Egads! A center I like.

[sfdoddsy]

After years of poo-pooing centers in favour of a phantom center I spent last night finishing and wiring up a new center that matches my DIY center.

Apart fro demonstrating that I have no life, it did finally show some of the advantages of a dedicated center that had hitherto escaped me.

I'm still not convinced of their benefit for non discrete sources such as DPL2 or Logic 7, but there did seem to be good things happening for DD/DTS DVD-A and SACD.

It's early days, and early in the day yet, but so far so good.

Of course, one could also say that I finally have a center speaker that has the same drivers and inhabits the same acoustic space, but that would be unkind.

Cheers

Steve




Steve's DIY Dipoles

[Lex]

Way to go Steve, you da man!

Lex

[JonMarsh]

Hi Steve,

Like you, I've been a fan of phantom centers most of the time, particularly if the center doesn't match the capabilities of the mains- they really ought to be nearly identical for the best performance IMO with discrete Dolby digital and other discrete sources.

Obviously, when you factor in a display, this can pose many problems, so I've been doing a few center speaker designs for friends just to get some more experience and feedback on what works well.

What did you wind up putting together, and is it integrated into a video setup?

-Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[sfdoddsy]

Jon,

I did one that is a smaller version of the top panel of my dipoles, like this:



The final one uses a Seas W22 and Millenium like the mains. The single woofer seems to give adequate output without a problem. It is reversed and slightly taller to fit above the TV, yet still have about the same acoustic center.

I'll be using the same design for surrounds I suspect.

Steve




Steve's DIY Dipoles

[dsmith]

Steve, it looks like your are going into production! The speakers look nicely finished. Do you use a grill?

Don

[sfdoddsy]

ACtually, those are just the test speakers. It looks like this now:



I'm still pondering final finishes.

And I kind of like the look of naked fancy drivers, so I think they will go grill free.


Steve




Steve's DIY Dipoles

[Chas_T]

HI Steve,

A real nice series of web pages you've created. I really enjoyed the information and your sense of humor.

I call it Bob so that if I get drunk and start writing backwards I can still spell it properly."

Great line!!!!

Cheers,
Charles