Just curious. I've got M3 fronts, QS4s, and a sub. The phantom center channel is very convincing. Anybody here have any thoughts on foregoing a center speaker and simply staying with the current setup for home theater?
Agreed. The phantom center channel produced by good left and right front speakers is likely to sound at least as good, and often better than a separate center channel speaker. The disadvantage is the relatively narrow horizontal area in which center channel material will still appear to come from the screen. If this is acceptable to you, carry on.
Up until recently, when watching TV, I'd use either the DPL2 or Logic7 settings on my h/k AVR 520 receiver. Now I prefer to listen to TV in plain old 2-channel stereo. I get a much better soundstage and everything sounds more "real", if you can dig that.
I think part of this is the fact that both DPL2 and Logic7 collapse a lot of the sound to the center channel speaker, in my case a VP100, and IMO it's not up to the task. For DD and dts material though, the VP100 is adequate since most of what it's handling is dialogue. Some receivers have the option of "tuning" DPL2's settings, letting you spread the sound out more, unfortunately mine doesn't. Don't get me wrong, the VP100 is a decent speaker, it just NO match for my M40's.
Anyway, if you're happy with the sound from your set-up without a center channel, don't get one. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Good luck.
Interesting, Big_L.
I run M40s and a VP150 across the front, and I almost always prefer the center channel to be on during TV broadcasts. Music is a completely different story (M40s blow the VP150 out of the water), but I find dialogue from the center channel to be much more engaging.
Maybe the VP150 is much more forward. Anyway, different strokes etc, etc, etc.
Hi tinfoilhat,
I was so unhappy with center-channel speaker quality (or the lack of it) that I used the phantom mode with Dolby surround for many years. It's a listening mode that a colleague of mine called "very anti-social", because only one person can enjoy it. JohnK is correct: as soon as you move slightly to the left or right the dialog will collapse off-screen to the nearest left or right main speaker. But, if you're alone, and in the middle, you won't get any center-channel coloration!
Center-channel speakers have improved--especially the VP150-- but they are never perfect timbral matches to the main speakers because of their eccentric placement and the boundary effects of the TV screen, etc. But much of the time, the good ones are preferable to locking yourself into the center of the couch for movies and music!
Regards,