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Best place for a center channel speaker?

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tedtropy

$50/hour, but no kissing on the lips and colors must be pre-separated
center_speaker.jpg


And no, up my ass doesn't qualify as a response. Most of the guides I've read suggest putting the center speaker at ear level, but how exactly are you supposed to do that while still having your TV directly in the center of your sight? Should I mount little hover pads below it and allow it to float in the middle of my screen? I suppose I could put it at the bottom in front of my TV, but then I'd be unable to access the TV's control and probably wouldn't be able to use its remote. Do most people just chunk it on top of their TV? While dialog doesn't sound like it's shooting over my head or anything, I'm sure it'd still be more accurate if at ear level. Maybe not. I'm no audiophile, but I'd like to get the most out of my humble setup. Thanks.
 

Dilbert

Member
With all due respect, given the placement of your left/right fronts and your subwoofer, I don't think the difference in center channel placement is a big deal.

The ideal placement is going to vary by TV and viewing geometry. For mine, I didn't have any choice but to place it on top...but I had to buy a special shelf for it to be stable since it's a thin bezel around the screen. If you were looking slightly "up" at your TV, then placing the center channel under the screen might be better.
 

Drensch

Member
On top of the screen is a pretty good place. Once you get into specialized equipment and insatllations you can get better spots, but on top is best.
 

tedtropy

$50/hour, but no kissing on the lips and colors must be pre-separated
-jinx- said:
With all due respect, given the placement of your left/right fronts and your subwoofer, I don't think the difference in center channel placement is a big deal.

The ideal placement is going to vary by TV and viewing geometry. For mine, I didn't have any choice but to place it on top...but I had to buy a special shelf for it to be stable since it's a thin bezel around the screen. If you were looking slightly "up" at your TV, then placing the center channel under the screen might be better.

Yeah, the setup's not quite final yet. I plan on putting the left and right speakers on something to raise them up about nine inches and towards ear level. Just couldn't find anything at Targets that really blended in with the TV shelf and was tall enough. All in due time. I may check out Ikea for a CD shelf or something similar to raise them up. And as for the thin bezel issue with the TV, I had the same problem. Solved it easy enough by using some pretty strong double-sided tape I had that's meant for outside use. It doesn't stick so hard as to yank off paint, put it'll hold up to five pounds pretty good. Put that on the edge of the TV where I wanted the speaker, and it's staying there fine. Without it, the speaker was too back heavy and just kept sliding off. The bezel on your TV may be even thinner than mine though.

center_speaker2.jpg
 

tedtropy

$50/hour, but no kissing on the lips and colors must be pre-separated
Naked Snake said:
That's a nice setup you have there, very tidy... that empty shelf is screaming for a PS2 though.

Heh, yeah, I'm tempted to pick up one of new PSTwos (as though I could find one), but I'm resisting for the sake of my PSP.
 

M3Freak

Banned
tedtropy said:
And no, up my ass doesn't qualify as a response.

Holy shit. The first thing I thought of when I read your post was "Up your ass."

:D

tedtropy said:
Most of the guides I've read suggest putting the center speaker at ear level, but how exactly are you supposed to do that while still having your TV directly in the center of your sight?

Well, the centre speaker is supposed to be at the same level as the front left and right speakers. That is, the tweeters should all be aligned across the front stage. But, of course, this is only possible with the massive screens you use for front projectors. In those cases, you can almost always line up the left, centre, right speaker across the bottom of the screen, or the best place, behind it.

For us mere mortals, your setup is common place. Not much else you can do, except for one thing: prop up the centre speaker so that it is aimed at you when you're sitting down. That should help to improve the quality of the sound from the less than ideal speaker placement.

HTH.
 

tedtropy

$50/hour, but no kissing on the lips and colors must be pre-separated
M3Freak said:
Holy shit. The first thing I thought of when I read your post was "Up your ass."

:D



Well, the centre speaker is supposed to be at the same level as the front left and right speakers. That is, the tweeters should all be aligned across the front stage. But, of course, this is only possible with the massive screens you use for front projectors. In those cases, you can almost always line up the left, centre, right speaker across the bottom of the screen, or the best place, behind it.

For us mere mortals, your setup is common place. Not much else you can do, except for one thing: prop up the centre speaker so that it is aimed at you when you're sitting down. That should help to improve the quality of the sound from the less than ideal speaker placement.

HTH.

Hmm, yeah, I was kind of playing around with the idea of trying to find some way to prop the back of the center speaker up a little to angle the sound down towards my listening position. Of course, another problem is I don't sit in THE EXACT SAME SPOT that most recommendations go by in my room. Sometimes I'm sitting in my chair in the optimal spot, sometimes chilling on the bed, sometimes kind of glancing at the TV now and then from my computer.
 

Lil' Dice

Banned
I have all three front speakers on top of my entertainment center, about 7' high.
My a/v receiver has a function in which you can specify the distance of each speaker from the listener's position, this helps balance the sound output should one speaker be slightly offset. If you feel like your center speaker is too far away, just raise it's individual volume level.
 

tedtropy

$50/hour, but no kissing on the lips and colors must be pre-separated
Lil' Dice said:
I have all three front speakers on top of my entertainment center, about 7' high.
My a/v receiver has a function in which you can specify the distance of each speaker from the listener's position, this helps balance the sound output should one speaker be slightly offset. If you feel like your center speaker is too far away, just raise it's individual volume level.

Yeah, I have all the speaker distance settings on the receiver properly set. The system sounds fine, I'm just looking for every little option to make sure it sounds its best. I'm not concerned about the volume of the center speaker in relation to the others so much as the direction of its sound...
 

Lil' Dice

Banned
tedtropy said:
Yeah, I have all the speaker distance settings on the receiver properly set. The system sounds fine, I'm just looking for every little option to make sure it sounds its best.

Cool! I just noticed we have the same Onkyo receiver, except mine is black.
It's a great piece of equipment....
 

tedtropy

$50/hour, but no kissing on the lips and colors must be pre-separated
Lil' Dice said:
Cool! I just noticed we have the same Onkyo receiver, except mine is black.
It's a great piece of equipment....

Yep, for what I paid, it's an amazing system. Plus it's pretty upgradeable if I ever decide to go that route. 100W peak satellites, I was impressed.
 
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