What did the virtual center sound like? Was dialog decent?
So the caveats: it was in the middle of a Best Buy, I did not have control, I was shown a trailer for Rings of Power, and I was not in the sweet spot. They were mounted on parts of a Sony TV display, a few feet further apart front to back than they were side to side. They were keeping boxes there so I was standing a few feet behind the center.
The center image wasn’t as fully anchored as it would be with a discrete center (occasionally I’d perceive bits of voices localized to the speakers, but FWIW I’ve always had that exact experience with 2-channel separates, and I’ve never quite figured out if that’s normal or if something about my brain doesn’t quite cooperate with stereo imaging); it was also somewhat less tangible, for lack of a better word. “Phantom” is apt, you can absolutely tell it’s there, but you can also absolutely tell that it’s not quite real. That being said, I thought it felt more tangible than I’d expected. I suppose the best way of putting it is that the gushing reviews are, as usual, overstating its amazingness, but I don’t think the lack of a center is a major problem. It’s more of a trade-off. I’d point you toward the Rtings measurement, though, the system does apply a positive slope to the response on the center channel. Someone on AVS also measured it at +3dB relative to the other channels, and Sony doesn’t let you adjust that either. Less obnoxious an imbalance than Sonos applies, anyway.
My impression, ultimately, is that the spatial mapping is a parlor trick, but it’s a really, really good parlor trick. It comes at the expense of tonal neutrality, though. Whether that’s because Sony doesn’t accept neutrality as a goal or because they couldn’t make it work physically, I can’t say. It’s also possible that it’s inherent to the spatial mapping; now that I think about it, every virtual spatial effect I’ve ever heard makes the sound brighter and somewhat more hollow, from Dolby Headphone to Dolby Virtual Speaker to Apple Spatial Audio. My understanding is a lot of spatial information is carried in the treble, anyway
