I have never seen a center speaker design such as this. It "looks" like a conventional horizontal CC, but there is only a single woofer, while the other one that looks like a woofer is a passive radiator.
So, in practice, it seems to me like a "normal ported speaker layed on its side".
@TLS Guy
@shadyJ
@KEW
@zieglj01
Yes, that is exactly what it is. So it will have an off center lobing axis and have a somewhat different response whether you are on its right or left.
Center speakers are a terrible problem, with no easy solutions. As far as I can tell they are very inclined to make matters worse than a pair of left and right speakers.
The trouble is that layout generally requires a horizontal rather than a vertically aligned speaker. That really means a coaxial or full range drivers. There is no doubt in my mind that resources really do need to be thrown at good full range driver research. I used a full ranger in our Eagan Townhouse and it was excellent.
For the new home I have designed this.
The 10" woofer is the sub crossed at 40Hz so ignore that. So the woofers crossed at 400 Hz are horizontal, and the mid and tweeter vertical crossed at 4 KHz.
The speech clarity and overall fidelity is excellent. However the lobing problem is not completely avoided. There is a slight change in the balance around the crossover dependent on listening axis to the speaker, with a slight rise in the balance below 400 Hz moving center left or right. This is slight, but it is audible. This confirms my experience that the optimal for a center is a coaxial or full range driver, anything else is suboptimal.