How big should center spkr be to set to "large"?

This is weird, but as I have continued to experiment with switching the center setting between large and small, I am finding I think I like it better overall with the center set to large.

Why? Because it seems my Paradigm 570 has a bit less "chestiness" to male voices than my Legacy Sig. IIs. I know that shouldn't be the case, considering the price ranges, but when I set the center to small, the lower midrange and bass in the center signal are routed to the front L/R Legacys, which have the poly midranges rather than the kevlars in later models.

Mind you, with center set to large, I do lose some of the total deep bass in action movies, since the center channel is full range, and the 570 just doesn't do anything down low. But I am just very keen on intelligibility of dialog in movies, and the chestiness I get with center set to small just bothers me and makes it harder to understand the dialog.

Sometimes I do switch it back to small when I want a lot of bass and I have to get the bass sent to the Legacys to get the most of it.

I don't play movies at anywhere near reference level, so I guess that is why I am not running into severe problems with overdriving the woofers on the Paradigm.

Mtrot,

Have your tried "Hometheater Blasphemy" and run a phantom center. Your Legacy speakers have ribbon tweaters so they should be fast enough for dialog. I run phantom center and I get a decent image. In fact I seem to hear seperation of dialog when there are 2 characters next to each other on screen (though this may be a visual/psychological mind trick)

I've experimented with the whole "use your receiver to cross" thing, but I found the sound to more balanced and pleasant to the ears when running my speakers to LARGE.

If you seem to like the sound better when running the center to LARGE, then "TRUST YOUR EARS"

But I would like to see what happens if you fooled w/ your Legacy speaker placement for good imaging, then try running the "phantom center". If this works good, then maybe sell the center for a nice sub - then run LFE to the sub.

If your tweaters are at a good height compared to your RPTV, I do not see the problem w/ dialog being anchored to the screen.

Drcruz,

Yes, I have experimented extensively with setting the receiver to no center speaker. Due to the TV, equipment rack, and the room itself, I can't move the Legacys around much at all. I have played around some with the toe-in.

Actually, I am now fairly happy with the dialog from the Paradigm.

The following applies to high resolution speakers rather than midfi gear:

Setting the center channel to "large" is better sounding regardless of how small your center speaker is because when you set your receiver/processor to "small", the receiver inserts a high-pass filter, usually steep-slope and not of the greatest quality, to remove the deep bass and protect your center channel. Having this filter in the signal path to your center will degrade sound quality noticeably if you have a very high quality center loudspeaker and equally capable electronics. Less revealing speakers and systems will not be as sensitive to the insertion of this filter because of the qualitative limitations of the speaker's own crossover along with the limited transparency of the electronics.

"Setting the center channel to "large" is better sounding regardless of how small your center speaker is because when you set your receiver/processor to "small", the receiver inserts a high-pass filter, usually steep-slope and not of the greatest quality, to remove the deep bass and protect your center channel."

Dave, thanks for the response and info. I surmise that what you describe is happening with my Sony DA4ES receiver that I am using as processor.

I noticed something else I don't like when using the center speaker, whether set to large OR small. And that is a loss of ambience details, compare to setting the receiver center channel setting to "none". I was switching back and forth, and when I am set to "none" and the sound is just from the front L/R, there is a lot more sense of space and background ambient noises in the mix(example, traffic and city sounds).

It seems like a good processor would retain that spacial information even through a center channel speaker, or would still direct it to the front L/R. Are there any processors that pull this off very well?

I am starting to get an itch for a processor, but the Sony has so dang many features I like, it will be hard to find a processor that has them, phono input and TWO multi-channel inputs(I have HDDVD and a Universal player) just to name a couple.