal panning. That would as much decidedly ask for a) consistent amplitude and b) same phase response over all three front channels.

I wonder why there are dedicated „center speakers“ on the market. But I‘m not a surround lover anyway—feels a bit like a hype to me ever since. Maybe it‘s cheaper to go to the movies for even better sound ;-)

 

[Ktacos]

I can see how that makes sense if it's in the low frequency range where the sound output is ~omnidirectional, but if the speaker is close enough for the SBIR range to be highly directional (say >500Hz), then surely the rear output from a sealed unit is minimal, so there's way less interaction than there would be in a ported design?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding though.

Most speakers are omni below 500hz. It's related to the baffle width. Once the wave becomes too big for the baffle to support it, it wraps around the back of the speaker that creates losses that we refer to as baffle step losses. Ported or sealed doesn't matter.

 

[tifune]

My experience with mismatched centers (including using R3 and Kali IN8 with 226Be), is that my eyes inform my ears much more than I would like. The 226's never sounded "right" until I got a 426 to go with them.

Even now, I use a grey 8361 with black D&D 8C. I'm pretty sure it would sound better if the 8361 were black

 

[mj30250]

Unless you are hiding the speakers behind an AT screen, the aesthetics factor can definitely mess with you. Apart from that, the more closely aligned the center is with the L/R in terms of frequency response, dispersion, power handling, and phase, the more coherent and pleasing it should sound overall. Your own personal expectations and sensitivities will play a role, of course. I've had several mismatched systems, some didn't sound very good, and others sounded "fine". None sounded as good as when the front stage was reasonably well matched. Just beware that often times a brand's/series' "matching" center is far less performant than the L/R from the same series - see the multiple examples where a 3-way tower is paired with a small MTM center. That's fortunately not the case with the Revel Bes.

 

[Oddball]

There is only one match in heaven made - just for your. And you would be very lucky getting one of the best centers around that would make your smile go so large that it could hurt. And yeah match that timbre thing.

Revel PerformaBe F226Be Tower & C426Be Center Loudspeakers Review

We reviewed the Revel Performa F226Be, a three-way floor-standing speaker, and the C426Be, a monster three-way center speaker using four 6.5" bass drivers to see if they live up to the brand reputation.

www.audioholics.com

 

[kyuu]

I can see how that makes sense if it's in the low frequency range where the sound output is ~omnidirectional, but if the speaker is close enough for the SBIR range to be highly directional (say >500Hz), then surely the rear output from a sealed unit is minimal, so there's way less interaction than there would be in a ported design?

In any decent design there's no meaningful output from the port once you're well away from the port's tuning frequency.

 

[Putter]

I would go with a modest improvement by having a matching center channel. My desktop system has 3 modded Pioneer SP-C22 with upgraded tweeters. Before that I had various brand matches. OTOH I have two other 5.1 systems in the Living Room and Basement, the former unmatched speakers including a KEF Q150 speaker as a center matched with Boston Acoustic on wall speakers and the basement system with KEF LS50 Meta also matched with another KEF Q150 and don't find it noticeable. To put it another way it is ideal, but not an absolute necessity.

P.S. Of the 3 systems, the brand matched one in the basement is IMO the best, although I wouldn't mind getting another LS50 for a center.

 

[Torin Krell]

As previously stated here and elsewhere in an ideal surround setup all the speakers would be the same because even if speakers are tuned with software to sound similar, off axis response, directivity, dispersion etc will not be matched. I am using a pair of Genelec 8341a speakers with stereo subs, and plan to build a full surround system that is completely 8341a based. These speakers are full range (with sub assistance) have unusually uniform horizontal and vertical dispersion (due to their coaxial, nearly triaxial design) and are small enough to be placed in all the optimal surround locations including the height channels.

 

[Robin L]

“All loudspeakers in a surround system need to be comparably good from a timbral perspective, and, if it is affordable, all the same.” - Floyd Toole

Speaking from the cheap seats here—I had a 5.1 system collected from bits and pieces from a thrift store in Fresno California. I suspect a lot of local professors at the J.C. were either moving out or replacing 5.1 systems with soundbars. There were AVRs, Blu-Ray players and speakers going out the door for silly money. My first 5.1 systems had different speakers in the back from those in the front, different center speakers as well. Then, one fine day, a dedicated set of surround speakers showed up, Infinity Primus 360s, 250s and C-12s, all for the low, low price of $79. Having 5 speakers of roughly the same timbral qualities made a huge difference. I wasn't using the system for videos; it was for 5.1 SACDs and DVD-A recordings. The image in front was much more continuous, the sound in the back as well. I'm not sure what you should do with such pricey speakers as yours but getting close to the same timbre surely would help.

 

[Trdat]

It’s definitely a thing!

Loudspeakers can vary so much in terms of colorations, resonances, dispersion patterns, etc. If you have timbral mismatches between speakers, especially LCR, you can hear the timber of sounds and voices change as they pan across the different speakers. I find it very offputting. And I’ve heard home theatre systems where the person really cared a lot about getting good quality LCR speakers but figured “ anything will do for the surrounds” and I could totally hear the mismatch and quality when the sound went to the surrounds. The people in question didn’t care about it, but I certainly noticed and I care about such things.

Of course, if you buy good neutral speakers with the relevant dispersion pattern… well that is timber matching and it will sound better and of course that’s part of the point.

I always thought this would be a thing and I get how it probably is. With my centre speaker which has the same drivers as LR but has a much narrower dispersion pattern due to a waveguide and crossover I definitely can hear a difference between the speakers however at least with what I am watching just television dramas streaming from the TV internet website it seems to have much more basic surround recordings I think. It doesn't seem to play in the way I thought it would. Point is I suppose it depends on what your watching and if your listening to music upmixed.

 

[Talisman]

Personally, I find that in the context of average speakers, "timbral coherence" is a largely overrated concept.
Unless you're listening to a string quartet circling around you for some reason, the channels tend to reproduce different things: the surrounds generally reproduce ambient sounds, the front channels reproduce soundtracks, and the center channels reproduce speech. I think it's unlikely that, in the case of a helicopter crossing the stage from front to back, you'd notice a subtle difference in tonality with the turning blades and the whirring engine...

 

[Oddball]

Really did not ever think that a simple center speaker threat can go so bad. I would think that people could either refrain from the funny posts or suggest something real.

 

[antcollinet]

Well, my centre speaker doesn’t match front L/R. Nor do my surrounds, and nor do my heights.

Sounds fine to me - but perhaps I'm not the best to take advice from, since I also have my centre positioned pretty much centrally behind the TV, pointing straight up.

 

[rynberg]

If you want to save a lot of money, just buy a used Revel C208 (or used C426Be for that matter). Matching aesthetics and essentially the same in-room frequency response and soundstage width. Having auditioned KEF R-series and Revel Performa3s simultaneously in my own listening room, I certainly wouldn't blend the two.

No offense but it is obvious that many of the commenters in this thread stating that "timbre-matching" doesn't matter don't care much about home theater and/or have severely compromised systems.

 

[Oddball]