Does a center channel have to match the right and left front speakers?

[Mike Gillesp]

Does a center channel have to match the right and left front speakers?
I have Dynaudio Confidence 1 speakers on the left and right. The Dynaudio’s have an Esotec tweeter. For music listening I’ll just use the right and left channels, but for watching movies, I’m going to add a center channel speaker. To maintain good sound for watching movies, is it best to only get a Dynaudio speaker that has the same tweeter. Or can I get a less expensive but good center from another manufacturer who doesn’t use that particular tweeter and still good good quality sound without the tweeters mixing badly (which is what the Dyn dealers tell me but of course that's in their interest)?

 

[noise gate]

In theory you want the centre to be "timbre matched" to you left & right. Basically they all should have similar if not identical sound charateristics. for example if a scene has a car going past and the sound pans from left - centre - right you don't want the Ferrari to sound like a Kia when the sound comes out of the centre speaker. I've watched movies with miss matched centre chanels and sometimes you don't notice sometime you do.. I'm betting the reciever and the mix on the sound track play a role in this too. If you could take a speaker home and try it over night ( Some stores still let people do that ) you might be able to save some money, or maybe save some greif if it turns out the cheaper option sounds,,, well,, cheap. good luck to ya mike

 

[whoaru99]

It is usually best to have a matching speaker for the center. Perfect would be to have a third speaker that is exactly the same as your left and right. In your case, three Dynaudio Confidence 1s across the front.

That said, I don't have the same brand speaker for center as I'm using for L & R but it seems to be a decent enough match. I would, however, get a same brand if the opportunity presents itself for (IMO) a reasonable price.

 

[dc270]

Respective of the fact you probably do not want a "differant" sound coming from the front array of drivers ot would be best to have the center matched. Having said that I have found the by just keeping the near same driver types matched is usually good enough. If you have 5" cone mides & 1" dome tweeters in your main L & R fronts then try to incorperate those same drivers in your center channel.

My last center channel was an AR2ce as I recall. It had monocouque 5" mids, a 6.5" sub woofer and 1" tweeter. It was an excellent center channel! I ran Timeframe 700's with it and it seemed to match pretty well.

The best thing to always do is to bring home the center channel and listen to it. I have heard centers with a horn loaded tweeter that sounded pretty good- it did not much match the front L & R!

Good uck- you are getting some sound advice from the other contributors too!
DC

 

[89grand]

I've ran center channels of completely different brands and did not find the sound difference distracting at all, but I guess it could be if the difference was severe enough. I now run a matching center because I bought the set complete from CL, but it was only because it was such a great deal, about a $1400 set, for $100, not because I felt the center match was mandatory.

 

[Ziinda]

Good advice here for anyone who's wondering about this. One thing you can do to see if the sound sent to the center is even the same as the sound sent to the LR is to connect one of you're speakers to the center and leave the other connected. Most decoders will send a very different sounding signal to the center and in the end it's kind of a matter of how much does it matter to you? Logically matched tweeters makes perfect sense if the 3 fronts were getting the same exact signals but surround decoding doesn't work like that. Different models of decoders will do different things. I have never heard a test pattern that had the same exact sound come out of each speaker.

Even with matched speakers the sound changed as it went from L to C then the R will match the L. The move from R to side R and then to rear R would change slightly again but each R&L would match. I noticed this with multiple AVRs made by Onkyo, Sony, Denon, to a lesser extent on Pioneer, HK and Integra. Of course only those with a built in test signal will be able to be heard. Even those cheap all in one systems that use those tiny single driver speakers exhibit this same sound shift as it runs past the center during test tones.

My experience showed that center channel matching is only going to be so good even with exact speakers the timbre has never been exact so it's not as important as you'd think. Of course as it has been pointed out, you want to try and be as close as possible to minimize anything that's far different.

 

[jsisk]

AV receivers have the ability to adjust the volume for each speaker to compensate for differences in efficiency. Many (such as Marantz) even give you the ability to adjust the equalization for each speaker individually, allowing you to match different speakers.

My main HT setup uses a pair of Polk Audio monitor tower speakers (no need for a subwoofer), A really nice KLH center channel speaker (excellent for voice tracks in movies), and four Minimus 7 speakers for side and rear surrounds.

 

[twiiii]

Simple answer: YES. Other wise you will always hear any annoying difference. Whether better or worse making the center stand out or seem compromised. You wouldn't have three tires of one size or type on your car with the 4th being different. Especially on one of your front wheels. Thats an accident waiting to happen for sure. But you might get by for instance with the same tweeter and mid with a slightly smaller woofer or one less woofer if your main speakers have two each for instance. But getting by is not what you want with a good or great HT system.