Surround sound with no centre speaker

[Gad-Westy]

I'm inept when it comes to this stuff so forgive my ignorance.

I have a Sony AV amp with some mission floor standing left/right speakers (I beleive they're bi-wire if that means much) and some Gale bookshelf surround speakers plus a mission amp. We've recently moved house. In our previous place I was using cheapie Creative centre speaker and surrounds but now that I have more space I wanted to upgrade this side of things hence now using the Gale bookshelf speakers at the rear. It leaves me without a decent centre speaker but in all honesty I'm not sure that I really want one. Our TV sits on a Pine TV cabinet. There isn't really room for a conventional centre speaker and I haven't found anything small that looks like it's worth having.

So my question is two fold.

Firstly can I get away with no centre speaker?

And if not, is there anything small/subtle that is worth getting that won't be swamped by the left/right speakers?

[M@verick]

It is possible to run without a centre channel, but bear in mind thats where the majority of your vocal/conversational audio comes from in a 5.1 or 7.1 AV setup.

I had a similar issue to you and resolved it by using a Monitor Audio in-ceiling speaker for the centre channel (and rears in fact), this works very well.

HTH,

R.

[E31Shrew]

Is there a way you can use your TV speaker as the centre or is it dire?

[Gad-Westy]

M@verick said:

It is possible to run without a centre channel, but bear in mind thats where the majority of your vocal/conversational audio comes from in a 5.1 or 7.1 AV setup.

I had a similar issue to you and resolved it by using a Monitor Audio in-ceiling speaker for the centre channel (and rears in fact), this works very well.

HTH,

R.

Cheers. I've done a bit more research since posting this and it seems I may have an option to tell the amp there is no centre speaker so that it sends speech etc to the the left and right. Otherwise I quite like the ceiling speaker idea but does it sound odd with the sound coming from so high up?

[Gad-Westy]

E31Shrew said:

Is there a way you can use your TV speaker as the centre or is it dire?

Hmmm, not sure but worth investigating. I guess I just need to look for some sort of audio input on the back of the TV.

[Adrian W]

Isn't this called phantom mode?

[OldSkoolRS]

Gad-Westy said:

Cheers. I've done a bit more research since posting this and it seems I may have an option to tell the amp there is no centre speaker so that it sends speech etc to the the left and right. Otherwise I quite like the ceiling speaker idea but does it sound odd with the sound coming from so high up?

No issue using a 'phantom centre' as it is sometimes called. The centre signal gets sent to the left and right speakers so you end up with the speech, etc 'appearing' to come from the centre. IMHO this is much better than using a cheap/poor/small/badly matched centre and I'd venture probably better than using a ceiling speaker which will have a totally different timbre to your other speakers.

I've just gone over to using a phantom centre myself since my centre is too low to the ground due to my TV which effects the tone of it, despite it being a perfect match for my left/rights. I find it works really well, but I'm sat in the ideal position (dead centre of the two other speakers).If you are off to one side then the sound won't appear to come from the middle so could be off putting, so it depends on your arrangement.

[marctwo]

I tried a phantom centre for a while but never found that the dialogue sounded convincingly centred, despite being sat perfectly between the two front speakers. I ended up getting a centre that matched my fronts and think it's a much better setup.

[OldSkoolRS]

It does depend on the distance from the speakers,listening levels and of course the speakers themselves. Mine or PMC which are a decent enough make and image particularly well. I think it works better at higher listening levels too since at lower levels it can be more obvious that there is a 'hole' in the middle. For now, it's preferable to the slight 'boxy' effect I get at high levels due to the sound reflecting off the floor: I'm trying to come up with a speaker stand that can be raised when I'm using my projector since it won't matter if it's in front of the TV then as the screen is another foot higher.

At least you've matched your centre: I've seen some setups with tiny centre speakers and massive floorstanders that have no hope of matching regardless of any EQ the amp might have.

[M@verick]

Gad-Westy said:

Otherwise I quite like the ceiling speaker idea but does it sound odd with the sound coming from so high up?

In my system, no it doesnt sound at all odd - however my TV has ended up mounted on a wall above a fireplace (due to limitations of the room rather than by design) so my focus is perhaps higher than is usual. If it helps I have listened to another system which uses only in-ceiling speakers (no floor standers at all) with a normally mounted TV and this too sounded good, steering was accurate and vocals didnt feel as if they were coming from the ceiling.

I should probably also point out that i am using Monitor Audio Silver series floor standers and gold series in-ceiling centre on the recommendation of my Audio shop - on the basis that these are very well timbre matched speakers. I think if you went for budget in ceiling speakers or ones which were less well matched to the rest of your system it might well be more obvious that the centre sounded "out of place".

HTH,

R.

[Adrian W]

I got so fed up with TV's not being designed for centre speakers that I designed my own, its made out of braced laser cut steel and uses components from Rourke Dialogue one's, matches my Neat MFS's very well.