Exact center speaker placement, critical or not?

[cleandan]

I am going to build my entertainment center and this will give me the luxury of placing things exactly where I want. I am wondering if placing the center channel speaker at the same listening level as my main speaker, mid/high, horns will have any appreciable effect on sound quality. The speaker will end up directly under the TV no matter what the final outcome is. Thanks for the input.

[sgraham]

If the center speaker is not exactly the same distance from your ears as the left and right speakers are there's a chance there'll be some phasiness, if left and right carry any of the same audio that's coming out of the center speaker.

[Strabo]

I don't know about height, but definitely left to right can cause a major collapse. Due to room restraints I have to have my center closer to the right and on MC SACD's it depressing. Doesn't seem to hurt movies, but the music sound stage disintegrates.

That's why I'm always playing the two channel mix.

[-=Rudy=-]

I'm stuck with using a center channel on top of the TV, since there is no room underneath. Haven't noticed a HUGE difference, but I still like to keep the center and surrounds off for music.

[Steve Hoffman]

If you're going to play mostly music through your surround system, I suggest that all speakers (including your center channel) MATCH! If not, it's a mix disaster waiting to happen....

On the other hand, if you are planning to mainly play movies in surround, it doesn't much matter; most DVD movie sound is so compressed that as long as the center channel is somewhere in the middle, it will work fine....


:)

[-=Rudy=-]

No kidding--and it's hard to get a sonically matching center speaker if you want to use your system for both music AND movies! One option is to use smaller speakers, three identical across the front, and use subs to fill out the bottom. I actually have enough Boston A40's to do that for all five channels...