Center speaker group buy?

[Keened]

Center speakers seem to be rather tricky beasts. They can be done right but often are not.

Smaller manufacturers are often hesitant to produce dedicated models because it's not a high volume product. It's not a high volume product because high quality multi-channel audio is arbitrarily price-gated but I digress...

Would there be interest in crowdfunding a center speaker?

For purely selfish reasons I'd like to see a matching rosewood BMR center channel but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Which features (or constraints) would the community like to see in an center channel speaker?

 

[Steve Dallas]

Center speakers seem to be rather tricky beasts. They can be done right but often are not.

Smaller manufacturers are often hesitant to produce dedicated models because it's not a high volume product. It's not a high volume product because high quality multi-channel audio is arbitrarily price-gated but I digress...

Would there be interest in crowdfunding a center speaker?

For purely selfish reasons I'd like to see a matching rosewood BMR center channel but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Which features (or constraints) would the community like to see in an center channel speaker?

You can have a matching rosewood BMR center speaker. Just order one and ask to have the tweeter rotated 90 degrees.

 

[Putter]

KEF Q250/350 are only sold new in pairs (yes you can occasionally get them at ACL as refurbs), but are on sale at $300 & $450/pr. They make ideal centers with the single Uni-Q/Coaxial driver.

 

[Keened]

You can have a matching rosewood BMR center speaker. Just order one and ask to have the tweeter rotated 90 degrees.

I'm probably going to have to do that, but there does seem to be some technical reason why dedicated center speakers are W(M)TW or co-axials rather than just sideways monitors.

In fact even the QEF makes their dedicated center speakers with flanking woofers. The center speaker often has to be significantly stronger, since the L+R often split the majority of the db load between them and the center has to match it alone. You could make a single giant co-axial but you'd just start to run out of vertical height and larger coaxels have weird harmonic resonance issues due to the topographical compromises necessary in that design and the materials available to build things out of.

You can add passive radiators to increase the relative surface area and efficiency, but as you add them on the sides you start to get cancellations. But seeing as how center speakers are decidedly not for nearfield maybe that can be used to some advantage.

Perhaps ff you angled the outer woofers sufficiently you wouldn't have to worry about the lobing in near field. At the distance it would start to generate interference the other speakers and the room are equally if not stronger. So it could be picked up by the L/R with DSP software for the target seating area. That means there will be a quiet spot in between the two, but that's a lot less area for the single centered speaker group to handle.

You could horn load the BMR and stack two of them to split the frequency so one is a pseudo-woofer that fills in the area immediately in front and then lets the other actual woofers do coverage at a distance. True mid-range would probably just need a waveguide and a giant sideways ribbon on the top with a waveguide.

Then stick shims under the front of it to get the upward angle right.

So: W/(TMM)\W

KEF Q250/350 are only sold new in pairs (yes you can occasionally get them at ACL as refurbs), but are on sale at $300 & $450/pr. They make ideal centers with the single Uni-Q/Coaxial driver.

They're rather big even sideways. Also can they keep up with a pair of BMR monitors?