Axiom recommended the use of their dual center speakers.
I run dual centers. Before I did this I spent a lot of time searching and reading about center channel design and comb filtering. What I found at the time was that comb filtering in the horizontal direction was a very bad thing. It is an
inherent compromise of the design where a small vertical footprint is desired more than the better sound of a vertically oriented center.
What I also found was that, from people who actually did both measured and listening tests, is that vertical comb filtering exists, but does not cause the same audible issues, or at least not to the same extent.
I did some testing: single center below screen, single center above screen and dual centers. What I found was the following: With single centers, the dialog was shifted in the direction of the center location. It did not always show up, but at times peoples voices and their image became disconnected. To me, that is not a good thing.
With dual centers I could be on the floor, sitting, standing, against the left or right wall, and the dialog was exactly where it was supposed to be. I did not hear any serious audio degradation with the dual center setup. It seemed like a pretty good
HT setup compromise where I gained much more than I lost.
I know of several other people who ran into similar issues because of less than ideal center channel placement who came to the same conclusion.
So now I'm gonna ask you AcuDefTechGuy. What testing have you done to validate that dual centers are always a bad thing due to the introduced comb filtering?
[RANT]
Most people would laugh at that kind of recommendation due to comb filtering.
And under the right conditions, thousands of lemmings will follow each other off a cliff. Nobody's gonna suggest thats a good idea. Related terms: Group think, herd behavior, social conformance...
[/RANT]
