RB-81s as a Center

[Rivernuggets]

I have a pair of RB-81s for sale in the Garage Sale section. Been thinking of keeping them for center channel duty. Read a couple posts in the archives saying that laying them down on their sides (tweeters together) would be acceptable. Am I just pursuing the wrong outcome here?

Couple more questions. If a pair of 81s are OK as a center, should I hook them up in parallel? Would a 4 Ohm load be too much strain on one channel of an Emotiva XPA-3? Would this mess up the front stage?

Or.... sell the RB-81s and find an RC-7 or RC-64. [H]

Thanks again for your thoughts and time.

[elitedemo]

if i had more room for 80lbs of hanging bookshelves id love 7.1 or a more immersed 5.1 since your close never tested the 81s out as a front stage but i imagine the 64 is tough competition unless you want to lay a 83 flat, my 2 pennies, however you could just split the signal from the preamp instead of running parallel if it raises any issues

[wuzzzer]

Since you already have the speakers you might as well give it a try. I highly doubt a 4 ohm load would put much of any strain on your amp.

As long as you level matched your speakers and position them like you described (on their side, tweeters together) I think it would sound really good. You would be doing kind of the opposite of an RC-64, though, since you'd have more high frequencies and less midrange/midbass due to adding a tweeter and subtracing two woofers.

Give it a try and let us know what you think!

[elitedemo]

i suppose ill give er a go in the next few days and let ya know how it sounds, ill just split the signal rather than daisy chain itll be easier (i think i ran out of wire), i imagine its going to be a bit different and maybe more like a rc62 but with an extra tweeter, i think rc64s for center and surrounds should sound better than the vice versa method that will eventually be attempted...now theres a thought any1 got a few extra 64s that i can toy with or maybe some 62s even would be fun to try

[psg]

A single RB-81 would be the best possible center for a pair of RB-81 mains, but I don't know what you are using as mains (RF-7 ?) and using two, in theory, yields non-optimal results (lookup comb-filtering).

[Rivernuggets]

Thanks for your replies. psg, I'm using RF-7s as mains.

I see, a proper center is the right way to go. But I'll try the 81s out and see how it sounds.

[psg]

Nothing to lose! Plus, you may not even hear comb-filtering. Another RF-7 is best, a matching center is next best, but two RB-81 may still be perfectly acceptable to you.

[Zen Traveler]

I can't imagine an RB-81 would be a good center channel to use with RF-7s and 2 would be doubly bad, because of combing effects, imo