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Center Channel Frequency Response

I have to go with one system for all -- don't have the luxury of one system for movies and another for music. I found this response in an old thread:
A center channel speaker that is expressly designed for HT will have a restricted and taylored frequency response which makes speech more easily intelegible. However, such a speaker is not good for multichannel music, where the center (and surrounds) should be the same as the left and right fronts.

First question: Is the underlying premise correct? Are HT soundtracks and multichannel music formats mixed differently with respect to the frequency range of the center channel?

Second question: If the answer to the first question is "yes," why would a more restricted frequency range on the center channel make dialog clearer? Seems to me a clear midrange is a clear midrange. Am I missing something?

Thanks,
Lou
lhf63

Showing 1 response by bdgregory

bdgregory
1,708 posts
 
I'm not an authority, but I don't accept the premise - or at least not fully. A speaker optimized to produce music must produce vocals too. Indeed, few (none) of us would be happy with a speaker that won't produce vocal music accurately. And, it doesn't seem to me that a speaker that reproduces vocal music would be sub-optimized for spoken word.

That said, I guess we do agonize over our speaker selection considering which models are better for vocals vs various types of instrumentals. So if you're fanatical about the vocal reproduction accuracy for your HT viewing, you may have vocals criteria, but I wouldn't go beyond that if it were me.
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