Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Interesting Centre Speaker Discussion

I thought you folks here, especially Hutzal, might be interested in Mark Fleischmann's recent blog post about using a centre speaker which matches your fronts. There's a link in his post about lobing which has some revealing graphs and would make for some interesting discussion/debate here.

the only reason I am using 2 M2s, one above, and one below my screen is because of JohnK. If it was not for him, I would have opted for the bookshelf centres. I love how it sounds and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I really must say that anyone hesitant of getting M2 centres shouldn't be, they are an amazing speaker. I was hesitant at first which is why I got the M3s, but after realizing that I could actually hear the difference from the M22s, I replaced them with M2s, and they are amazing speakers.

Do a searching for combing and lobing.
It has been discussed already in the past.
Ian weighed in with some thoughts if i recall.

Yes and in the words of many people: to D'Appolito or to not D'Appolito that is the question.

The main reason most people don't use three identical speakers is because its impractical and once you leave the plane of the mains, alot of acoustical complications kick in. Joseph D'Appolito got it right with his asymetrical MTM configuration as the best solution to this problem. Fleishman's views are very out of date.

Krunch, yes that was an interesting discussion, both as to an MTM center speaker and none at all, employing a "phantom" center. These options have been discussed here several times in the past, and it has been pointed out that others, such as Tom Nousaine, have described essentially the same difficulties. It should be remembered that the MTM arrangement devised by Dr. D'Appolito was specifically intended to have broad horizontal dispersion when positioned vertically and to narrow vertical dispersion to help minimize problems with floor and ceiling bounce. When positioned horizontally the opposite result occurs.

Thanks for the input guys.

I've been learning about all things home theatre for a couple of years now and this is the first time I'd come across the terms combing (aside from the similarly named "comb" filters used by composite video connections) and lobing. I'll dig through the forum for the past discussions as mentioned.

Just when you think you're getting a handle on all of this, you realize just how much more there is. It's all good fun, though.

So what would happen if say you were to have 2 M80's as your fronts and had 2 M80's set up on either side of your display acting as a dual center channel? Sorry if this is an ignorant post.

Kyle, there wouldn't be a speaker literally right in the center, but the two M80s at the side would make the center channel sound fed to them appear to come from the center of the screen for someone sitting midway between them. If the listener moved to the side, the center image would move with them, but not farther out than the M80 center to that side.

I want an amplifier than can drive two M80s as a center channel.

So then that seems as if that could be a better set up than a standard center channel configuration? Am I understanding correctly or is it more suited to personal taste? And for purpose of discussion, wouldn't the Emotiva MPS-1 work? 1 mono for each M80?