Living with and without a center channel

[csuzor]

I have finally sold my HTM7. I found myself listening to its boxiness, its inability to reproduce the clarity of the 703, instead of just enjoying a movie or the music. It had to go.

Now, without a center speaker, watching a movie is terrible. The sound is very inaccurate, the phantom image is not convincing at all, and it is just not possible to watch a movie from an off-center position. To think that I asked on this forum, 6 months ago, whether a center channel was really necessary, and although I was not convinced, I still bought the HTM7.

Before selling it, I made several comparisons betwee the HTM7 and the 703 in the center. At first, placing the 703 in front of the HTM7, listening to a stereo vocal source in DPLII music mode. With the 3 speakers at equal distance (the HTM7 is usually 2ft back), the sound was terribly echo-ey. I realised the speaker distance had to be adjusted...

I had no idea how important the distance (or delays) settings are for the speakers. Changing the settings for the center speaker forward or backward, the sound image ranged from "echo-ey" (center forwarded), to natural, to "amplified" (center backed).

With the 703 in the center (and 703 left and 704 right), the sound image could be made very natural, all 3 speakers blended. With the HTM7 in the middle (703 left and right), the sound never really blended. Tried with SACD, same results. I had to get rid of the HTM7!

For now, I play music in 4 channel mode, and I put back a small KEF for the center channel for movies (terribly boxy!). Music is OK, but I have to avoid those sacd that make good use of the center channel. Diana Krall and rQr (4channel classical) are OK.

My next options are to get a HTM3S or HTM1, since WAF on a 703 in the center is negative. If the one I eventually get (looking for used units at a good price) doesn't really match, I will have to change the L/R to match!

Damn B&W, why no center channel for the 703?

[misterdoggy]

Chris,

I would use one of my surrounds as a center until my center arrives if I was you, because the 3 front are the most important in HT and the center IS the MOST important speaker.

:T

[RebelMan]

csuzor, can you make a date with your local B&W dealer and demo the HTM3S with the 703s? I think this will give you a reasonable baseline from which you could make a decision and it will give you a little more ammunition to convince the wife (regarding appearances versus costs).

I still believe the HTM1 will fit the bill better than the HTM3S will both technically and financially speaking. However, are you really in a position to spend another ~$5500.00 on mains any time soon?

I think your best bet is to get your wife's buy-in on another 703. I believe you spend far more of your time listening to music than you do watching movies and I think you will be the happiest this way, and financially your wife will be too.

I love my HTM3S but its still not a perfect match with my 803Ss. While I can angle the stand to compensate there are still some time coherence issues that I have to contend with in setup. Although it works great for movies it does to a lesser extent in multi-channel music which I do very little listening to so it's fine for me.

To do without a center alltogether though would be maddening.

[JürgenW]

Perhaps you should give a try to the CDM CNT. It could - as coming from the predessory range - be giving a better match than the centers from the Nautilus-range.

[misterdoggy]

Chris,

Neither the Htm1 or the Htm3S is really suited for the 703's. They're really not perfect for each other. However, they are better than the htm7. If you are going to trade up, you are better setting yourself up to either trade in to the Nautilus range which would be cheaper ie N804 with htm1 or go for the htm3S but be prepared to have that longing desire to step up to the plate for a pair of 804S's or 803S's which are suposed to match the htm3S.. The htm4S and the htm7 are 2 speakers, while the htm1 and htm3s are 3 speakers.

[JetFlyGuy]

Before making my plunge to the 800 series, my dealer loaned me an htm3s to use with my 704s. The improvement there was SO huge that it justied the whole upgrade. To tell the truth, they sounded pretty damn good together. Even though they are not 'supposed' to go together I did not hear a timbre mismatch (But I only play HT, and I think the difference would be more palpable with Multichannel music)... I think you should go for it, the improvement over the HTM7 will blow your mind.

[csuzor]

Thanks for the advice. I think RebelMan has nailed it.

Spoke to B&W specialists today, they advised I steer clear of HTM3S unless I plan to upgrade to 804S/803S soon (which I can't honestly do). The HTM3S changes are major, the newer (and simpler) cross-over circuits and the different drivers pose the risk of major imbalance, impulse response conflicts. The best bet is the HTM1, but it'll be a partial fit. Best is 5 identical speakers, at the very least 3 identical up-front.

Then, looking for a HTM1, they're still selling well, for people with N80x, so no discount, full price EUR2500 or EUR2000 for demo models.

A few tests back at home... the front really needs coherence, with 703/703/704 it really is beautiful in sacd or dts. Anything else for the center, would not go with my "serious" approach to mch sacd...

So I figure I can put solid wheels on the 703, and move it to side of the TV when needed, and right where it should be for sacd. In addition, my sacd player doesn't correct time delay for dsd tracks, and the TV is a little back, so a HTM would suffer delay issues, which I recently discovered were very important. Buying an sacd player with true DSD delay handling (without conversion to PCM) is costly (Sony 9000ES, EUR2600)

Even my wife could be convinced of this proposal.

To cut a long story short, I have ordered a single 703, and an ASW-750, and I'll be all set! True coherent multi-channel.

Christophe

[RebelMan]

There are always tough decisions to make in this hobby. Too often we second guess ourselves before the buy only to do so again afterwards. In this case, I think you made the best choice available to you. I think you are going to be very happy with the addition of the 703 center.

I know how frustrated you were with your HTM7, a good speaker when paired appropriately, but less so with the 703s. Once you get your new center home and into its final resting place you are going to forget you ever had those disappointments and submerge into multi-channel euphoria. The way it was meant to be.

Enjoy Chris! :T

[csuzor]

The big center channel is here, 703!

Fantastic! What a difference it makes.

I was expecting the 703 as a center channel would bring the music closer, more realistic... Real it is, but what it has done is made my walls transparent. The front stage is now defined well beyond the walls of my lounge room. It's not that multichannel sacd sounds 3-dimensional, it now sounds holographic.

As for break-in, I really wanted to try to find a difference in the existing and new 703... not to my ears. No break-in necessary on this 703. The real difference is from the rear wall, just a few inches makes a big difference, but not from the speaker. It sounds great out of the box.

WARNING: WAF is bad on big center channels. I placed a 704 in the center for a couple of days, so my wife would get used to it... she's not talking to me anymore! especially when I raised the TV above and behing the 704... that was cause for divorce... so the TV will stay slightly to the right and a little lower for the moment, until I try the WAF again.

Thanks for all the advice to date.
Christophe

[Pieter]

... she's not talking to me anymore!

Can't wait for the day I'll be shacking up.

Chris, did you encounter any difficulty in purchasing a single 703? Or is that entirely dealer dependant?

[RebelMan]

WARNING: WAF is bad on big center channels. I placed a 704 in the center for a couple of days, so my wife would get used to it... she's not talking to me anymore! especially when I raised the TV above and behing the 704... that was cause for divorce... so the TV will stay slightly to the right and a little lower for the moment, until I try the WAF again.

LOL, :lol: too funny Chris, although I believe you! You are gonna hear about it for a while I am sure. My wife is STILL not over it yet, that is the price we paid for the system, and it has been three months already. Although, she is less emphatic about it. The more she listens the more she likes. In time your wife will too (get use to it) enough so that you can both bare each other and skip the divorce.

Better yet, you could propose a move into a bigger home. That ALWAYS gets high WAF.

[csuzor]

Chris, did you encounter any difficulty in purchasing a single 703? Or is that entirely dealer dependant?

Yes, it was difficult buying a single speaker. Both dealers I contacted refused, then I spoke to the national B&W manager who had recommended I get just 1x 703 for the center, and he called the necessary persons, and then told me it was OK. The dealer called again, got refused again, and escalated to the national director of the distributor, and finally it was OK.

Note that the speaker woodwork is matched in pairs, each pair has almost identical woodwork, same natural blemishes, same grain, same knots... someone in B&W spends their days matching wood! Ordering a single speaker also means another orphan elsewhere (until someone else orders a single speaker), and there is a slight mismatch of woodwork at home... maybe ordering 3 or 5 speakers together, you could request to get all matched, and wait a few weeks for the manufacturing and delivery.

[Pieter]

Yes, it was difficult buying a single speaker. Both dealers I contacted refused, then I spoke to the national B&W manager who had recommended I get just 1x 703 for the center, and he called the necessary persons, and then told me it was OK. The dealer called again, got refused again, and escalated to the national director of the distributor, and finally it was OK.

Thought so. Knew it wouldn't be as easy as, "I'll take one of those."

Note that the speaker woodwork is matched in pairs, each pair has almost identical woodwork, same natural blemishes, same grain, same knots... someone in B&W spends their days matching wood! Ordering a single speaker also means another orphan elsewhere (until someone else orders a single speaker), and there is a slight mismatch of woodwork at home... maybe ordering 3 or 5 speakers together, you could request to get all matched, and wait a few weeks for the manufacturing and delivery.

I have read that the drivers are not matched, but are all required to fall within a certain spec band, thus ensuring as close to similar sound.

So it's the venner that's the hold up!

[jlee]

Thought so. Knew it wouldn't be as easy as, "I'll take one of those."


I have read that the drivers are not matched, but are all required to fall within a certain spec band, thus ensuring as close to similar sound.

So it's the venner that's the hold up!

My local dealer said he went to B&W headquarters on business and learned the tweeters are matched within 1dB. Not sure about the bass and mid drivers, but I'd assume it would be about the same. They are easy enough to change that even if you got 1 that was audibly different, you could change it.

Also, some of the speakers come 2 to a box (like 1NT, SCM1, etc.), but for the bigger speakers, buying 1 really shouldn't be a problem, at least not where I live. As long as the speaker isn't near the end of it's product cycle, they should eventually be able to sell the single speaker to a like minded consumer down the road. With so many people going 6.1 and the odd person going floorstanding centers, it wouldn't be too hard to sell as long as the dealer was in a major city.

[misterdoggy]

Here's a stupid question. What would happen if you lie down the 703 on its side like a center speaker. The levels where the sound would be slightly off, but at least the sound would be coming from directly below the Screen ? I guess it wouldn't be that pleasing to the eye.

[Pieter]

Here's a stupid question. What would happen if you lie down the 703 on its side like a center speaker. The levels where the sound would be slightly off, but at least the sound would be coming from directly below the Screen ? I guess it wouldn't be that pleasing to the eye.

I think the disparity between horizontal and vertical dispersion angles, 60° as opposed to 10°, would not allow this.

[ZX10 Guy]

Sigh. In many ways, I wish I had gotten another N804 for my center instead of the HTM1. Although I think the system sounds great right now especially since I'm using Trifield with my Meridian gear. But the height offset I have with the HTM1 a bit below the mid/tweeter plane of the 804s makes the sound a bit odd to me and not 100% natural. I hope that issue will be corrected when I get a Salamander Synergy equipment rack which will raise the height of the HTM1.

[misterdoggy]

But the height offset I have with the HTM1 a bit below the mid/tweeter plane of the 804s makes the sound a bit odd to me and not 100% natural. I hope that issue will be corrected when I get a Salamander Synergy equipment rack which will raise the height of the HTM1.

What is the height disparity actually ?

[ZX10 Guy]

What is the height disparity actually ?

It's about a foot to a foot and half (or .3 to .4 meters.) My seating position in the current room is about 10-11 feet (3 to 3.3 meters) away from the center channel speaker. When my new sound room gets finished, my seating position will be further away but I'm sure the height issue will still be a problem until I get that new rack to see if that will fix the problem. Right now I think being so close to the speakers is exacerbating the problem.

[misterdoggy]

1 foot doesn't sound that bad. 1 1/2 feet might start making the soundstage larger. I'm about 7-8 inches and it seems perfect.

[csuzor]

A further note on break-in... some more tests enabled me to find very subtle differences in mid-bass performance, but nothing else. What fooled me was that this mid-bass is the most sensitive to speaker position relative to back-wall, so comparisons require identical speaker positions.
In reality, with the new speaker in the center position, the wall position is very different between left and right (I am in a corner configuration, so walls are 12in vs 4ft behind... this gives a slightly different tonality in test-tone noise, but not noticeable in music.