Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Moving from 5.1 to 4.1

I know that Mojo has gotten rid of his center channel speaker with the move to LFR active. I don't have the active speakers but I do have LFR and I will say that my movie experience has improved with the removal of that center channel.

I am wondering how many have tried to see if they like it more without center (going phantom) over having an actual dedicated speaker.

I know that the LFR speakers have such a wide stage and enveloping sound from them that I really like. In a movie theater, I think that the front speakers are really wide. It gets hard because of the size of the theater room to really point to where the left center and right channels sit. They seem to act as a big area. You know that the left and right are to each side of you, but dialog and what most call the ambient front sounds that are sent to the center channel in your home theater setup seem to come from all around the front. This is where I find that my HT setup was lacking in that the center channel was VERY directional. it came as sort of a sore thumb in the L&R speakers were so wide in sound. With my QS8 surround speakers to the side, the side and rear sounds were nicely dispersed to feel non directional too.. but then you get that center channel that was so in your face front and center. Only front and center as if the sound was coming towards you from down a long hallway. It just sounded wrong com compared to every other speaker set. Remove the center and let the L&R do their thing in phantom mode and the directionality goes away and it sounds much more like an actual movie theater.

Now I will admit that I don't have the perfect room. I do have an Atmos capable pre-amp but haven't really wanted to try setting it up as such.

Before you posted this, I was going to write my experience with The Matrix. In the pill scene where Morpheus is sitting on the left and Neo on his right, I can clearly hear Morpheus left of center and Neo right of center.

I never had that kind of localization with the VP160 or any of the passives in phantom center mode.

Yes, it is much better to not have the center localized as before.

It works as long as every one has a good seat.
Stated another way if you don’t have a good image sitting on the left or right side of the couch you might need that center to anchor the dialog to the screen (rather then.the front speaker closest to you)

Agreed. In my case, sitting 25 degrees to the left or right is still good. No complaints from guests.

Hi Matt

Since you have an Atmos processor you might want to try turning “center spread” on and enabling the dolby surround upmixer. Even though you arent taking advantage of the height channels, the center spread function eliminates the issue you mention and sounds incredibly seamless.

Pans between R-C-L do not sound like point source speakers in a properly set up level matched system -even with bookshelf speakers. Try it with Dolby surround enabled. Impressive technology.

Edit: Just read you traded in already. Oh well. Onward ho with the M5s!

That is the beauty of the LFR speakers. As it really gives a wide sound stage that there isn't that exact spot that is great and move off it to the left or right you loose the effect. The DSP along with the rear firing drivers on the speaker gives it this sort of omni presence effect that you get great sound from multiple seating positions inside the room.

My experience says this "stereo everywhere" effect is very room-dependent and distance to MLP-dependent.

When I had the actives in my living room at 10' MLP, the center image collapsed when I moved my head to one side or the other. If I sat off to the left, it was so bad I could only really hear that left speaker. Not so with the M2OW. I can sit on the far left, 2.5 feet outside the boundary of the left speaker, and I still hear the center image pretty much in the center.

The actives in my basement at a 15 foot MLP are a different story. There is more of a "stereo everywhere" effect.

Frankly I didn't buy the actives for this attribute. Really all I care about is the MLP. However, a big benefit of perhaps this attribute is that I now have a more natural center presentation as discussed above. And my guests are OK with the center image when they sit 20 degrees off to either side. Beyond that 20 degrees, the center image is not as great.

All this of course is related to my rooms. Others could have a different experience.

The other consideration to think about...


I've only got two friends and very rare that either of them come over to watch a movie. So I don't give a F about what other people sitting in the room think. I have the best center seat inside the house and enjoy.

We had a TV with these miro energy satellite speakers and a horrible Pioneer AV stereo in the family room. The wife complained that they didn't look nice. The stereo was hard to clean under. The solution to the problem was it rip it all out. My wife and daughter are just as happy to watch the TV with sound coming just from it. So getting worked up about perfect sound and making sure everyone will have it is total bunk as most I am sure don't have the mental astuteness to know the difference.

It is a good question why women, on the whole, are not into sound reproduction the way men are. I don't have a theory.

Do I dare turn that statement around ... (but it's just too much of a temptation ...)

I don't give a F about what other people sitting in the room think. [So...]
-- I've only got two friends and
-- very rare that either of them come over to watch a movie

I agree with you to a point ...
Many people are happy just to have something to tap their foot to ...
It's actually kind of funny if they recognize the tune then they don't seem to hear the distortion.

That said, most can recognize when something magical happens:
--- be it a crystal clear triangle hit or
--- a singer or instrument which sounds like it's really there or perhaps
--- a coin which rolls across the floor

I was not using a center in my living room for several years. Never really worried about it, as the TV is above a fireplace mantel, and I didn't want to try mounting a center speaker. A few months ago I did mount a center speaker (VP150). I prefer this system with the center. Dialog is just better, and I do not find myself trying to hear people speaking.

As you don't give a F about what anyone thinks or wants, why'd you start this thread? Just do whatever the F you want.

Ooops!

Savage! Spoken like a Sir.

I remember that was the case back when we made the jump from VHS to DVD. Dolby Digital was great in it has such a limited bandwidth that the amount of data that they tried to run in the mixing stages really made the studios have to think. The center channel got filled mostly with voice data and it allowed for a point of separation between the ambiant sound effects ad dialog. You could even do great things like turn up +2~3db for the center channel if you were a bit more hard of hearing to get the voices to come through over badly mixed movies where they put too much levels onto the ambiant sound effects that would drown out the dialog.

But then came Bluray and the 7.1 TrueHD MA bla bla bla... where the amount of bandwith was pretty much a none issue so they studios could ram about everything into the mix and not even have to think about it. This turned the whole home theater into a big mess. They now would put just about everything into every channel with the thought that more is always better. So your sound effects started to be put into the center channel at levels that drown out the dialog because the same effects are also sent to the front Left & Right speakers too. Now the sound effects are more of a wall of sound and the Dialog is just coming from 1/3rd of the front speakers. You can't do the +2~3db on the center as that just makes the problem worse.

There was hope with the DTS-X in that was supposed to give us object oriented output for each effect.. one of which is dialog so you in theory could boost just that to give you something that you'd understand and could seperate it from the other movie noise. But that sandard seems to be dead.

Then we get into the problem of streaming. Here we are into sound that takes the back seat to bandwidth as it falls off the cliff into the abyis of compression to get the best picture in the smallest network packet. Again sadly most shows you get were not optimised for sttreaming so sound gets lost to where it is supposed to be coming out of. I found that 4.1 solves more of that problem as it at lest balances out the dialog with the rest so you can get a movie and show that is easier to watch.

But this is just my observations. And I have LFR speakers that help out with getting good sound from just two speakers.


have you ever heard of sarcasm??

Dolby Surround and DTS Neural:X both do what you are looking for with legacy content. Both Blurays and Netflix are handled very very well. BTW, Netflix now streams in ATMOS on some titles.

I hope no one else reads your experience and thinks you are right. You couldnt be more wrong on many of your points.

Sounds like there are serious issues with either your setup or room. You didnt listen to us when you were building it either....

Dolby Digital and DTS were each thoroughly crushed by their successors. Atmos and DTS:X are frankly incredible in a proper setup....

No point in helping you. Like talking to a tree. A tree that is always whining.

Oh, ouch! This is audio gentlemen!

Trevor,
5.1 and 7.1 sound great and will continue to fill a need for quite some time.
I've have both Atmos and 7.1 setups. I can assure you that Atmos has a long road before it kills its predecessors. This will take more movies exploiting the object based parts of Atmos rather than just remixing to use the Atmos bed surround.

Read his post.....

He has had issues with all the formats once the mixes became more dense. Something else is going on.

If I had to guess the decay times in his room are bananas long and more speakers sound worse no matter the format. But 2ch sounds fine...

Acoustics problem. Not a center channel problem. Never is.

Uhmmmmmm...my VP150v2 was an ear-sore that no room acoustics or processor could fix. Bless Ian and Andrew for the 160v4 and now the actives.

My friend is enjoying that 150 now. And every time he came over and listened to my 160, he'd realize what he was missing. Now the 160 is de-commissioned and he leaves my place depressed every time he hears the actives.

Just watched Lone Survivor on Netflix. 4 M2OW, LFR1100 Actives and VP160 dunno which iteration. Loved the VP160. Dialog was crisp and intelligible. Audio was superb.

Looking forward to putting up 4 more M2OWs and adding twin EP600s. Gonna be great!

So how about those M2OW? Come on, Phil. Tell us. Do you like them for that application?

Hello Tex

This is the first time I've listened to a movie on the system with the M2OWs. Sounded great, but I have not wrung them out yet. Probably gonna wait until the system is complete.

I know you're fussy about sound so I've been curious about your opinion on the M2OW.

Me too! I'm prepared to be amazed!

Lol! I just got it. Clever indeed lol.