First post..need some advice.

[cschang]

I'm one of them!

LOL!!
Then I know you wouldn't tell someone that sits 15' away to buy a 50" TV!

I sit about 11' away from my 55", and my "video" friends make me feel inadequate.

 

[SopRage]

I apologize if I've been misunderstood.

My issue was with the verbage of the "good enough" vs "great" argument. The simple fact of the matter is that we have all settled for "good enough" in our gear (unless it's impossible for someone on these forums to own a higher-quality component in their system).

My point was that all speakers, without exception, and certainly at the OP's pricepoint, make compromises. While fewer of them are made in flagship components, there is no perfect speaker. Even more so, we as consumers - given a realistic budget - must make compromised choices of compromised products. Choices on what is "good enough."

The options of matching vertical speakers, mis-matching centers to mains, mounting the TV too high and others are all fine compromises to the "problem" of having a M-T-M speaker; however, declaring that all M-T-M designs are sonic disasters seemed a bit "over the top" to me, especially with all the candor about "good" and "great."

As far as theoretical exercises, while we talked quite a bit about the problems inherent to M-T-M designs (which I'm convinced a few of us "hear" well within the 20-degree window, whether or not it's actually audible), there was little discussion as to the disadvantages to other design choices (Mr. Fabrikant himself wasn't nearly so impressed with M-TM-M designs).

Ultimately, it all seemed a little much to me. Not sure how much "help" it was to the OP.

 

[GranteedEV]

My point was that all speakers, without exception, and certainly at the OP's pricepoint, make compromises. While fewer of them are made in flagship components, there is no perfect speaker. Even more so, we as consumers - given a realistic budget - must make compromised choices of compromised products. Choices on what is "good enough."

At no point did I say "spend a lot more because this budget isn't going to get you great". I said that finding a center speaker with a more ideal design is possibly within OP's budget and will give a notable improvement in performance. And as long as it has comparable on/off axis FR to the mains, it would blend seemlessly. JM mentioned TLS Guy's coaxial choice of center speaker. Guess what. That coaxial does not "match" TLS guy's mains. Different driver altogether.

If "better" can be had within your budget than yes, you're settling for "good enough" if you just shut down other options.

I offered a suggestion to not constrain oneself to a horizontal MTM because it's truly a different speaker to a vertical MTM.

You assumed I was telling him to break his budget and how MTM would be "financially" settling. No, MTM would be "lazily" settling if you don't give even a different, comparably priced center an opportunity. I already suggested the infinity pc350 for example. As long as you audessey (which most people do) I suggested the results would be worthwhile and all I'm being told is to not even consider it blah blah blah. Enjoy your system man. Apparently I struck a nerve or something by offering my opinion.

As far as theoretical exercises, while we talked quite a bit about the problems inherent to M-T-M designs (which I'm convinced a few of us "hear" well within the 20-degree window, whether or not it's actually audible), there was little discussion as to the disadvantages to other design choices (Mr. Fabrikant himself wasn't nearly so impressed with M-TM-M designs).

Designing a 3-way speaker is very complex and time consuming and difficult to get sounding coherent. a good 3-way will sound good but a bad 3-way will is a lot easier to do than a bad 2-way. That's likely the reality of why ascend has yet to even RELEASE a 3-way speaker. Only now does it look like they're finally releasing a 3-way (tower) speaker. Nothing wrong with that either. It's better wait to release a 3-way than to release a poor 3-way. Hell, how many companies out there can you name that even have 4-way speakers? And of those, how many are actually decent? You stick to what you know until you feel comfortable with other things.

That's the truth. If you can't make a 3-way speaker coherent it's not worthwhile to sell. But that doesn't mean you can never make a 3-way coherent or that another person or company can't make their 3-way coherent.

I contend that your center does not need to be the same drivers as your mains. It needs to be good if your mains are any good. It needs to be equally awful if your mains are. That's what timbre matching is. It's an issue with bad speakers.

 

[SopRage]

At no point did I say "spend a lot more because this budget isn't going to get you great". I said that finding a center speaker with a more ideal design is possibly within OP's budget and will give a notable improvement in performance. And as long as it has comparable on/off axis FR to the mains, it would blend seemlessly. JM mentioned TLS Guy's coaxial choice of center speaker. Guess what. That coaxial does not "match" TLS guy's mains. Different driver altogether.

If "better" can be had within your budget than yes, you're settling for "good enough" if you just shut down other options.

I offered a suggestion to not constrain oneself to a horizontal MTM because it's truly a different speaker to a vertical MTM.

You assumed I was telling him to break his budget and how MTM would be "financially" settling. No, MTM would be "lazily" settling if you don't give even a different, comparably priced center an opportunity. I already suggested the infinity pc350 for example. As long as you audessey (which most people do) I suggested the results would be worthwhile and all I'm being told is to not even consider it blah blah blah. Enjoy your system man. Apparently I struck a nerve or something by offering my opinion.




Designing a 3-way speaker is very complex and time consuming and difficult to get sounding coherent. a good 3-way will sound good but a bad 3-way will is a lot easier to do than a bad 2-way. That's likely the reality of why ascend has yet to even RELEASE a 3-way speaker. Only now does it look like they're finally releasing a 3-way (tower) speaker. Nothing wrong with that either. It's better wait to release a 3-way than to release a poor 3-way. Hell, how many companies out there can you name that even have 4-way speakers? And of those, how many are actually decent? You stick to what you know until you feel comfortable with other things.

That's the truth. If you can't make a 3-way speaker coherent it's not worthwhile to sell. But that doesn't mean you can never make a 3-way coherent or that another person or company can't make their 3-way coherent.

I contend that your center does not need to be the same drivers as your mains. It needs to be good if your mains are any good. It needs to be equally awful if your mains are. That's what timbre matching is. It's an issue with bad speakers.

Clearly this is something you feel very passionately about; I don't wish to further derail this thread with discussion of theoretical absolutes.

We concur on at least one thing - should the OP find the Ascend center to be unsatisfactory, he should return it and audition another (perhaps one of your suggestions). I, for one, settled for "good enough" and kept mine.

I'll "peace out" by suggesting the OP check out the "A/V Education" section here on AH:

http://www.audioholics.com/education/loudspeaker-basics/center-channel-speaker

It's very cool to have access to a group of guys who know far more than I do about these things! ... even when we disagree.

 

[GranteedEV]

Clearly this is something you feel very passionately about;

Not quite. I just don't like the idea of being told that I'm giving bad or "ridiculous" advice if I don't feel I am.

 

[3db]

Once you get off axis, these two drivers are now at different distances to you. Depending on the exact angle off axis you are, and the characteristics of the speaker itself, you will have a specific set of frequencies that will be cancelled and/or boosted.

Not challenging you, just seeking understanding. So what you are saying isthat relative to the frequency wavelength of sound, the distance between drivers in an MTM are huge when off axes and hence the cancelation affects at the off center psition. I would think that the cancelation would start a wavelength past the driver and or baffle so that the physical wave pattern has been established at that point (one wavelength past) and decrease in amplitude the further it moves away from the source.

(Maybe this should be moved to another thread)

 

[jostenmeat]

Not challenging you, just seeking understanding. So what you are saying isthat relative to the frequency wavelength of sound, the distance between drivers in an MTM are huge when off axes and hence the cancelation affects at the off center psition. I would think that the cancelation would start a wavelength past the driver and or baffle so that the physical wave pattern has been established at that point (one wavelength past) and decrease in amplitude the further it moves away from the source.

(Maybe this should be moved to another thread)

I'm not sure what you're asking, and I am not very versed in science. The boost and cancellation subsets I talked about, well I personally equated that to constructive and destructive interference.

I don't know the relevance of the full wavelength that you speak of, but for any given angle, that will only happen obviously with very high frequencies, and/or with extreme off axis angles. However, I would think that 180 degrees would be plenty bad, and that's only half a wavelength off.

If anyone likes you enough to watch a movie with you, the center channel must reproduce all that content smoothly and predictably across all your seats. If you’re sitting perfectly in front of the center channel, having multiple drivers of the same type in a horizontal configuration can do the job just fine. But if you move slightly off-axis, or as any of the other seats will realize, having horizontally-aligned redundant drivers will cause some frequencies to be canceled and some to be reinforced. This phenomenon is called wave interference and you can read more about a double-slit experiment with light (or any other physical media that behaves in waves) here. The subtracting and adding of various frequencies at various angles can result in audible shifting in the speaker’s sound across the room. Not only does the off-axis frequency response suffer, but timing and phase response follow. Off-axis, MTM speakers can often sound hollow but the comb filtering, or lobing effect, can also shift the imaging away from the middle as a “phasy” sound. There’s a good reason why one-piece surround speakers use a lot of identical drivers (up to 40 - wow). The wave interference in those cases is used as a tool of good, not evil. To compensate for the lack of intelligibility (of the audio, not the script), people typically turn their volumes up which then can then result in some domestic tension among spouses, children and neighbors.

Floor speakers with multiple vertical redundant drivers will also have wave interference, but vertical variation in frequency response is much less of a problem than horizontal variation. In fact, the more identical drivers a loudspeaker has, the more it behaves like a line source instead of a point source. Line sources radiate in a more cylindrical pattern, which is advantageous if it is vertically oriented, as line sources interact less with the floor and ceiling. But a cylindrical radiation pattern is a disadvantage if you arrange the redundant drivers horizontally. The speaker will then interact more with the floor and ceiling, and suffer poorer response horizontally across the room.

http://www.audioholics.com/education/loudspeaker-basics/vertical-vs-horizontal-speaker-designs

 

[STRONGBADF1]

I could stair at that for hours.