Question To add a centre back in or not.

Ado43

Established Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2010
Messages
199
Reaction score
48
Points
33
I went from a 5.1 to 4.1 system a few years ago due to a change in my set up. With a plasma and new stand I literally had nowhere to put the centre so took it out altogether.

In the last week I’ve changed a few components again. New TV and new AVR being the main things. I had to buy a new stand to accommodate the new tv so now I have the opportunity to add the centre back in.

The thing is. Well there’s a couple of things:

The positioning won’t be ideal to say the least. The tv stand is a three shelf glass one and there is a space in the bottom shelf for it, the only place it will fit. It’s very close to the floor(which is carpeted) but will have a lot of head room. The centre is a closed speaker so don’t have to worry about posts etc.

Since I changed to the new AVR, I haven’t really been happy with the 4.1 set up. In stereo PCM or bitstream it’s fine but when playing any of the true multi channel tracks, the phantom centre channel isn’t balanced for me. The main voice is skewed to one side. At the moment it’s predominant on the right front but still coming through the left. When I originally set up, it was coming through the left channel only. Both fronts are working perfectly otherwise, sounding relatively balanced. It’s just the voices that have been off kilter. I think it may be the auto calibration that is causing it.

When I ran it first and had the voice from the left front only, I still had some of the old devices lying around the room which would have affected the analysis. I removed them and then got my second result.
As I sit on a diagonal away from the set up(which is angled into the from from a corner) I am naturally slightly nearer the front left, which makes me think it’s the auto calibration overcompensating for it. Although as said the speakers sound fairly balanced otherwise.

Do you think I would see an improvement if I add the centre back in? It’s not a great place to position it but I’m wondering will it be an improvement on what I have, which is mildly irritating.
I could manually adjust the fronts of course but I think they are balanced as it is volume wise. It’s just the voices that are not which is a bit strange.

I’m also most likely going to get a pair of upfiring Atmos speakers to put on the fronts so once that’s in I will want to do as little tweaking as possible as I have to move one of the fronts to get to the back of the receiver, tv etc. I’d like to make th decision on the centre before purchasing them.
 
Do a rough sketch of where the current speakers are placed in relation to the MLP.
 
10AF1B01-3EA6-42EB-9762-0CE344CCA06A.png
Excuse the utter crudeness but hopefully you get a rough idea.
 
Unfortunately your seat is the problem - though odd that the New AVR is making Meal of your configuration if the old AVR was better!

Centre - debatable that a badly position Centre will resolve the issue.

Front LR - any option to angle everything towards your seat? Ideally pull the FR out into the room a little and then aim it at you.

Joe
 
Unfortunately your seat is the problem - though odd that the New AVR is making Meal of your configuration if the old AVR was better!

Centre - debatable that a badly position Centre will resolve the issue.

Front LR - any option to angle everything towards your seat? Ideally pull the FR out into the room a little and then aim it at you.

Joe

Thanks for the reply. They are more centered towards the listening position than my horrible drawing indicates.

Anyway I got my lob sided speech resolved and it was the auto calibration. There were options in the auto calibration to add virtual back surrounds, add space to the sound etc which I had selected.

I ran the auto calibration again and set everything flat with no “effects” selected and now it’s perfect.

I won’t be adding the centre back in as I feel I have no need for it, especially as it won’t be ideally positioned. I do intend to still get the Atmos speakers in the near future to add a little more to it.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is Home Theater DEAD in 2024?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom