DC-1 Phantom Center?

Posted by Philip Brandes [IP: 152.205.54.127] on July 30, 1999 at 18:06:45
Using Mozilla/3.01-C-MACOS8 (Macintosh; I; PPC):

In Reply to: DC-1 Phantom Center? posted by shelly schachter on July 30, 1999 at 11:10:12:

Shelly,

While it is easy enough to toggle your center on and off, I think you'll find when you get your Lexicon that it has much more flexibility than your outboard Circle Surround processor, making the need for a phantom center irrelevant (unless you plan to physically remove the center speaker from your line of sight!).

The Lex has several music modes, which utilize the center to different degrees.

Panorama (generally my favorite for music) is primarily a two-channel effect--it uses interaural crosstalk cancellation in opposite front speakers to produce a very wide soundstage. Panorama does use the center and surrounds but at a very low volume to supplement the effect, so you're not really conscious of sound directly coming from them. If you have a favorite seating position for music, take the trouble to properly calibrate Panorama--it's worth it. It also enhances the signal in other seating positions, but not as dramatically.

Another effect you'll probably use a lot is Music Surround. This is also primarily a two-channel effect supplemented with center/surrounds. It is less dependent on a sweet spot than Panorama for enveloping spaciousness, but it too will not unduly call attention to the position of the center. I'd be willing to bet you'll find it suits your purpose without too much fiddling.

The Logic steering modes--Music Logic and Logic 7--use more aggressive directional steering to the center. Logic 7 has the most center steering, so you'll most likely use Logic 7 for movies (though with certain music it can be quite effective).

Music Logic allows you to adjust the amount of center steering with three settings: Film (hard steering like Logic 7), Music (half-and-half between your fronts and center) and Off. Even in Off, there is a very subtle use of the center, but it's more like Music Surround or Panorama--supplementing the fronts with ambient feel rather than hard steering.

That being said, you might still prefer the half-and-half (Music) steering for Music Logic effect, especially since you are lucky enough to have a center matched in tone and quality to your fronts (can't emphasize how rare and useful this is). When you configure the speaker distances in your initial setup, I think you'll find the Lex's superb Time Alignment processing takes care of all the issues related to overemphasizing a center speaker. Using the center signal as designed (especially in Music Logic) eliminates the phasiness that is inherent in generating a phantom center from stereo, and provides much better imaging for off-axis listening, making it more appropriate for social listening.

An additional level of flexibility is available in many of the effects by adjusting the center level on a per-effect basis. However, I would urge caution here--I've found that lowering the center volume does not seem to steer the information to the other speakers, so you will be altering the mix and tonal balance when you do this. Therefore, I'd only use it as a last resort, and as I said I really don't think you'll find it necessary.

Hope this helps,
Philip Brandes

Follow Ups:

• DC-1 Phantom Center? - shelly schachter 18:53:04 07/30/99 (1)
  • DC-1 Phantom Center? - Chris Vachon 19:47:38 07/30/99 (0)

Return to the new SMR Forums Menu

Design & HTML © SMR Home Theatre, Images © SMR Home Theatre cannot be reproduced without permission.  The images on this page are digitally watermarked.  New forum messages should be posted into SMR Forums v2 - http://www.smr-forums.com/

	The Web   SMR Archive