Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater phantom center channel

What was it lacking?

I probably wasn't in the sweet spot, but it sounded to me like the sound was coming very clearly from the L and R speakers, not the middle of the TV. I don't have this problem when I use surround processing on CDs and only listen in 4.1. It's also been awhile since I've tried it.

Actually, it was the lack of a center channel that led me to these forums! I tried watching T2 Ultimate Edition in 2.1, and I could barely hear the dialog. My first post was about whether I should get an Axiom center or some other brand... and I still don't have one!

As long as your receiver can accept a "NONE" option for the center channel and route the center signal to the L + R mains you're not going to miss much. I ran that way for quite a while, then single M2 center for a while, finally settled on a VP100 mostly because of the shielding.

I did find that the dialog was a bit more clear with a center, even with M60s as mains, but the difference is pretty small.

As everyone has said, the other benefit of a center speaker is that you can sit a bit to the left and right of the sweet spot and still hear voices coming from the right place on the screen. Without a center speaker if you sit to the left the voices are going to sound like they're coming from the left edge of the screen.

Anyways, don't sweat it. 4.1 is gonna sound way better than 2.1, and you'll still have 5.1 to look forward to...

Sweeeeeeet. Thanks for the replies guys. One of you said that the phantom center works better the closer your mains are to each other. Based on that logic, then, wouldn't adding a center also help expand your soundstage, because you would be able to spread your mains a little further out?

Hi jt,

You got it. That indeed is another virtue of using a center, to avoid the "hole-in-the-middle" effect when the main speakers are widely spaced, and to minimize the collapse of the stereo image when listening off-axis to the left or right.

In the 1930s, Bell Telephone acoustical/electrical engineers experimenting with multi-channel live transmission (over telephone cables) of concerts by the Philadelphia Orchestra concluded that a "minimum" of three channels--left, center, and right--were necessary to realistically portray the stereo soundstage of the orchestra.

Recording technology at the time was not up to the task (only mono was possible), but engineers even then recognized the serious limitations of mono or two channels (stereo).

Regards,