Do you ...Center Channel?

I'm with Rives & Sid 100%. Many sound engineers don't like mixing for a center anyway. At the end of the day Phantom works very well provided you are directly in front and not far to one side or too close to either left or right channel (small room). You need speakers with good dispersion, which is most audiophie speakers.

If you can't get the center mid driver and tweeter to be at the same height as the L and R channels then it is actually questionable whether a center is better. In fact,for this reason, I think it is often better without one - provided you have the sweetspot and sit well back.

OTOH, creating a phantom center when there is a discrete center signal creates inevitable phase/time errors in the process. This is noticeable even on-axis but mostly with music sources.

Really? How?

Of course you have to be sitting in the sweet spot and you must not be using a discrete mutichannel source

Most DSP's handle even discrete data and will allocate the information to the speakers as necessary.

Obviously if you don't have a DSP and you are competely missing Center information then it will sound terrible. The same applies if you have a 0.1 channel and are not using a sub or do not have the ability to program the DSP to send 0.1 channel to your main speakers.

Missing channels DO need to be added back in to whatever you have in terms of speakers in order to mantain balance of the sound field (this is important if you have LESS speakers than discrete channels and is another reason why surround gest a bad rap from stereo people, as they don't do it justice by making sure they are using ALL the available information)

Baam23f

The front speakers are 52" tall. And the center would sit well below. My impression is that the oratorio was designed with the HT in mind more then the MC music. So far I am listening multichannel music with four speakers.

Provided your DSP is adding back in the Center channel information to the L and R main speakers (phantom) then you are certainly doing the right thing in your case, IMHO.

A perusal of most recording studios will show that, for those with a surround setup, they all seem to prefer to mix/master with five speakers of the same type, with the mid range and tweeter drivers all at the same height.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself how many people have you ever seen listening to stereo with Left and Right channels at different heights from the floor, or one speaker turned upside down and the other the right way up?

Common sense should tell you what is best...inspite of the marketing hype and sales people which often advise differently on a center channel.(I wonder why?)

BTW: Kudos to Rives for telling things like it is, which just shows that some companies can be trusted to look after their customer's best interests....these companies obviously seek repeat business and word of mouth recommendations, rather than focussing on one time sales!

If your speakers are set up for multichannel, the left and right are too far apart for stereo.

Good Point...obviously the lack of center channel is a form of compromise, otherwise studios would not mix 5.1 with five identical speakers of equal height.

However, having a center channel at a different height from the main speakers is surely a compromise too, This was Rives point, I think, as our ears have a pretty clever way of sensing the direction of sound (try covering one ear and you will still find you can tell if a sound is above, below you ,to one side or behind you....amazing but you can). Since most setups (plasma/LCD/CRT/rear projection) preclude the option to match center channel height to the other speakers (unless you want the odd impression of the sound to come from below or above the image)...surely phantom center is a pretty solid sensible recommendation in many cases?

I agree, however, that if you can place a center channel speaker, at the correct matching height, behind an acoustically transparent screen (for example) then you certainly have a much better setup than one without a center channel and using phantom - this is without doubt. (But how many people have this option available compared to those with plasma/LCD/CRT/Rear Projection?)

Baam23f,

Huh? That is an analog device...forget it.

You need a DSP....this will allow you to precisely configure what you send to each speaker, including how you roll off each individual speaker and how you treat center information, subwoofer information and matrix process the surrounds...no way I would use an analog device for this purpose....forget it...the filtering and processing (none)is so limited on an anlog device!

Any DSP device to accomplish the same or more would require additional A/D/A conversions which would be redundant and compromising.

I am not aware of any current consumer HT multi-channel source that is not digital (DVD, SACD).

It begs the question as to why would you use analog bass management or combine analog signals to generate a phantom center channel when digital processing is much more flexible, precise and low cost (can do almost anything mathematically that software will allow).

As for A to D conversions - these can be done extremely accurately and without loss/compromise, given today's electronics (for example you want to get bass management from two channel analog data from an old analog two channel source such as a casette deck or TT). However, for digital devices, taking a digital out to a DSP from a digital source is probably the most sensible option rather than an A to D conversion.

Personally I don't think the compromises are so significant as the limitations of an analog filtering circuit and analog mixer. I don't have a stigma about digital being bad but I understand that many audiophiles feel that digital is the dark side...if you feel digital is the dark side then I agree that you should go with an all analog setup.