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Do you need matching LCR front speakers ?


Guest niterida

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Guest niterida
Absolutely :)
 
I just did some testing with many different speaker setups with my older Mordaunt Short speakers. I have MS 05, MS 3.20, MS 3.30, MS 3.50 and HT30 speakers.
They are all from the same series and age and are very similar but all have slight differences.
The MS 3.30, 3.50 and HT30 are all 8" drivers but the MS3.30 is front ported and the driver is identical except it has a non-moving centre bit where the dust cap is usually found. The MS 3.20 is a 6" driver and the MS05 sis a 4" driver.
I tried almost every possible combination of centres, including wiring a pair of MS 3.20 and MS 05 in parallel (they sounded good on their own that way) and using them with the larger L&R.
 
I used Children of Men as my source as it has loads of panning of vocals and ambience sounds.
 
My conclusion is that the tonal (I know it is supposed be timbre but that is too hard to say) difference was barely noticeable in the panning. Yes you could pick it up but it would not be worth worrying about if you weren't really paying attention. Now that is with my speakers all sounding similar though.
 
So why did I say that it it is Absolutely necessary ??
 
Because what I did find was that when I ran 3 identical speakers the centre speaker almost disappeared. I have always found the centre speaking too overpowering and always draws my attention to it (I usually reduce the level by 5db), even mounted centrally to the image behind an AT screen. Now the centralised sounds were coming from an area wider than just the centre speaker. If someone was talking just off centre then the vocals were a lot less localised in the centre and appeared to be coming more from the actual source on the screen. I can't really put it into effective words but trust me it is a huge improvement.
 
So rather than the panning being the reason for identical speakers (although it does help) I found it is actually the static shots that are most improved.
 
I will definitely be using identical speakers now :)
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In a HT application YES.

If you have the Minions movie skip to the end credits where they fluff around and have alot of effects moving between the LCRs. A good show of bass 'panning' is when the Dino chases a minion across the front stage (right to left) from memory.

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