Video Asylum

TVs, VCRs, DVD players, Home Theater systems and more.

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.
You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login

By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username: The Name that you picked or by default, your email. Forgot Moniker?	Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".
Password:	Forgot Password?
	Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:
Your Email:
Subject:

Message Comments

Original Message

RE: Stereo/surround compromises?

Posted by David Aiken on October 24, 2007 at 14:18:50:
No, you don't have to have a centre and I certainly started out without one when I added surrounds to a stereo plus sub setup.
At various stages I had tried adding a centre to the stereo only setup and eneded up removing it because it did not match the mains tonally. Initially that was because my mains were 25 years old, no longer in production, and no matching speaker could be obtained. When I upgraded my mains, it became possible to obtain a matching centre speaker designed to work with those mains and it, in combination with the Audyssey EQ function in my Denon AVR, finally did the trick for me.
If you can get a good tonal match, I personally find it preferable to have a centre speaker. If I can't get that match I'd definitely go without. Your mileage will vary but I wouldn't even recommend trying a centre unless you can get a centre which does a good job of matching tonally with your mains. Ultimately I think a good matching centre is better but it's definitely not a night and day difference and I think some people may still prefer things without the centre even when a matching centre is available.

David Aiken