Hey guys, I am running M22 v2's, a VP100 v2, and an EP125 v2 through the Harman Kardon AV354. I just purchased the center, and I have not been able to get my system sounding right since I've hooked it up.

When I first plugged the center in and enabled it on my receiver, my L&R fronts got a lot quieter, and the center was overbearingly louder. When listening to music, the songs seem to fade in and out between the center and the bookshelves, almost as if they're competing with each other.

My crossovers for both the bookshelves and the center are set to 100Hz, is that right?

any help is greatly appreciated!

thanks

Your receiver should have the capability of adjusting the volume of each speaker individually. If so, then you need an SPL meter (or very good ears) and adjust the receiver's pink noise for each speaker until they play at the same level. That should take care of this.

pink noise? o_O

i have adjusted the speaker levels, i changed the center from 0dB gain to -5dB, and raised the L&R's from +3dB to +5db, still sounding funny.

what about speaker wire? i'm running 16 gauge wire, but i think 12 is recommended for these speakers, would that do it?

Try using the auto setup MIC on the remote (I forget the correct name). Also, make sure you are not applying some DSP like "hall" or similar. Even Logic 7 can make some material sound strange. For music try "Stereo"

I wish, it wont let me use the auto equalize Mic until ive got 5.1 :-/

i will try the Stereo setting when I get home, thanks

anyone have any other suggestions?

You're better off listening to music in Stereo anyway, use the centre for movies

16 gauge wire will not have any negative effect until approaching 50' into 8 ohms. It certainly would not have such an obvious effect.

Setting the mains to +5 and the center to -5 is pretty bizarre. If you don't have too many other things set up you may want to just try a factory reset to get rid of any strange setting you may have somewhere.

I assume you're using some kind of matrixing mode to generate a signal for the center channel ? If you're running "pure stereo" then the center channel would be silent. It sounds like you are just hearing typical quirks of the algorithms which synthesize center and surround signals from stereo inputs.

AFAIK these algorithms work fine with "simple" recordings but for the last 20 years there have been a number of processing tools which increase the 3 dimensional effect you get with stereo playback (I remember the Aphex Aural Exciter or sth like that), and audio that has gone through those tools tends to drive the matrixing algorithms batty.

Your receiver probably offers a variety of matrixing modes - definitely try them all. I never found one that sounded good with all my songs, but I found one that sounded good for most and another that sounded good for the rest. I don't remember what those two modes were, unfortunately, since...

... I eventually got fed up having to pick a different mode for each album and went back to stereo playback.

EDIT - apparently the Aphex Aural Exciter came out 34 years ago. I feel very old.